Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Government-operated schools are failing in the US. The plutocrats are returning to the 1700s by creating their own schools just for their own kids.

Government-operated schools are failing us. I don’t need to link to stories about that. There are, of course, exceptions here and there.

One of the best indicators of failure is that the plutocrats are creating alternatives. This post describes AltSchools (AltSchools website). AltSchools sounds wonderful. Great, flexible teachers and technology tailor the lessons to each child. Wow!

Of course AltSchools doesn’t scale to the nation or a state or even a single school district anywhere in America. That, however, doesn’t really matter to its super-wealthy founders. These schools are created by the rich for the children of the rich. These schools will work for them.

This is how the rich educated their children in the 1700s and into much of the 1800s. They constructed a building, hired a teacher (one, single teacher), and their children learned from that one teacher. Reading was taught at age four; children were ready for college when they were sixteen. The system worked great for those people. The children of the working class started working in factories when they were old enough to do repetitive, boring tasks.

Time will show us if the plutocrats will be able to withhold their money from the government-operated schools and withdraw completely from the entire mess.