"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms."
This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, Socialization, Caretaking, and FRPL. The author doesn't even get partial credit, because each function affects how each other function is implemented. So a school system whose only roles were teaching and socialization would have essentially zero in common with our school system today.
"Influential books in the un-schooling canon include Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich"
The thesis of Illich's book is (IIRC) that one of the biggest flaws of society is that each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites. The book isn't even about education, let alone unschooling, albeit a lot of his examples are about education merely because it turns the title into a clever pun.
In any event, do you really want to be taking advice from someone whose clearly never actually read a book about education, or any of the vast amounts of research?
1) The article does not say that the main function of K12 system is to be scalable. It says that scalability was an important concern on how the system was designed to accomplish its functions. You are comparing apples to oranges.
2) What is FRPL in the first place? or your full 5 list for the matter. Most of your audience is not a M.Ed. but most are smart enough to follow your argument if you take the time to present it. Please spare us the letter soup.
3) The idea that only the pundits and experts have the right to express an opinion about the subject is not one very favorable in this forum. Do not disqualify the argument because it lacks the "proper credentials".
1) I was sort of ignoring the scalability part and responding as if it just said education and socialization. The author never mentions scalability again in the article, so it's not even clear why it's there.
2) FRPL is free and reduced price lunch. One of the main reasons why schools exist is to feed children whose parents wouldn't otherwise have enough money to feed them. In many parts of the country kids gain weight throughout the spring and fall, and then come back a lot thinner after winter and summer break because they don't get very much food at home. But designing schools to fulfill has a huge effect on the pedagogical and other functions of school.
3) I'm not criticizing the author for lacking the proper credentials, I'm criticizing him for being wrong.
If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?
This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, Socialization, Caretaking, and FRPL. The author doesn't even get partial credit, because each function affects how each other function is implemented. So a school system whose only roles were teaching and socialization would have essentially zero in common with our school system today.
"Influential books in the un-schooling canon include Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich"
The thesis of Illich's book is (IIRC) that one of the biggest flaws of society is that each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites. The book isn't even about education, let alone unschooling, albeit a lot of his examples are about education merely because it turns the title into a clever pun.
In any event, do you really want to be taking advice from someone whose clearly never actually read a book about education, or any of the vast amounts of research?