If you send your kid to private school you are a bad person.
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Anonymous
| Perhaps the whole piece was satire. |
Anonymous
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I will grant this assumption, with gladness: it is good that a K-12 education is open and free to all, and we need to make that education as good as it can be.
However, I don’t think requiring everyone to enroll in public schools is going to fix the public school system, not to the degree that the author hopes. The author assumes that well-off parents and those with a family culture that values education are going to transform the schools, if they will all just participate. But there are two barriers to this taking place. First, It is unclear that there are enough private school families to tip the scales very much. Second, these students live disproportionately in districts that already have flourishing public schools. If forced to enroll in public school, many of those in struggling districts would move. So you wind up with the same thing you started with: well-off kids with educationally-conscious families concentrated in the same geographic locales, and less well-off kids trapped in comparatibely worse schools. It is also very unclear to me that my parental participation in the public schools is welcome. If I show up and offer to teach classes, try out new ideas, or write a math and arts-centered curriculum, can I actually implement my vision for my child’s education? Nope - parent participation means baking cupcakes. So I find little reassurance that enrolling my kids in the local school and volunteering all my time there will result in substantial policy changes. Removing the option to enroll in private schools or home school also removes the power of parents to educate their children in an environment that discusses particular religious/philosophical values, which is a blow to the ability of parents to pass on their culture. That is draconian, esp. in a nation this diverse. It also removes the ability of parents to address special needs and interests their children have. I do not care how wonderful the schools are -- the local school still might not be the right environment or have the right pedagogy for a particular student. You can’t make a model that serves everyone equally well; it is impossible. So let parents bow out if the system is not working in their interests and they can find an alternative. Education is not about making every student support the system, it is about educating the student! The system exists for the kids, not the kids for the system! A final point – what benefits the country is an educated populace with social values who will give their resources back to the common good. If you can produce more people like this with a diversity of schools, compared to universal enrollment in the publics, then the public systems may actually benefit from the persistence of educational choice. We all do this through taxes. And I am happy to pay them. Additionally, people could be encouraged to help out, even if they enroll their children elsewhere. I would be very happy to help out in a classroom down the line, tutor, mentor, or even design a class in subject (if they'd let me). I don’t know if other parents are as willing, but I like to think other posters here would contribute their time and expertise, if the publics wanted it. We all value education, do we not? Just don’t tell me I have to send my son to any school, no questions asked. His job is to grow up and be formed. The volunteer work is his mother’s and father’s responsibility. |
Anonymous
The best argument for private schools is that I can pick one where I don't need to worry about some Tea Bagger or backward creationist like you interfering with my child's education. Please send your kids to some Christianist madrassa because you have the right to mess up your children as much as you want. I'd even be happy to support a tax credit so more of your kind can afford private school. Just leave the rest of us alone. |
Anonymous
1) It is not tea bagger but Tea Party patriot, a grassroots conservative political movement to oust Democrat Lite candidates like McCain, Romney, and other such nauseating politicians 2) Creationism is not backwards, it is based upon observation of the evidence that there is purpose and design which screams out "This did not happen by chance". Spiders with eyes on top of its head cannot see the web it is making in the dark yet still spins a web without ever having been taught. This information comes pre-programmed in the spider. The very idea a spider with its tiny brain one day exclaimed "Oh, I have this spinneret thing. Let me use it to weave an intricate web to better catch bugs for me to eat!" is utterly absurd. 3) We Christians believe it is wrong to steal, wrong to kill, and that we are more than just a bunch of proteins and molecules that happened, by freak chance, to form life. This is messed up? Not hardly. I'll take imperfect Christians trying to live a holy life over humanist societies like Communist China, Soviet Russia, and Communist Romania any day. 4) We Christians will not isolate ourselves, we will continue going out and thumping our bibles loud and clear with the hopes that some will hear and understand. The fact that people have become so ignorant they cannot understand marriage is between man and a woman, that humans are not causing the climate to change, (harder to do than stopping a hurricane), that we are not overpopulating the planet, means we Christians have a lot of work to do, the fields are white and ready for the harvest. We are not going to leave you alone. Our lights will keep shining bright and clear to draw all those who seek the truth. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. |
Anonymous
Unless you're going to get them a new mother (or father, depending on your gender), you're out of luck. Bummer. |
Anonymous
| The trolls have taken over the thread. Lets let this thread die. |
Anonymous
I agree with everything the PP mentioned. The baking cupcakes really hit home because at my local school there really is no way for parents to participate in any type of fundamental change. For example the school improvement plan (all part of the Baldridge process the school has to follow) does not include parents. There are no annual surveys on what is going well with the school, how could we make it better. The PTA does a lot to promote school culture, and that is an important part of the school experience for the kid, but it is not a vehicle for parents to get together an advocate at the school. I don't know that my local elementary school, already over capacity, needs all the private school parents to return. I think the questions should be how can they get the parents they have to be engaged in the process. As for education being about educating the students rather than making the students support the system, I could not agree more. |
Anonymous
I wish I knew where the "poor people brought it on themselves" PP's kids go to school, so I could make sure mine don't go there as well. The Slate article author is an idiot, lazy, careless, and thoughtless. If she were in my college writing class, I'd give her a D. Her comments about getting a bad education but it not really mattering are completely belied by what she produced as a "writer." Sadly for her, good writing requires more than just typing out some words on the computer. Maybe she should go back to school and take some writing classes, some philosophy classes, and some poli sci classes and learn how to think. |
Anonymous
And there it is - the hard, cold reality of life. PP is 100% correct. |