SCHOOL IS DEAD: Alternatives in Education

An extended argument for replacing the physical plant of schools with free-floating teachers known as ""skill models."" The solution to the ""over-schooling"" of most students and the inequity in distribution of educational funds is to pay a flat education grant to each student -- considerably less than that required to complete graduate study -- and let him spend it, dropping in or out whenever and however he pleases. The exact form and content of these peripatetic academies is not detailed. Will six-year-olds wander in quest of the best reading teacher?. . .but then Reimer thinks kids learn to read from TV. While some politically-minded critics will see a touch of the fiscal present and future in Reimer's advocacy of austerity funds for education, many of his arguments imply the good old-fashioned view that ""It ain't right to give the niggers too much learning."" But ""opportunity networks"" are to crack the undemocratic ""education monopoly."" Through all Reimer's structural elaborations runs a minimum of thought about the actual content of learning or the development of skills and creativity. His train of thought, which has been more glossily presented by Ivan Illich, sounds liberal and suitably never-never-landish, but it is also congruent with the plans of budget-minded mayors, school boards trying to cut teacher payrolls, and anti-intellectual conservatives.