Another naive response is torn asunder

Whee!  Yet another misguided and naive post in response to my posts in regards to the government usurpation of child-rearing through public schools.  Here is the passage I will be putting through the versatile paper-shredder we all know and love as "logic".

«Schools aren't just entities. Students are dealing primarily with their teachers who aren't always hung up on doctrine and policy.
I have the proof of personal experience to say that teachers know how to deal with students better than their parents. Parents are too hung up on being parents. Often they have the mindset that their children are the same foolish children they were in the pre-school days and they have the authority to enforce that view. Teachers see the children in a social environment where they are free of the unquestionable parental authority. I know I didn't act the same at school as I did at home, and I would say that I was more myself at school. My parents are very liberal but I still felt that restriction that I could only escape at school. The teachers knew this and dealt with everyone accordingly.
I have a couple of friends who are in university for artistic programs. I know that if their parents had any say in it, they would not have been allowed to take art courses in highschool. They would have been forced to take courses that corresponded with the jobs of their parents, accounting and business administration. To them, school was a refuge where teachers encouraged them to take the courses they want, regardless of their parent's wishes.
An issue that came up in my school was that of Muslim prayer. It was a Catholic school but it was publically funded so they couldn't refuse students with different religious backgrounds. The school chaplain forbid Muslim students from praying in the school saying that it disrupted the school environment. Parents either didn't care about the issue or supported the chaplain's decision. The students made it an issue and it was ruled that the Muslim students could pray on school premises. The school listened to students rather than parents in this case. If the parents had their way it would have created a "My parents say that I can't be around you" situation that could only have bred religious tension and racism.
Also, teachers are citizens of a free society. They're as American or Canadian as their neighbours. I don't know a single teacher who hasn't gone against some outdated or misguided school policy to benefit a student.
To accuse teachers of indoctrinating seems absurd to me. Teachers are people who have their own ideals that influence their teaching, sure. But are you suggesting parents are completely doctrine free or that a parent's ideals are the right ideals for their child? Or perhaps that children should never be in an environment where their parent's ideas are challenged? All those options seem far more authoritarian and misguided than a loosely monitored government-run school.»

I will now summarily destroy his argument.

«Schools aren't just entities.»

A bad start.  A school is precisely an entity.  To be more detailed, a school is an educational entity.  To deny that it is an entity is preposterous.

«Students are dealing primarily with their teachers who aren't always hung up on doctrine and policy.»

In some localities this might be true, but in general it is exactly the opposite of what you stated.  And in the cases of teachers who are not "hung up on doctrine and policy," generally the doctrine and policy has already been mandated in the curriculum they are required by political entities of some flavor to teach.

«I have the proof of personal experience to say that teachers know how to deal with students better than their parents.»

I have yet to see any evidence of this whatsoever, regardless of what you claim as "personal experience".  You will have to do better than that to try to prove your case that parents should not be the end-authority with whom the educational decisions of their children should rest.

«Parents are too hung up on being parents. Often they have the mindset that their children are the same foolish children they were in the pre-school days and they have the authority to enforce that view.»

That is extremely childish reasoning.  If parents were done raising children at 5, adult status would not be gained at 18.  What you describe is called parenting, despite your mischaracterization of parents as "being hung up on" parenting.  Seeing to it that children are properly raised and educated is a basic duty of parenting.

«Teachers see the children in a social environment where they are free of the unquestionable parental authority. I know I didn't act the same at school as I did at home, and I would say that I was more myself at school. My parents are very liberal but I still felt that restriction that I could only escape at school. The teachers knew this and dealt with everyone accordingly.»

Red herring.  I did not say anything about lack of schooling, I was stating that parents need to have more of a say in how schools are run.  Your statement has nothing to do with my posts.

Besides the above, there is also the fact that a basic element of parenting is deciding whom you would entrust your children to in your absence.  Due to the way the money flows, the current system strips most parents of that ability by making alternatives to public education unaffordable by the means mentioned in the previous posts on the subject that I have made.

«I have a couple of friends who are in university for artistic programs. I know that if their parents had any say in it, they would not have been allowed to take art courses in highschool. They would have been forced to take courses that corresponded with the jobs of their parents, accounting and business administration. To them, school was a refuge where teachers encouraged them to take the courses they want, regardless of their parent's wishes.»

You have yet to make heads or tails of why the government should be able to take power out of the hands of parents and put it into the hands of the schools in this regard.  There is no logical reason why parents should not have a very strong say in the curriculum their students receive, regardless of the types of courses being taught.

«An issue that came up in my school was that of Muslim prayer. It was a Catholic school but it was publically funded so they couldn't refuse students with different religious backgrounds.»All the more reason to get the government out of the business of funding education programs.  A Muslim has no business in any other religion's school.

«The school chaplain forbid Muslim students from praying in the school saying that it disrupted the school environment. Parents either didn't care about the issue or supported the chaplain's decision. The students made it an issue and it was ruled that the Muslim students could pray on school premises. The school listened to students rather than parents in this case. If the parents had their way it would have created a "My parents say that I can't be around you" situation that could only have bred religious tension and racism.»

Irrelevant.  In a Catholic school, the environment should be Catholic.  That is the point of having a Catholic school.  Hell, even I know this, and I am a protestant who attended public school.  This kind of homogenization is exactly why the government has little to no business butting into schools.

«Also, teachers are citizens of a free society. They're as American or Canadian as their neighbours. I don't know a single teacher who hasn't gone against some outdated or misguided school policy to benefit a student.»

Outdated or misguided according to whom?  Your ambiguities are appalling.

«To accuse teachers of indoctrinating seems absurd to me. Teachers are people who have their own ideals that influence their teaching, sure. But are you suggesting parents are completely doctrine free or that a parent's ideals are the right ideals for their child? Or perhaps that children should never be in an environment where their parent's ideas are challenged? All those options seem far more authoritarian and misguided than a loosely monitored government-run school.»

There you go slinging ad-hominems all willy-nilly.  Authoritarian?  Please.  Parents are the authorities placed above their own children, true.  But that does not make it "authoritarianism".  You still have yet to make any logical argument why parents ought to be stripped of the authority they have over their own children in favor of politically-charged government programs like unaccountable public schooling.  Teachers indoctrinate all the time, be it because of the mandated curriculum or their own views being reflected in the way they teach a subject.  I will take authority in the hands of the parents any day over handing it over misguidedly to any government entity.

If that is the best you can do, you have made a great case for my own argument that the government should not be in the business of making decisions regarding the raising and educating of people's children.