Writes Penelope Trunk (in a post titled
"Blueprint for a Woman’s Life," which she wrote last August but keeps in her sidebar under the heading "Big Ideas"):
We all know that learning is best when it’s customized to the child and we all know that public schools are not able to do that effectively. And the truly game-changing private schools cost $40,000 a year.
It’s clear is that homeschooled kids will rule the world when Generation Z enters the workplace. So figure out a way to alleviate mommy guilt by homeschooling your kids to get them on that path. You don’t have to do the teaching yourself. You can pay someone. But you need to get your kids out of a system that everyone knows does not work. (Note: I just realized this. This month. And last week, I decided: I’m taking my kids out of school.)
It was interesting reading that right after reading
this HuffPo piece by George Lakoff (and a co-author) called "The Wisconsin Blues." The main point is that progressives need better
messaging. The conservatives always manage to put things in terms that resonate with people better, don't you know? Anyway, in his effort to improve left-wing propaganda, Lakoff has this about public schools (which I feel like calling
government schools):
[D]emocracy begins with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly both for oneself and others. The mechanism by which this is achieved is The Public, through which the government provides resources that make private life and private enterprise possible: roads, bridges and sewers, public education, a justice system, clean water and air, pure food, systems for information, energy and transportation, and protection both for and from the corporate world. No one makes it on his or her own. Private life and private enterprise are not possible without The Public. Freedom does not exist without The Public....
Public schools are essential to opportunity... They are also essential to democracy, since democracy requires an educated citizenry at large, as well as trained professionals in every community. Without education of the public, there can be no freedom.
At issue is the future of progressive morality, democracy, freedom, and every aspect of the Public -- and hence the viability of private life and private enterprise in America on a mass scale. The conservative goal is to impose rule by conservative morality on the entire country, and beyond. Eliminating unions and public education are just steps along the way. Only progressive moral force can stop them.
Discuss!
Posts
303 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 303 of 303O Ritmo Segundo said...
It's nice to know that conservatives like you and the woman from Ontario at least have the decency to admit that this is the same sort of luxury that no one ever really denied to the rich anyway.
You embarrass yourself with this.
I close family member married and Luthern who wanted the kids to go to a Luthern school. They did with the use of grants and tight household budgeting. Having gotten to know the kids' friends and attended two HS graduations the parochial students are uniformily better behaved and better educated. How do I know? A girl I know was getting C/Ds at the Luthern school and transferred to a public school where her grade point immediately jumped to A/Bs.
As for passing Obamacare being the 'moral thing to do': you're a hypocrite. The ONLY time Liberals and Leftists talk about 'morality' is when they want to use it to 'win' an arguement with a conservative. The Left's hatred of morality, except when it serves their view point, is truly appalling. Shame, shame, shame on you using the weak arguement.
Get back to us when you want to discuss the morality of abortion or gay marriage.
Why are we still listening to these "experts"? They were wrong when they promoted self-esteem without merit. They were wrong when they promoted liberal arts over fundamental knowledge. They were wrong when they identified funding as the critical issue. They were wrong to advise that higher education should be universal (thereby necessitating redistributive change, which distorted the market, and increased the cost of education). They were wrong when they encouraged parents (both mother and father) to abdicate their responsibilities. They have been wrong on every issue of merit.
Scott Walker = Hitler. Take some fucking responsibility for those attitudes.
1. I don't live in the tiny state of Wisconsin.
2. The illegitimacy of Hitler comparisons in mainstream American politics has been talked to death since the advent of the internet (i.e. Godwin) and the Bush years. I condemned them then. It's becoming tiresome to keep doing so now. Both for reason #1 and this.
3. Take some responsibility for drawing reasonable analogies.
me: "the poor are whole human beings who will do better given choices and freedom."
Again. Generally, yes. Always, no.
So, what is more compassionate? To tailor government policy toward what is "generally, yes" or to tailor it to what is "always, no?"
Why is a coercive, unresponsive, system that is worse for the "general" poor or underprivileged person, justified by the fact that the alternative, which is "generally" better, is not *always* the best?
Even if one could show that the exception to "whole people who will do better given choices and freedom" were *perfectly* served by limiting choice and freedom, how could compassion justify it?
My school teacher friends who send their kid to private are devout liberals. They participate in all the California teacher union events, and push the propaganda, because they love the money and benefits even though they know better than anyone how badly it's used, and they make the case clearly by taking their kids out of it. This is what is meant by caring for "The Public".
"1. I don't live in the tiny state of Wisconsin."
And I think that Ron Paul is a weirdo.
Your point?
Income is positively correlated with intelligence, and intelligence is mostly genetic. This is one of those secular facts you claim to want reasoned discourse about. :)
One of the few things I will ever agree with "Seven Machos" about (although others here seem to agree), is the idea that intelligence can be discretely quantified as an irrefutable number.
Anyway, (in this thread) I said I wanted values advocated in secular terms. Facts are neutral already. If the values we discuss exist in traditional morality texts as well, (i.e. The Bible), that's fine. But they still need to be grounded in secular advocacy to be legitimate in a Republic.
And I think that Ron Paul is a weirdo.
Your point?
Ron Paul ran for national office.
Do you not believe in federalism? Was the person shouting to let him die not represented among the other candidates' supporters?
Please feel free to let me know of any progressive American leftist who advocates the death of someone through lack of insurance.
Thank you.
""1. I don't live in the tiny state of Wisconsin."
And I think that Ron Paul is a weirdo.
Your point?"
Well, I think the obvious point is that it is ridiculous to assume that anyone you are conversing with in a combox holds all the beliefs that are consistent with the most ridiculous caricature of a political affiliation that you can think of.
Synova: a real human being with, most likely, complex and nuanced thoughts about a variety of social issues. Ritmo: another. You just cannot wrap each other up in the easy categories of "conservatives think this" and "liberals think this."
But as I wrote before, my views have been formed somewhat in the homeschooling crucible, where I often find people have more in common across the political spectrum.
Sorry, we agree that assigning a fixed numeric metric to intelligence is silly.
Ritmo needs a life.
Besides, its an erroneous caricature for conservatives to say that the left wants government to make others' choices. They just want the right to accept that opportunity is inherently unequal.
In all seriousness, Ritmo, "opportunity" is always equal, by the very definition of the word. "Outcome," on the other hand, is never equal based upon effort, talent, intelligence, personal desire and even, "being in the right place at the right time while on the right path".
Freedom and self-determination are values without religious overtones. People who home school are asking for the (already granted by the Constitution) right to educate their own children in the way they think is best.
Progressives seem to see that as an obvious lie because there may continue to be a disparity of outcomes.
There are progressives, and then there are progressives, Synova. I myself am not "progressive" in the sense referred to in context. There are many progressive homeschoolers, nonetheless, and many of those are every bit as much against state (in the sense of local, state and federal) meddling in the personal choices of families on how best to educate their children. In fact, at least in the area in which I live (large enough to have *more than one type* of homeschooling group, but not large enough to prevent requiring, for the majority, a great deal of crossover between people of, how shall I say this, **different philosophies**), this is a point of vast agreement, so much so that it is a bridge. Well, fancy that! After all of these years, I've come to appreciate more nuance w/r/t homeschooling in the practical, as opposed to the abstract, than I think most people who advocate that as a philosophy which they, themselves* have not, in fact, in reality and all practicality, implemented. Much less stuck with over the long haul.
---
*Synova, I'm not directing this at you, in particular, in the sense of the personal. It's not about that--and, truth be told, I don't remember all of the details, even to the extent that I knew them. I do know you moved around a lot with your brood, as a military family; I'm certain that you're a learner and a thinker who made a point of passing on those values; I don't know/recall if you ever homeschooled or not, and in any case--regardless of whether you did or didn't--respect your insights into child-rearing in general. All that said, your comment did happen to spark a point I wanted to, well, point out. And so I did.)
"But as I wrote before, my views have been formed somewhat in the homeschooling crucible, where I often find people have more in common across the political spectrum."
;-)
My experience with homeschooling is that the people in it often reside so far down the political spectrum in opposite directions that they've met on the other side.
Thank you bearing. I find your views to be incredibly enlightening, humane, personable and realistic. Very touchy-feely. Might not sound like a compliment to a conservative, but the way I mean this, it is. Very much so.
If the goal of today's conservatives is to drive a discourse and sense of exchange that is as human as progressives would want it to be humane, then you have succeeded marvelously.
You give me hope that a non-partisan sense of national community can still exist in this country. Even if it's just at the level of a few people on a chat board.
Well, good. I am glad I poured myself a gin and tonic and decided to stay up late after I nursed the toddler to sleep, even though I have to get the kids up early for Catholic
Vacation Bible School tomorrow.
I would have another, but I am out of tonic.
"First, improve the schools. "
This. It seems like such an obvious idea; I wonder why no one has ever thought of it?
One of the few things I will ever agree with "Seven Machos" about (although others here seem to agree), is the idea that intelligence can be discretely quantified as an irrefutable number.
Which would be interesting if I had said "IQ" instead of "intelligence". As I didn't, it isn't.
But they still need to be grounded in secular advocacy to be legitimate in a Republic.
What an amusing thing to believe.
Gabriel,
"If you want to change people's minds..."
Objection! Assuming facts not in evidence.
And it's pure comedy gold having this expert on education who's never heard of Holt, Gatto, or Illich.
Thank you for re-purposing those basic concepts, Gadfly.
While I am busy moping around, feeling sorry for the pathetic state of my non-life, I will reflect on this directive you have charged me with unquestioningly accepting: That varying degrees of inherent talent, intelligence, desire and circumstance don't amount to varying levels of opportunity.
The only quality mentioned that everyone accepts as completely within one's own control is effort. The rest are always unequal, and usually unfairly so.
Not controversial. At least, not so to those of us who accept that the English language doesn't need to be re-purposed.
But alas, I do. And hence, I will mope.
"Ron Paul ran for national office."
So?
You weren't originally responding to me, but you suggested (demanded?) that people be responsible for the shouted outburst of an individual Ron Paul supporter. Why should they be? Because he ran for national office?
So has/is Rosanne Barr.
Since this isn't a discussion of how best to responsibly allocate medical or health care resources and only marginally (and pretty much only on my end and obliquely) a discussion of how personal responsibility is destroyed by removing personal responsibility, and since homeschooling is every bit as much a christian/conservative activity as a liberal enlightenment humanist activity...
Ron Paul is just the most bizarre call out. What does he have to do with *anything*?
"But they still need to be grounded in secular advocacy to be legitimate in a Republic."
What an amusing thing to believe.
Yes, I know. The Ayatollah agrees.
You're starting to sound like fodder for a Sacha Baron Cohen movie. Please stop it.
The Ayatollah runs a Republic?
You weren't originally responding to me, but you suggested (demanded?) that people be responsible for the shouted outburst of an individual Ron Paul supporter. Why should they be? Because he ran for national office?
Yes. Not a local/state office (Scott Walker). Because his supporter's outburst confirms the worst that the other side has suspected about the right. Please don't go over this again; bearing and I just resolved it. The point is, that if a political party doesn't want to be associated with its worst elements (you don't know that he just came to see Paul), and if it also makes unapologetic acceptance of such circumstances, then it has a problem to contend with.
So has/is Rosanne Barr.
Since this isn't a discussion of how best to responsibly allocate medical or health care resources and only marginally (and pretty much only on my end and obliquely) a discussion of how personal responsibility is destroyed by removing personal responsibility, and since homeschooling is every bit as much a christian/conservative activity as a liberal enlightenment humanist activity...
You're getting lost in the weeds. Or maybe the reeds. Biblical enough? The point is the right has not decided that the plight of the uninsured, including death by improper care, is not something they've taken up. You're right that they've focused on "the nature of the system". That's not the same thing about saying what you'll do in individual cases where care is unaffordable and death is imminent. Sorry to remind you of the fact that individual human beings exist.
But they do. You acknowledge it when it comes to education. Why not here?
Ron Paul is just the most bizarre call out. What does he have to do with *anything*?
He has the least to do with it. But let's not be intellectually dishonest and say that his ideas on health care are further removed from the Republican mainstream than his other ideas.
And, as has been stated amply, you have no way of knowing if that call was from someone who would only support Paul and not the others in that same crowd that they were assembled to listen to.
Ron Paul is just more honest on what he'd like to see with health care. The others don't disagree. They probably just find that position less politically expedient.
Be honest.
Please feel free to let me know of any progressive American leftist who advocates the death of someone through lack of insurance.
The scenario in question was a man who could afford insurance, chose not to buy it, and then found himself at death's door.
Under ObamaCare, the government... lets him die. It does nothing. No, wait, that's wrong. The IRS fines him for not having bought insurance. THEN it lets him die. It makes sure uninsured members of the middle class have less money to pay out-of-pocket for health care.
So the answer to the question of "what progressive supports letting the uninsured die" is "any progressive who supports ObamaCare". At least those nasty Tea Partiers don't pick the pockets of dying men. :)
Yes, I know. The Ayatollah agrees.
As does anyone who believes that people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. :)
I was thinking it was a lot like what Joan Rivers said about not wanting to pay for other people who freely chose to ride their bike without a helmet, or whatever.
It's odd, though. Obama wants to give people the blue pill and it's the rest of us that get accused of wanting people to die.
As does anyone who believes that people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. :)
This is sad, that you believe this is a necessarily theological or theistic way of putting things.
I find nothing in that phrase that endorses a particular religious idea, let alone the precise nature of whatever spectacle, divine or otherwise, did this "creating" thing.
It's simply a phrase that merges one's existence, however, it came about, with one's rights.
To say anything otherwise is more interpretative, and a greater effort at reading into things with one's own particular perspective, than anyone who believes in a "living constitution" would ever dare to attempt.
The 11:38 comment is simply an elaborate lie, too crude in its dishonesty to even dignify by addressing.
Though I suppose I can see the parallel between education and health care, now that I think of it.
If providing sub-standard care for the exception who wouldn't be served better by greater freedom is the most important thing, even worth forcing everyone else to also have sub-standard care, then I suppose arguing that one context supports the other context makes sense.
I always thought that it was stupid to argue that the children of the secretary of defense, POTUS, etc. should be compelled to fight in whatever war the person urging the idea disapproved of.
But to those of you who ever voiced that idea, the least you could do is support a requirement that every public school teacher & administrator should be required to send their kids to public school.
That's a bad idea, too, IMHO, but it's sauce for the gander.
If providing sub-standard care for the exception who wouldn't be served better by greater freedom is the most important thing, even worth forcing everyone else to also have sub-standard care, then I suppose arguing that one context supports the other context makes sense.
More lies. You're better than Revenant usually, and I figured you'd remain that way tonight.
Which "sub-standard" care criterion is the government supposedly forcing on anyone, let alone everyone? Give me a specific disease and treatment.
Private insurance has already, for years, decided to take their cues for when and how to advance their industry-wide standards based on what the gov reimburses. But it's a charity for me to even explain that much to someone who'd prefer to propagandize.
In general, I think it's best that I shut up and tend to my own nest. That's my takeaway, and for the most part, it's what I've done for quite a while (more than and for longer than is realized). Do-or-die realization: Evaluation of the results (and the inputs, decisions, and even sacrifices and efforts to balance) will come in due time, down the road. That is what will count, in due course, when it comes down to it, then. The rest is mere time passing and speculation.
Place your bets and take your chances, is the crux of it.
This is sad, that you believe this is a necessarily theological or theistic way of putting things.
It was an explicit reference to Deism, actually. You can quibble over whether it is "theological", but it certainly isn't secular.
The conservatives always manage to put things in terms that resonate with people better, don't you know?
Liberals are like Linus van Pelt -- they love "mankind", it's "people" they can't stand.
Another hot new trend article has an interesting take on this issue:
[UNC Professor George] Noblit expects the home-schooling trend to accelerate among African-Americans over the next decade.
"The African American community is building the networks and linking with white home schoolers,” he said. “Unless we figure out how to make the schools work for kids of color, we are going to see more and more people consider all of the options available to them.”
Spontaneous school integration!
This piece should also create some impressive cognitive dissonance here, in that it's a Fox News article that relies on a Professor of Education as its main source.
aren't vouchers nice? i fail to see why pell grants are a good thing for college but a bad thing for elementary school.
Because the NEA and AFT haven't organized the University Professors yet.
It was an explicit reference to Deism, actually. You can quibble over whether it is "theological", but it certainly isn't secular.
I knew you'd set yourself up to fall on this one. Naturalistic explanations of creation didn't exist at the time, so it's anachronistic to state that their references were purposely religious. Also, deism was already a step in a more secular direction than theism, which believed that this "Creator", which you do so much to personify, interfered personally in the affairs of men.
And finally, out of all of the explicitly religious terms that would have been used, i.e. "Almighty God," etc., why was one as purposely ambiguous, uncommon, and abstract as "Creator" used?
Use reason. The Founders (a religious term) would have. They believed in it, after all.
No theology here...
This is sad, that you believe this is a necessarily theological or theistic way of putting things.
Same goes for:
...and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...
and
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world...
and, finally...
...with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Ritmo, you're flirting with a Joe-Biden-Reveling-in-it level of ignorance.
*shrug*
No, you are the one being ignorant here, furious. It's a self-centered view that assumes the Founders (religious term?) had access to all that we now have determined regarding a scientific understanding of the origin of the earth. They didn't have that. No one at the time did. So they made due with the common understandings that existed at the time. What they said wasn't intended to make a statement encouraging religion. For one, "Nature's God" is purposely more naturalistic than you Supernaturalists would care for, anyway. And the other statements are just superlative appeals to judgment and protection, respectively. They aren't invoking God for religion's sake. Just like I could say "for God's sake" without invoking religion. These are common expressions, lofty perhaps, but certainly not clerical.
Stop reading things with a context-free perspective. The lengths you are going to in order to pretend that The Holy (lol) Founders had the same understanding of the world that we moderns do is just embarrassing.
Also, the Declaration was a war document. Wars invoke God (even the Nazis did, eg. Gott mit uns) because the nations were ruled by kings, the next closest thing to God. So naturally the referee between two nations and the kings that ruled them would be none other than the big guy. Kings were supposedly none other than God's representatives on earth. To whom else would a nation appeal when challenging a king? Silly guy.
Just a common way of looking at the world at the time. And, by tradition, continuing on until at least the time of those secular-socialist (lol) God-loving Nazis a mere seventy years ago. These were not statements encouraging actions in opposition to whatever inevitable, modern, irreversible trends you abhor today.
You just hate modernity.
Learn more history and you'll stop feeling that way.
I'm fine with public education, just get rid of the corrupting influence of the teacher's union.
I've got an Aunt that teaches in the Memphis School system. She will curl your hair with the stories she can tell. But it's hard to get her to open up about her experiences. Much like my Uncle, her brother, and his experiences in Viet Nam, for the same reaasons I suppose. Regardless, she took a perverse pride in showing off the bullet hole in her car.
The truth of the matter is that Democrats don't give a shit about educating your kids. Neither do the Republicans. The D's use the school systems of this country as a slush fund for laundering money through the teachers unions, and as payoffs through the assigning of positions on various school related boards.
The R side is that they try to parrot what their base, conservatives, say, but when they do assume power do nothing to change the system, ala vouchers.
The D's want your money, the R's want your votes. You choose which devil you want to dance with.
The people in South America and Cuba are poor because government knows best. Private property rights? Non-existent in South America and Cuba. Thank you big government dictators. If only North America were as open to the progressive dictatorial way. Right, Democrats?
Voucher - the very word is dirty, according to democrats. The R's can't get vouchers through because of the powerful and corrupt teacher's union money laundering apparatus and the democrat bullshit vilification machine.
The first thing Obama did after he won? He put a stop to the successful DC voucher program, a program that helped low-income blacks escape bad DC schools. We can't have that. No, the real priority was political pay-back to the teachers union that helped get him elected.
The left lie and claim vouchers would only help the rich. Bullshit. The rich already have access to choice. They can send their kids to any school. Vouchers give low income families in bad school districts a choice and a way out.
Vouchers are pro-choice. Imagine, when it comes to education, the democrats are anti- freedom of choice.
Naturalistic explanations of creation didn't exist at the time, so it's anachronistic to state that their references were purposely religious.
I'm sure you'll eventually find a good resting spot for those goalposts. :)
Can it, Althouse. Anyone with eyes to see knows you're going to come out swinging for that hate-mongering, terrorist-loving, destroy-the-Constitution-at-all-costs arrogant bigot YOU installed in the White House last time.
Who has since ruined the economy and used the government to "punish" his enemies.
Good job, but those of us with eyes to see aren't fooled. YOU inflicted this upon us, and YOU will do it again.
Dear ol' Dad would not be a good home school teacher because he overexplains everything, but I must admit that he does explain things well.
Did I ever tell you about Guglielmo Marconi? He was a famous Italian inventor responsible for many important discoveries having to do with radio and wireless transmission. Because of his work in radio Marconi was eventually ennobled as Marchese Marconi. 100 % of fact.
Two unrelated events occurred that had unexpected consequence that continues to affect us around the world to this day.
Part of the celebration of bestowing the Marchese peerage was a large dinner banquet held in Marconi's honor. Part of the dinner was a pasta course. When the waiter reached over Marconi's from behind to his right side as waiters do to set down his plate of pasta with cheese sauce, the plate slipped at the last moment and cheese sauce splashed up on Marconi smearing driblets across the front of his tuxedo and splashing across his face. All across his face. His face was covered. Of course the waiter was horrified, "scusi, scusi, spiacente, spiacente," red faced and frantic, the waiter tried pathetically and hopelessly to wipe up Marconi's face and clothes and restore order, crying, " Oh no! Marconi, siete coperto di formaggio!" And that is how we got Marconi and cheese.
Besides, its an erroneous caricature for conservatives to say that the left wants government to make others' choices.
No, that's a highly realistic assessment of the left.
Think about public libraries and race. Public libraries are for education, yes? And just the pure pleasure of reading. It would be positively weird to be stopped at the door at a public library and told I have to go to another public library across town. Because there are too many white people in this one.
We do that to school children. We reduce them to race, shuffle them across town, destroy neighborhood schools, irritate parents.
The obvious remedy is give people the freedom to decide where they want to go to school. Like we have the freedom to decide which frickin' public library we want to walk into.
opportunity is inherently unequal.
Since opportunity is "inherently unequal," apparently the liberal plan is to deny opportunity. Awesome, Ritmo.
I asserted that those who happen to be wealthier happen to have that as an easier option. Those who are poor, do not. $52,000 is not below or even very close to the poverty line, and even someone with your level of decrepit dumbfuckeditude must, on some lower level, realize this.
Ritmo, I'm trying to understand your attack on home schooling. Here you seem to be saying that home schooling is better! The rich and the middle class can home school, and those kids will do better. The poor cannot home school, because they can't afford it.
And so you seem to be saying, "Let's deny home schooling opportunities to the rich and middle class. We want those kids to suffer just as much as the poor."
Have you noticed that Communism succeeds in making everybody equally poor? (Except, of course, for the ruling class, who always teach their kids privately. See how the liberals in Washington D.C. behave).
Instead of hating on the home schools, and all those rich and middle class kids who are getting a fine education, why not focus on the poor?
We are all still paying taxes for schools. Those poor kids get smaller classes and more attention. Wouldn't that improve their education?
Your argument against home schooling ("only the rich can afford it") is like arguing against the house, the car, the computer, the health care, and all the other things that rich people like to buy. It's like you want to impose suffering on us all, under some equality principle.
The public schools in Washington D.C. are a disgrace. This is the city of government! And the schools are so bad, none of the officials will send their kids into them.
They get private education.
The hypocrisy of liberals on this point is obvious. Your actions speak way louder than your words.
Obama's kids go to private schools. Thus, Obama is by his very actions speaking out in regard to quality of education in the public schools in Washington D.C.: "They suck."
Liberals need to address this hypocrisy. Why are the public schools in Washington D.C. so bad?
Conservative answer: teacher's union, can't fire bad teachers.
Why are private schools in Washington D.C. so good?
Conservative answer: no teacher's union. You can pay teacher's less, fire bad teachers, keep good ones.
Private school teaching jobs always pay less than public school jobs. And private schools do a better job of education.
So the answer, obviously, is not "more money!" The answer is to follow the private school model. Make a public school education as good as a private school education.
And the way we do that is to destroy the teacher's union. Empower people to fire bad teachers and keep the good ones. And pay the exceptional teachers a lot of money.
To do that, we need to destroy the teacher's union. Obama and other liberals refuse to do that. So the children of the poor suffer mightily in those shitty schools. And Obama and other rich liberals suffer not at all. Their kids have a privileged education.
Speak on that, Ritmo, if you dare.
You can pay teacher's less
Oops! 12 years in public schools, my bad.
(That's going to be my answer to every mistake I make for the rest of my life. "12 years in the public schools, my bad.")
Since opportunity is "inherently unequal," apparently the liberal plan is to deny opportunity. Awesome, Ritmo.
"...and the trees were all kept equal
by hatchet, axe and saw"
- RUSH, Hemispheres.
The governmental bureaucracy associated with the schools is probably a bigger problem than the teachers' unions.
Let's use Chicago public schools as an example.
Chicago public school teachers are some of the highest paid in the country. In fact their pay in in parity with some of the wealthier suburbs. And yet half of the graduating eighth graders can't even read at a fourth grade level.
So obviously money isn't the problem.
So what is the problem? What is the common denominator for the failure.
My oldest daughter is a teacher in the Orange County Public School system. She was her unions delegate for her school. She admitted that the teachers union wasn't concerned with children's education, but in building the most benefits for the union members.
"First there is desire. Then there is motivatiion."
Wow, how Freudian can he get. He rants about public=government, but then mentions how important unions are -- as if they're one and the same as government. If that's not tipping your cards I don't know what is.
No, unions are mediating institutions. But seeing them as warp to government's woof is as wrong as seeing religion that way.
"Public" doesn't mean government. There are myriad private institutions which which are, and should, serve the public good.
Reducing the scope of the definition of "public" to "government" is frightening. These are people, seriously, who (unwittingly or, alas, wittingly) permit totalisms to form.
Frankly, this kind of thinking makes on the enemy of a free society.
"I do know that she's toeing the line fed by Koch industries"
Question: How long must the planet suffer the weird assignment to the Kochs of causal power for all conservatives' particular thinking?
Is this progressive projection (again), where their own vulnerability to the power of suggestion (perhaps via Soros's projects) is attributed to those who they go on to blame for being too individualist? LOL
Seriously, this Koch paranoia reminds me of nothing so much as the classic Muslim paranoia about Jews hiding behind rocks and trees (Sahih Muslim, 41:6985).
“The Immanentization of the Eschaton will not come about until Progressives fight the Kochs, when the Koch will hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees will say O Progressives, O Comrade, there is a Koch behind me, come and kill him!”
Ah, some things are so ridiculous, you'd have to be Monty Python to parody them. And even they would have trouble.
O Ritmo Segundo said... {at 6/18/12 7:12 PM}
But the left does demand that you translate your conservative morality into secular terms and subject it to the scrutiny of reasoned discourse before you propose to impose it on others.
O Ritmo Segundo said...{at 6/18/12 7:17 PM}
So Meade gets off on discipline and punishment and is turned off by empathy, caring and healing?
What's next? Black leather body-suits with zippers around the mouths?
Take a look at those time stamps: five minutes apart.
And the cream of the jest, the part that makes it achingly funny, is that ORS probably really believes that is reasoned.
I must say, though, the humor paled soon after, and I didn't read the rest of ORS's contributions.
And I am puzzled at the interactions of many of you with ORS. Just what do you get out of responding to him/her/whatever?
Despite going to government school, I do get some things right. Like when I started selling my Commie Obama hats in 2008.
Proof of a merciful God is that Ritmo does not have children.
The idea that kids have to be home schooled to be educated is part of why people aren't having kids.
It just gets harder and harder to keep up with the Jonzes. Most people don't *want* to have to educate their own children. And resent an expectation that they should.
I can see that public funding of education is a good thing. But I fail to see why public OPERATION of education is a necessary thing.
Vouchers, vouchers, vouchers. You get $4K or $8K or whatever each year. You can spend it wherever you like. And if you don't like it, you take your kid to another school next year. Get the government out of the business of operating schools.
Ann we have been home schooling our youngest for 4 years, pulled him out of public school half way through 6 grade. Had talked about for about a year but had not made the move.
The final straw was this, written in 1906, found when I was doing a great deal of research on Liberal Protestantism and it's hand in hand walk with socialism.
“In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers were doing in an imperfect way.”
The Rockefeller General Education Board, Occasional Letter number one.
The sentiments expressed by today's liberals are not new.
Question: How long must the planet suffer the weird assignment to the Kochs of causal power for all conservatives' particular thinking?
For Libtards, its always a 2 Minute Hate directed at their Emmanuel Goldstein.
I seem to recall that Richard Mellon Scaife was the scapegoat last time around.
"Progressives need better messaging" = "how can we make everyone believe our bullspit?"
One alternative of private schools is to move where schools are good. My four kids went/are going to excellent public schools (and one of them was the "dumper" school of the district.) Turns out that if voters care, they can positively affect their school district.
I call 'em government child custodial facilities. And no time off for good behavior.
Chip Ahoy, We saw the punchline way too early. Get some fucking sleep!
We used to swim @ Marconi Beach on Cape Cod. It's located where the Marconi Station was when he sent the first transatlantic radio message.
I'm a public school teacher. Every year I am evaluated on my ability to teach the kids enough self-discipline that they can stand in an assembly line or sit in a cubicle all day without being a distraction to or needing interaction with the people around them. I am also expected to teach them enough science facts that they can cough up enough right answers on cue to score "acceptable" on the state test. As part of a "writing across the curriculum project", I am also expected to teach the kids how to write a 4 paragraph, 16 sentence essay where what they say has no bearing on the grading of the essay. I'm not very good at any of this. My classroom is a noisy, busy place where backsides seldom touch chairs. I teach science as a method for exploring the world not as collection of "known facts". Who knows what will be "true" next year? Sometimes the kids do extremely well on the state test, and sometimes they don't. I believe that what you say should be at least as important as how you say it so I leave writing indoctrination to the English teacher . But I have a science degree from a major engineering school and a PhD. in education from the ivy league, the kids and their parents love me, and I can retire whenever the mood strikes so somehow I survive to teach another year. Unfortunately, many otherwise talented teachers aren't free to be "mavericks". They either conform or quit. If you love learning, and you're willing to learn the things you don't already know along with your child, most people can do as good a job as the teachers who conform. I mean, certainly sitting still and being quiet is something most parents can handle.
I went through the public schools in NYC 40 years ago and got a pretty decent education. BUT not as good as my father or even my mother did in the NYC public schools 20 and 30 years before me. That said they are not as good now as they were when I went.
We had our child in public school until she came home as said she was so bored she could not think. Have homeschooled since 3rd grade and she is going to be a senior. In the 8th grade she scored 720 on the verbal section of the SAT. Yes she is smart but the homeschool program is heavy in Englis, lit, history and reminds me of when I went to school and even tougher. We pushed math and science so she has that.
Next Fall while finishing the last few courses in HS she will be attending the local community college to take a couple of math and science course.
She wanted to take Pre-Calc and had to take the placement exam. She scored high enough that they said she could just take calc instead. We are not doing that she will still take pre-calc and then in the spring take calc.
The standard we hold to is higher than the public schools and she will be better off for it. You see this in many homeschoolers, the desire to do their personal best.
Lakoff's comments are frankly disturbing. Can he not be summarzied with, "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato?"
I think there's something of a false choice in these arguments. Having spent a small fortune sending my 3 kids to private schools (most of the time; all of them attended public school for between the first 2 and 5 years of their educational career), I have to say that, even with the best of schooling, a parent needs to be deeply involved in the child's education. It is, in part, a non-delegable responsibility. There are many social functions that, I believe, are valuable and are uniquely performed by public schools. I don't think it is particularly healthy for kids to be confined most of the time to their parents' company ("pioneer family" fantasies to contrary), and I don't think its is particularly healthy for kids to socialize exclusively with kids whose parents think a fun graduation party is an all-expense paid trip to the Bahamas for their daughter and 10 of her closest friends. I went to public schools exclusively. Even in the 1950s and early to mid-1960s, they were far from perfect; and, in the main I attended "good" public schools. I had a 6th grade teacher who apparently had no talent for 6th grade math . . . so she didn't teach math for the entire year. There is a lot of "political correctness" or whatever at all schools, public or private. It pervades the education establishment. But today's kids are as resistant to indoctrination was we Boomers were in the verities of the 1950s. And if the reason you want to home school your kids is because you want to indoctrinate them in "creation science" or whatever, I have no sympathy for you.
Do whatever it takes to educate your children outside Government schools. Many good private schools still adhere to a strict and classical program which above all will teach critical thinking. And writing. All of my children learned to be good writers in prep school and were way ahead of their peers in College in their ability to produce coherent essays.
No regrets whatsoever for spending the money to educate my child in a private school for 13 years before college. And, yes, one of the things that is beat into them is the ability to write. Now a hard science major in college, the difference is even more stark, with most of their public-school brethren struggling to write even the simplest lab reports. Did just fine today giving a presentation to PhDs, post-docs, and grad students affiliated with their NSF REU summer program, primarily, I think, because of having had to do so so frequently while in prep school.
On occasion, I have asked my kid whether it would have been better if I had home schooled them. Their answer is no, as probably is mine. I think that one of the big things that would have been lost would have been poise and polish. I noticed this 40 or so years ago when I was in college about the preppies, and it really hasn't changed. It comes from the training in writing that starts in lower school and just gets more intense through high school, the recurring presentations, mandatory athletics and fine arts, etc.
Part of why I think that prep school was preferable to home schooling in my case, is that there are places where I am strong, and places where I am not, and my ex has similar weaknesses. I have a math degree, and she has a math minor, so no surprise that I was teaching derivatives in middle school. But neither of us is good at writing, music, or foreign languages. Sure, we probably could have done better than most public schools, but not as well, I think, as the professionals at the prep school we sent our kid to.
Do the defenders of government schools really want to tell everyone to aspire to be rich enough to send their kids to private schools or to homeschool?
Do the defenders of government schools really want to say it's OK because some suburban schools are good and it's only the urban schools that ruin childrens' lives?
Do the defenders of the teachers' unions really want to claim that "it's all the parents' fault" and that teachers are powerless (and thus irrelevant, and of negligible value) to overcome bad parenting?
Why defend failure at all?
Some above have suggested that it helps kids to fully socialize them with the public school systems, etc. But, I think that where the left and their "public" duty and loyalty fail, is that one of the most natural things in the human state is greed. And, one of the aspects of greed is to want the best for our children. Which is why so many liberals (including the President) are so hypocritical when they push public schooling for everyone else, but put their own kids in private school.
This is most tragic at the lower socioeconomic levels, where the public education is the worst. It shouldn't be any surprise that charter school slots and vouchers typically seem to have many more applicants than slots available for them. Just because someone didn't graduate from high school, got married too young, etc., doesn't mean that they don't care for their children, because most often they do, and want what is best for them, which is almost never the public school system. You sometimes get the feeling of almost desperation, when you see them competing so fiercely for the few positions open or vouchers available, because they know that is the best chance that they probably can get for their kids.
I find the situation in inner cities in general, and D.C. in particular most egregious. Right now, the Dems, from Obama down through their Congressional leadership, are trying desperately to kill school choice in the District. They won't send their own kids to the D.C. schools, but are willing to go to almost any lengths to keep poor (mostly minority) kids from escaping one of the worst school systems in the country (despite, having one of the highest per-student costs).
"The conservative goal is to impose rule by conservative morality on the entire country, and beyond."
Interestingly enough, this is also the goal of the left.
This is why I'm a libertarian.
A good many leftists and conservatives are all too similar to one another, the key difference being what they believe, not their eagerness to seize control of the state in order to force those beliefs upon the rest of us...for out own good of course.
There isn't a dime's bit of difference between Bloomberg declaring war on soda and Santorum declaring war on "obscenity."
The genius of American government is that our system of checks and balances forces these people to fight each other. Long live gridlock!
Liberals need to address this hypocrisy. Why are the public schools in Washington D.C. so bad?
Conservative answer: teacher's union, can't fire bad teachers.
As a conservative, I don't know that that's the whole answer. Or even a significant part of the answer in DC.
Even if there weren't a teacher's union, I think there would be serious problems trying to reform many of the worst DC schools, because they seem to be a source of jobs and patronage for local DC politicians. And while opposition to reform efforts by people like Michelle Rhee has come partly through the union, it's not like the union is out of sync with its members on those points. The teachers would oppose accountability and other reforms whether they had a union or not.
Firing teachers at underperforming schools also brings some racial issues to the fore, because the worst schools are in the majority Black neighbourhoods (i.e. not in NW), and the those teaching an administrative jobs are important jobs for those districts. Black unemployment in DC is already terrible, and it's very hard for a mayor, politically, to let the chancellor do something that will make that situation even worse. It's made even more volatile when it's a Korean firing Blacks, even if that Korean is married to a Black man, given Black racism against Koreans (Honestly, I think Rhee is a major reason Fenty lost the mayoral election).
Anyhow, all told, even if you disbanded the teacher's union in DC tomorrow, you'd still be left with all the old problems, and resistance to any change would be roughly as strong as it was before.
Richard Arkwright, Thomas Jefferson, Cyrus McCormick, and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. Benjamin Franklin attended school for two years, then apprenticed. Hiram Maxim left school at 13, and apprenticed. Robert Fitzroy was homeschooled to age 12, attended the Admiralty school for two years, then went to sea at 14.
The US "public" (i.e., government-operated) school system originated in theocratic indoctrination and anti-Catholic bigotry. It has become an employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, a source of padded construction, supply, and consulting contracts for politically-connected insiders, and a venue for State-worshipful indoctrination.
It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom. State (government, generally) provision of History, Economics, and Civics instruction is a threat to democracy, just as State operation of newspapers and broadcast news media would be (and are in totalitarian States like Cuba and North Korea).
Homeschool. Nothing in Hawaii law requires that homeschooling parents provide instruction between 0800 and 1430. You can extend daycare to age 17, then take the GED.
Good luck.
samanthasmom, I have to disagree with your dismissal of writing skill as indoctrination. The analytical skill it takes to write a coherent sentence, paragraph or essay is a skill that enables the student to excel for the rest of life. So students should not be able to critically analyze a concept b/c it might not be true tomorrow? Critical thinking should not mean criticizing, as it does today, but analyzing. I would hope they figure out whether it's true or not with their own skills, not by accepting someone else's judgment.
I work with grad students who have not mastered this skill yet, and it hurts them. As Bruce Hayden mentions, writing (thinking) is the foundation for all education.
Significant I think that this topic inspires a troll attack. Close to their home.
rhhardin's first comment, at 1857 hours, reminds me of Wittengenstein's literary style. Also John Cage's. Though, hardin's content, generally, is not to the same end as theirs.
Unionized teaching is parent and child abuse.
Another reason to homeschool: compulsory schooling is compulsory before it is schooling. School is abusive. If you treated 30 adults the way we routinely treat a classroom full of kids, you'd be lucky if all they did was punch you out and torch your house.
In Hawaii, juvenile arrests fall when school is not in session. Juvenile hospitalizations for human-induced trauma fall when school is not in session.
It occurred to me while watching the TV show "Falling Skies" that the "harnessed" kids in the show, who have some organic thing attached to their spines that controls their thoughts and actions, are the perfect metaphor for public schools. They don't teach you how to think, they teach you what to think and what to do.
No. That's fine if progressives (or conservatives) accept as much. But the rub, politically, is that conservatives feel "the system", and the plight of others, just isn't ever worth doing anything about, period. Slow, gradual, evolutionary change, be damned. They just don't care about other people's kids. That's a hell of a lot different than simply caring more about one's own. And it says a lot about someone's morality.
The area in which I live leans heavily to the left, and here it's the lefties that are pulling their kids out of the crappy public schools. Of course they care more than conservatives about other peoples' kids. Just ask 'em.
"The conservative goal is to impose rule by conservative morality on the entire country, and beyond."
Projection. The left has shown no real interest in educating children while in control of public education. Only in propagating leftist values.
tiger said...
O Ritmo Segundo said...
"The ONLY time Liberals and Leftists talk about 'morality' is when they want to use it to 'win' an arguement with a conservative."
Well; that and moral will go out the window when the government run insurance companies start refusing to pay for things they did pre Obamacare. We will probably start hearing about [social]"scienece". As in; the science says you don't need it...
"One alternative of private schools is to move where schools are good."
And the question becomes... is the school actually better or does the action of *choosing* and the price paid (because moving isn't cheap) change the engagement level of the parents?
There is good reason to believe that parents who have choices and make them will be more engaged in the education of their children. Perhaps it starts a positive feed back loop. But it's not at all the same as telling parents to be involved when they've no ability to move and no choices related to their child's school. Anyone who has tried to "make changes" or "get involved" because their child is struggling at school or they just figure that they ought to help their child get the best education possible KNOWS that it's a full time job for an energetic parent with a degree in a power-suit. You have to learn how to work the system and you need to be someone they can't intimidate.
This simply isn't possible for most parents who work, and lower classes who don't work, parents who look like they might shop at Walmart, will be ignored. After all, what can they know compared to the person with a Masters in Ed?
This is fact.
Parents who *choose*, either by moving or paying private school tuition or by using voucher money, start out with a non-adversarial outlook. They like the school, more or less, and think that it's better (whatever the truth may be).
This changes and continues to change behavior of the parents and is quite likely to result in greater participation and engagement with their children's education.
Freedom doesn't just work as an end result, it works as a *process*.
"Which "sub-standard" care criterion is the government supposedly forcing on anyone, let alone everyone? Give me a specific disease and treatment."
Ah, Ritmo.
But you forget. I've dealt with "government" health care and trying to get treatment for my husband from people who really didn't want to deal with his problem. And that was with an *exceptional* version of government care. The best possible.
Private insurance and our present civilian medical processes have problems, lots of them. Unfortunately no attempt to explain why a government version of essentially the same thing will solve all of those problems and without creating new ones, is limited to "government good and wonderful" and "profit seeking evil corporations bad."
So take the blue pill.
Ignorance is Bliss said...
Nice Job! Now -1 is sitting in his room, sulking, having been totally forgotten, again.
I thought radical -1 was the imaginary friend of radical 1.
"Correspondingly in politics, democracy begins with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly both for oneself and others."
They've redefined "democracy" here. See Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
"The mechanism by which this is achieved is The Public, through which the government provides resources that make private life and private enterprise possible"
This is EXACTLY BACKWARDS. *A* mechanism is GOVERNMENT, through which the PEOPLE direct action and provide ALL the resources government uses, including taxes. People also provide resources privately to projects they deem worthy.
They write gobbledegook like this column that an intelligent junior HS student could poke holes through in minutes. And they blame conservative FRAMING?
Dishonest morons.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
No. That's fine if progressives (or conservatives) accept as much. But the rub, politically, is that conservatives feel "the system", and the plight of others, just isn't ever worth doing anything about, period. Slow, gradual, evolutionary change, be damned. They just don't care about other people's kids. That's a hell of a lot different than simply caring more about one's own. And it says a lot about someone's morality.
You truly have no idea what you are talking about.
tiger said...
O Ritmo Segundo said...
"The ONLY time Liberals and Leftists talk about 'morality' is when they want to use it to 'win' an arguement with a conservative."
I never said this, liar. Check your invented facts again.
As a product of that Publik Skool Sistim, I can say without a doubt that the entire system, from top to bottom, needs to be scrapped. I cannot think of a better way to indoctrinate your children into mushy-brained progressive groupthink, while at the same time instilling an ignorance that is almost too dense to believe, than allowing them to spend 12 years in the drone-producing slave mill that the Publik Skool Sistim has become.
The Publik Skool Sistim is horrible because it's designed to be horrible. Nobody could cause that much damage to our children by accident. There isn't enough room to post just how badly the Publik Skool Sistim has fallen in the last century, but it's been done on purpose. You cannot save a system designed to fail, you can only destroy it and start over.
So instead of providing specific FACTS regarding denied treatments for specific disease, you just respond by saying essentially that you didn't like the care and they didn't want to deal with the problem, Synova.
Welcome to the club.
But if you want to make a convincing case, try the facts next time. I invited you to say something specific, and you stomped your feet and said that you didn't like it.
But this is a (nominally) adult audience. Facts matter.
"Public schools are essential to opportunity... They are also essential to democracy. . . ."
This is the BIG LIE! The government schools have done more to destroy opportunity and democracy than any other government institution.
Wow Synova you were on a roll tonight. Well said throughout.
Penelope Trunk is simply correct.
Homeschooling is not for everyone, of course.
But it IS for those...
(a.) ...who have the minimal competence required to teach their children (or can learn with the kids sufficiently well to keep a step ahead of the kids' lessons); and,
(b.) ...who have the good, normal instincts that typically drive a parent to care more for their kids, know their kids better, and care more about driving their kids towards excellence, than the average of the public school teachers their kids are likely to have.
And that's most parents, folks. Not all...there are lots of kids with the bad luck to have wackos and winos and narcissists for parents. But it's most parents.
(And you wouldn't be reading this as carefully as you are, if you were one of the nastier parents.)
Look, find a homeschooling group. Cooperate with other homeschooling parents. Take advantage of homeschooler days at museums and teacher/student discounts. Get tutors. Get your kids into community sports.
It's really not that bad. And it's good for your kid.
And it's the wave of the future. Khan Academy and all that. Typical education is about to die catastrophically, being replaced by something more personal and customized. Surely everyone sees that by now? Time to catch the wave!
If you need something more regimented, and can't pick a curriculum on your own, then sign your kids up for a "University Model" private quasi-homeschooling school, where they're at school with normal teachers on alternate days of the week and home on the other days. The teachers set the curriculum and assignments and you help your kids keep up with them on the "home days." They have a normal school facility on the "school days," and the whole thing costs half what normal private school costs because the same building is used by twice as many students (on alternating days).
Find what works for you. It's very do-able.
But Trunk's right.
If "The Public" means the federal government of the United States, it has destroyed more food and fouled more soil, air and water than any other actor on this planet in history. That institution is not needed for many of the things listed in the essay as the things can be provided or obtained just fine by state or local governments just groups of people acting in concert. It is an intermeddler in so many activities that were formerly provided, directed or controlled by others and still are but with the federal government interference.
We should also be careful in these matters (Ms. Warren posted an almost identical essay I think) as the authors are stating the case that we individuals should submit to the yoke - their yoke if, as they hope, they are pulling the levers of power - out of an obligation to them and duty to our neighbors. Finally, there are big differences between "The Public" or society and the government (and the sorts of folks who think coercion should be their line of work).
Here are some questions
What defines a good school?
What defines a bad school?
are all private schools good?
are all public schools bad?
I can guarantee 95% of you here went to public school most if not all of your educational lives. How do you think of yourselves? And if you think yourselves intelligent, why can't you think about our children that way?
And I noticed the same schtick that people say about their local representatives: "the public school system sucks except mine."
PS - if you can read and argue here at Althouse, I think the American School System is doing just fine. Sorry it's not the fantasy you all want it to be.
(Sabinal): "PS - if you can read and argue here at Althouse, I think the American School System is doing just fine. Sorry it's not the fantasy you all want it to be."
No. Markets deliver better education services at lower cost than do State-monopoly school systems. The delegates to the first Constitutional convention provide a simple proof that education occurs without State support. Most of the colonies of British North America did not compel attendance at school. Of those polities which compelled attendance at school and which subsidized tuition, more gave parents control over the choice of institution that compelled attendance at a State-monopoly school system.
The education industry is not a natural monopoly. The "public goods" argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not State operation of an industry.
Post a Comment