Today, policy makers think of education solely in terms of its secondary purposes. They speak of children as future global competitors. They sometimes refer to children in rather ugly terms as “human assets,” forgetting that they are unique people and they are not fungible. They want all students to be “college and career ready.” They tend to speak only of preparation for the workforce, not education for citizenship. But this is misguided. The central purpose of education is to prepare everyone to assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=208518