I saw a thread elsewhere recently which was heavily critical of the idea of school as in institution, and where some people were directly comparing teachers to cops (one guy even compared them to death camp guards). That seems silly to me, as police obviously have far more power over both adults and children than do teachers, but it's made me wonder if there is some kind of leftist line of thinking when it comes to education which I'm unaware of. Defenders of the idea of school, such as myself, definitely seemed to be in the minority.
I have a feeling most of the people in that thread were American zoomers, which might go some way to explaining things. Maybe anarchists have different thoughts about this than MLs and the like too?
What do you guys think?
Edit: A lot of interesting responses here, and I'm glad to see that people are broadly in favour of education and sympathetic to teachers. Actually, a book I have - but haven't read (tsundoku be damned) - which some people here may find interesting is The Ignorant Schoolmaster by Jacques Ranciere, and I'll have to read Pedagogy of the Opressed and Education to Govern one day too.
Zero consensus. Let me give you my perspective as a leftist who has personally dealt with basically every single model of education (public, private, charter, home school, et al) if not as a student then as a parent.
To paraphrase: public school is the worst model of education, aside from all the others.
The problems that plague public education are really symptoms of larger structural/societal issues.
In terms of academic achievement: the overwhelming factor with regard to school and student performance boils down to poverty. Kids in affluent neighborhoods do great in school. Kids in poor neighborhoods with food and housing insecurity do bad. Its really that fucking simple. You solve that with severe wealth redistribution and detaching school funding from property taxes.
In terms of them as being institutions of the state that promote the dominant ideology, let me be fucking blunt: I see that as being mostly unavoidable. There will never be a universal consensus on what the curriculum should be and even to the extent public schools teach things we disagree with, one could argue that there is value in learning the accepted conventional wisdom or knowledge by these institutions if only to provide people with a framework to work from. As a parent I'm committed to correct the record on a lot of things my son is taught in civics about how this shit actually works (and believe me I got receipts ready) but if anyone reading this is considering homeschooling your kids to try and keep them away from the brain worms then I can almost promise you its going to wind up fucking them up way worse than whatever public school you're zoned for.
School isn't just about facts and information. School is also about learning how to be part of a larger community outside of your own family and friend group among your peers.