> There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way.
Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway.
The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway.
This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace.
> What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry
High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work.
Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools.
> but it has value to have gone through it
Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.
Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway.
The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway.
This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace.
> What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry
High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work.
Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools.
> but it has value to have gone through it
Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.