Talk:School

My rewrite

With no disrespect to the good edits of the previous editors, I felt that the changes were still not adequately describing the situation and that it couldn't be adequately described without a rearrangement. I hope people (still) like it now. Being not very familiar with the situations in other places, I've made some assumptions in the rewrite, so please jump in and correct what I've done. Philip J. Rayment 20:18, 17 June 2007 (EDT)

There's no reference to prove that homeschooling is becoming more popular.--RogerMy 15:53, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Then add a {{fact}} tag, and wait for a bit. --ηοξιμαχονγ^θαλκ 15:54, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Obviously or this place would not exist.--Will N. 15:55, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Erm... most of the edits are made by non-homeschoolers now, Will. And the citation is needed for the "an increasingly popular alternative"... who says it is becoming more popular? --ηοξιμαχονγ^θαλκ 15:59, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

References

I apologize for the poor referencing last time. I hope these references prove to be more acceptable. However, I thought it might be wise to check first:

Reference for "citation needed" #1 ("increasingly popular alternative"): http://nces.ed.gov/nhes/homeschool/

Reference for "citation needed" #3 ("parents choose homeschooling due to..."): http://www.hsnp.com/gok/faq.html

Add the references to the article if you feel they're justified, or just say so and I'll add them myself. Feebasfactor 19:57, 14 September 2007 (EDT)

Ok, I'm going to add the first, but I'll leave the second out until someone else can evaluate it. Feebasfactor 18:47, 17 September 2007 (EDT)

I've found the same FAQ on a different site, so I've used that instead. It may not be much better, but it's a little better. Philip J. Rayment 23:16, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Public School

The intro paragraph says "A public school is an atheistic school funded by taxes and which censors classroom prayer" Later, the section on Public School says "In America, a public school is a state school. In some Commonwealth countries, a public school is a church-run (i.e. run by a church denomination) school that is open to the general public. In America, the curriculum in public schools is dictated by state governments and increasingly by the federal government under the "No Child Left Behind" legislation. Federal courts generally prohibit any type of prayer led by school officials, and even forbid the display and teaching of the Ten Commandments." I think the sentence in the intro paragraph needs work, as clearly (according to the section on Public School) there are places where public schools are NOT funded by taxes, are NOT atheistic, and/or do NOT censor classroom prayer. Frankly, I think the paragraph on Public School clearly explains things, and we don't need the sentence in the intro. I won't be so bold as to remove it, as it was added by User:Aschlafly, but I think it needs improvement. Let me be clear that I am not taking issue with the *content* of the sentence (that's a different discussion); rather I think that combined with the information in the Public School section it is redundant and confusing. Sorry to be so blunt - I'm sure User:Aschlafly is a busy man and didn't realize this information was covered later in the article. This is otherwise a well-written article.--Hsmom 21:25, 28 October 2007 (EDT)

No, I think the intro should reflect the typical situation in public schools in America and other secularized, industrialized nations. The statement is correct for those nations. If you have evidence of classroom prayer in public school in any of those nations, I'd like to see it. Note, however, that the phrase is classroom prayer.--Aschlafly 21:33, 28 October 2007 (EDT)

I removed the sentence before having seen the discussion here (and explained why in my edit comment).

Andy, As Hsmom points out, the sentence is incorrect, in that "public schools" refers, in some cases, to church-run schools. Here in Victoria, Australia, it is probably true that teachers don't have classroom prayer, but it is also true that classroom prayer is not "censored", as schools here (as explained in the article) do have a weekly "Religious Education" class in which classroom prayer would almost certainly occur (this class is taken by volunteer Christians, not by the school teachers).

Philip J. Rayment 21:57, 28 October 2007 (EDT)

Thanks Philip J. Rayment - I agree that, as the article explains, the term "public school" means different things in different countries, which is why I thought the sentence in question was inaccurate. Aschlafly, it is important to understand that in many secularized, industrialized nations the term "public school" does not always refer to government-run/government-funded schools - in fact, in many Commonwealth countries it's quite the opposite - the term "public school" often refers to what we in America would call a private school. Note also that in some secularized, industrialized nations there are government-fun/government-funded religious schools - an example being Ontario, Canada's system of Catholic schools, which I would assume include classroom prayer; thus government schools are not always secular or free of classroom prayer. I think the article does a decent job of explaining the often confusing use of these terms. The more global outlook of this article will help students who are researching education in other countries (and using primary sources to do so, as they should) understand that terms like "public school" may have quite different meanings in such sources than they are used to.--Hsmom 10:43, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

• Well this is an American encyclopedia, remember. While we can strive for universality, some things are just going to have meanings intrinsic to the United States. And one would not be wrong in expecting our international users to take that into account, instead of their pointing out the obvious to us. We know that some countries are using ambiguous terms that mean the opposite of what they rightfully should. --şŷŝoρ-₮K^{/Ṣρёаќǃ} 10:58, 29 October 2007 (EDT)