KDR_11k wrote:Many US Americans seem to consider public schools to be government propaganda indoctrination centers. Dunno why.
I wouldn't say that they are "government propaganda indoctrination centers", but public schools are certainly quite biased in terms of their curricula. There's a couple of reasons for this.
1) Since the government is paying for schools, the government has ultimate control over what is taught. While we could probably argue all day over the merits of giving the government control over the curriculum, and whether the government will truly and honestly serve the needs of the population, I think we can all agree that government control means that politicians are free to fiddle with the curriculum as they see fit. (See also the various attempts to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in schools.)
2) Of the groups that take an active interest in the politics of education, the teachers' unions have the most money, most members, and most influence. Teachers' unions are not afraid to pressure school boards and state legislatures to buy certain textbooks, teach certain things, or create policies that are good for the teachers' unions. This hits in two places.
First, the teachers' unions generally are to the left of the political spectrum, and will tend to want books that present a view of history or other subjects that is skewed to the left. For example, American history textbooks generally portray Native Americans as peace-loving paleo-hippies and European colonists as aggressive, warlike slaughterers of natives. This is quite incorrect; the Native Americans were at least as aggressive as the Europeans, and employed some rather distasteful tactics. As another example, my US history textbook's World War 2 section devoted 3 pages to discussion of the war and 15 pages to discussion of how Mexicans, blacks, women, gays, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Muslims, Native Americans, and the lower class were affected by the war.
Second, the teachers' unions advocate policies that are good for teachers, often at the expense of students. Tenure is one example. Tenure was originally instituted by colleges to ensure a free and open discourse of ideas by professors and students; this isn't really applicable to most public schooling, as we are not looking for elementary-school teachers to engage in free and open discourse with 8 year olds. It is often nearly impossible to fire teachers for poor performance; teachers who would have been sacked by private schools for incompetence are quite common in public schools.