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Notes -
A secular education is such a no-brainer for successful civic outcomes. I'm not sure on some of your other points - I'm not sure it's 'been always thus' as you seem to imply at the end, because indoctrination has varied in kind and degree quite a lot.
America, through people like John Dewey have articulated clear visions of education, and have presumably had their influence. Now, I think we face a deeper issue with regard to post-modern ideas, break down in research academia, new technologies impacting etc. I think the conditions are for indoctrination to be unusually bad currently, over an arc say to the beginning of the 20th century.
If the rebuttal is that we've always taught propagandising myths around national identity, history etc, I'd entirely agree with you. But I think it's a different kind of situation because the basics of pedagogy/child development were still prioritised. With the postmodern morass we are losing our actual orientation to learning.
This isn't actually true- Catholic schools are of generally excellent quality,
Oh right, I wasn't really meaning not having religious schools, I was thinking for public schools, public funds to have an expectation of secularity. I'm also in favour of charter schools with different perspectives etc.
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