So I'll have to ask again . . . Do you have any evidence of state control over specific CBC programming / programming decisions to support your hypothesis?
No but it's a moot point because even if CBC was the best news source in the world, I'd want 0$ going to them.
Do you believe that democracy is a good form of government? If so, why? If not, which system is better?
There are no forms of good government.
That is far outside the scope of this discussion though.
As your research shows then, literacy skills are learned in public school. Does this correction change your viewpoint at all - or is it faith rather than evidence based?
No that's one of the main flaws of schools: People forget almost everything they learned there.
That's why your theory of schools forming "informed voters" doesn't pan out in reality.
completely absent supporting evidence.
He references polling data on civics that show people have no idea who their representatives are and what they ever voted on.
The point being to expose that people ( like you ) have a romantic idea of this "informed voter/citizen" that just doesn't
exist at all.
Again I know the American data but if you ask people I think 1/3rd can't name the branches of their government, a vast minority can name
who ONE of their senators are and likely almost no one knows what that senator ever voted on unless they just saw it on the news.
Voters are not, and never have been and NEVER WILL BE informed in the way that people like you believe they need to be to have a "good strong democracy".
As far as a metric by which you can say public education is a success
Home schooling ( and no schooling ) are the real comparisons, not comparing countries with the same system.
If you do that you find that public schools, for what they cost and for what time is spent in them, are a complete and utter failure and disaster.
If you want to delve into this, it's a long long topic that requires hours of time investment.
But if you want to read about it, I can post you material that will at least start to make you question what all this time and money is being spent on.
One of his main arguments seems to be that rather than educating people through a public system, they should receive their education from employers while working at a job
That's his retort to people who claim one main function of schools is job skills.
Interestingly enough, Caplan argues that private and public schools are equally wasteful/useless.
Yes because they must adhere to state standards for signaling and entry into certain jobs/ college programs.
It requires a level of knowledge and critical thinking to be able to sort one from the other
You don't learn this in schools. The most obvious example being that every election cycle, one half of the country calls the other half ignorant and brainwashed.
Even as per the opinion of citizens the failure rate is 50% for teaching people how to think lol.
And their logic is "if you knew how to think, you'd think like me". What's more likely? That 50% are the true deep thinkers or that pretty much none of them are?
I also don't know why you'd think a school model of "Sit down and repeat what I say" would teach people critical thinking skills.
If you want to go back in history, this school model was built by the Prussians for nationalistic reasons of having a strong obedient worker class who they could
easily mobilize to do grand social / military projects. The entire point was to remove your critical thinking skills and make you an efficient cog in the state's machine.