Do you hear yourself?

“‘A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,’ the judge wrote . . .”

Eeeek! Sounds more than a little Orwelian to me. Nothing about the betterment of the person or gaining actual knowledge. The quote above is from a judge in California that, as part of a three judge appeals court, ruled homeschooling is illegal in California. Evidently the judge didn’t hear how it sounded before saying it; I mean, is that honestly the justification being used to decide all children need to be in school? Because without school we won’t have enough loyalty to the nation or enough blind patriotism? If something like that was written in a country we didn’t like, it would be declared propaganda.

And yet, if knowing about our nation, it’s history and how it works is the goal, schools are obviously failing. A recent study found that about half of US teenagers couldn’t identify major historical events even given multiple choice. Or another survey that concluded that less than half of high schoolers could identify basic economic terms even given multiple choice. So if most of the discussion in public education is about how students need more time spent on reading and math because they are falling behind in basic skills, but a  primary purpose of public education is patriotism and children are evidently failing to learn about the US, where will schools go from there?