Curt Howland on the failure of public schools

The single biggest reason for the failure of the government “school” system is that it is a government system.

The purpose of the system is to serve their customers.  The students and parents are not the customers, the bureaucrats and politicians who pay the bills are. Since it is the politicians and bureaucrats who are the customers, the “school” system serves their customers by growing, employing more bureaucrats, demanding more taxes, expanding their facilities. That is how a bureaucracy measures success: larger staff, bigger budgets. Students and parents are a cost to be minimized. Any actual education is incidental to the real purpose of the “school” system, which is to perpetuate and grow the “school” system.

When government bureaucracies fail at their supposed goals, they are given more money and more personnel. That is bureaucratic success.  So by minimizing any actual “education,” by making the “school” system as awful as possible for the students while using propaganda to convince parents the system is actually necessary, the bureaucracy best serves their actual customers while ensuring ever growing budgets and bureaucratic staff.

If people care about education, the first and best thing they can do is get their precious children out of the government “schools."

~ Curt Howland, Quora answer, January 2, 2020