Why do we provide public education?

Well, I want even the most menial laborer to be able to read the voting ballot.

It’s for the benefit of society. From educated consumers that understand the reason that something costs more than a similar product, to an educated workforce that does not need years of training, to educated Armed Forces that can be trained.

And as @Seek_Kolinahr pointed out, an educated electorate makes better decisions.

It’s called Investment in Human Capital. It makes us all better off.

Education gives people the basic skills they will require to be a productive member of society. I don’t think it’s just technical issues either, but a lot of social issues go into this molding process. Oh shit…molding…moulding…nooooooo!

pssst @Symbeline use shaping, it is easier to spell

To be a part of today’s workforce, or even live self-sufficiently, you need (at bare minimum) enough linguistic aptitude in your native language to be able to handle a contract (lease, loan/credit application…), enough math to at least make a household budget (not as simple as it used to be back when we grew our own food, and utilities didn’t exist), plus enough other knowledge to hold a job. Better-paying jobs require more skills and thus more education.

Our economy would stagnate at best if our workforce was academically ignorant.

Primarily I think it is for the benefit of society. A bunch of uneducated people sitting around isn’t going to be good for society. It also is not good to be able to compete in the world market.

Secondarily, it is for the individual. In America, and now most or all of western society, there is a general feeling that all children should have an equal shot in life no matter the circumstance they are born into. It doesn’t exactly work like that, but that is what the thought process is.

Many of the people I know against public education do not believe all children are born equal.

I think the belief that ignorance poses the greatest threat to society (and to individuals as members of society) is at the back of it.

Remember that famous scene in Stave III of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, when the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two wretched children crouching beneath his robe?

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From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!”

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The message that ignorance and want (poverty) are the greatest dangers, and ignorance the greater of the two, is emphatically clear.

Unfortunately at some point the goal of public education went from remedying ignorance to grinding out good little citizens to feed the machinery of the workplace. There is, as well, a cultural component that is not altogether benign.

I still believe firmly in public education, but, I’m afraid, more as an ideal than as an observed practice. Part of my slightly cynical view stems, no doubt, from awareness of the very ignorant rejection of education by certain segments of society. Contrast this with the hunger for education that we see in cultures where it is not provided or is offered to only a few.

The glorification of ignorance is an obscenity.

Because a far right or far left government and economic system doesn’t work. This is why we have a mix of the two. This is why we have social safety nets. There is a hierarchy of people on a socioeconomic ladder, which means we all aren’t equal. Society tries to even out this natural unfairness of life.

Immanuel Kant believed that education differed from training in that the latter involves thinking whereas the former does not. There is a push right now here in Texas, promoted by our governor, to provide schooling more in line with training rather than education.

It keeps people off of the streets.

@rojo That’s pretty much a nationwide Republican push these days. They are increasingly a party funded by, and serving the economic interests of the wealthiest 1/10th of 1% at the expense of everyone else; and they need an electorate stupid enough to be talked into that being a great idea.

Early in my college career I had a prof, oddly enough I can visualize the man but I can’t recall if it was a sociology or economics class, anyhow his theory was that it was a ploy of the powers that be to keep the masses in line and satisfied. It was an intriguing theory. I will have to see if I can find out more about it.

Also in Australia at this point in time, more high school graduates are entering college and there is a shortage of tradesmen. An electrician apprentice is making more money than someone with a 4 year degree and is in much greater demand in the job market. But since the government is hiring more and more people, even a 4 year degree will get you a job at an excellent salary and great benefits, if you can stand the stagnant atmosphere of a not for profit organisation. I worked for a state agency in the USA early in my career and it was the least stimulating job I ever had. As I recall I lasted less than a year there.

Certainly an elementary school education is socially beneficial. It is absolutely necessary to have a workforce that is literate and understands basic arithmetic. The benefits beyond elementary school are less apparent. Only a small portion of the population makes direct use of math, science, history or literature. The most beneficial class I had after 6th grade was sophomore English, where I was taught the discipline of organizing an essay..

@rooeytoo That would be a sociology outlook. Economists believe in investment in human capital.