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OK, this bears repeating, even though I thought everyone knew the point of the US public school system is not education. It has many purposes to many different people; social engineering(mainly by shifting the default choice for middle class women away from 'housewife' rather than anything to do with the students, it's not good enough at indoctrination for that- although it has been in the past), free daycare, giving older kids something to do other than being rowdy, etc. Hell some of it is just very expensive signaling. But 'actually educating kids', let alone doing so efficiently, falls very low on the list of priorities, and US school systems which prioritize it over all these other goals(creating employment demand for college educated women, warehousing teenagers where they'll be less annoying, etc) perform much better than public schools.
50% agree. It’s primary mission is still education at a minimum it’s what drives the economy getting the top 20% educated and into the professional class.
But yes it does all that other stuff. And in certain areas the education part is the least important. Assimilation use to be important but we seem to have given that up.
As far as Covid goes staff shortages were not important for educating. A reduced schedule with off-day homework accomplishes that.
The top 20% would be educated regardless- their parents can afford private school.
The system panics when teachers aren't going to get paid, when the free daycare isn't being provided it's a big deal, job cuts are a horrible tragedy, but when the kids don't learn it's a shrug and a demand for more money- interventions to provide school lunches during the summer, even outside of the school setting, are very welcomed by the system. Interventions to educate kids better are not.
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