17 November 2014

Schools Have NO Obligation to Provide "Quality" Education

You get the slop you're served, and you'd better be grateful for it, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on November 7th.  You have no right to a "quality" education of any kind.  From the article:

“'This ruling should outrage anyone who cares about our public education system,' said Kary L. Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Michigan. 'The court washes its hands and absolves the state of any responsibility in a district that has failed and continues to fail its children.'”

Not sure how to feel about this.  It's a sad and sorry thing that the schools don't have to offer any guarantees in exchange for the billions they get in tax dollars.  But the fact that the court seems to rule there is no "right" to a quality public education seems to bode well for homeschoolers in the long term, particularly those who are enmeshed in court battles with public education representatives and/or DFS over the quality of education they are providing for their own children at home.

Your thoughts?

4 comments:

  1. Yeah. Stuff gets messy when the state is required to offer a "quality" education; what determines/defines "quality"? Who gets to determine what my child "must" know? How does the state enforce learning in children? Is it really the job of public schools to force children to pass certain tests? Is that really what we want to invest our tax dollars in pursuing?

    ...but, as you say, we're dumping a ton of money into a system; should they not be held accountable for the money we give them?

    Interesting stuff. Important questions. Thanks for sharing!

    ~Luke

    ReplyDelete
  2. yep. You can get arrested and sued for educational neglect, but the schools do not have to live up to those same standards.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is not right!
    Schools here are audited often to make sure they are offering and delivering a sound, excellent education to our children. If not they are censored and have their teachers and staff checked up on regularly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, just wow. On one hand I understand that requiring a system that is broken in so many ways to provide a quality education for every child just isn't going to happen but on the other hand where are my tax dollars actually going? We are lucky enough to live in a school district with an excellent special education department and have mostly been thrilled with the services our daughter has received, but we are the exception.

    ReplyDelete

Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

Bringing Garbage Home

Some people up the street were throwing this table away. It was in pretty bad shape and one of the legs was off. I've glued the leg back...