Anonymous wrote:This piece has nothing to do with liberalism. I'm as liberal as they come and i think its nut. You can't pin a political label on something that is based on no research and no coherent thought.

Progressive liberalism is based on this type of utopia - sacrificing for the common good. It's hitting home because now it's personal.

This piece has nothing to do with liberalism. I'm as liberal as they come and i think its nut. You can't pin a political label on something that is based on no research and no coherent thought.

Anonymous wrote:This is the title of an opinion piece from Slate.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html

The gist of the article is that parents should be willing to sacrifice the education of their own children to support the public schools, so that in future generations education will be more equitable for everyone.

Welcome to progressive liberalism. Crazy, no?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The flaws in this article are many:

1) By NOT sending kids to public schools, you free up funds for those who do.

2) No parent, anywhere, will "sacrifice" (if they see it as such) their kid if they can avoid it. It's human nature.

3) Schools are local - higher SES kids generally live in better school districts. Increasing the population of those schools does nothing to help the kids in the poorer areas.

#2 is where I think the author is completely delusional. It's in our DNA to want to do well by our offspring. It's foolhardy to think that people should/would sacrifice the well being of their children for the presumably better good of society 2 or 3 generations out.

Yes, absolutely. The notion that people will (and should!) willingly accept a subpar education for their kids because that is a tiny little part in "fixing" public education for 50 years down the road is absurd. Plus, what abotu parents who live in DC, for instance, but moved out to the 'burbs to search for better publis schools (raising hand). Aren't we just as culpable as the evil private school parents? We didn't stay in a failing urban school either.

Anonymous wrote:Like DC has any idea how to educate my child despite having plenty of money. In fact, they should give me tax credit for not sending my child to DCPS and adding to the problem.

Your child would "add to the problem"? How awful is your child?

I would love to hear the stories where the work of one dedicated parent working full-time outside the home, not self-employed, took on administrators, teachers, county board, etc. to improve the educational outcome of their child and other children in a similar situation, while not sacrificing their own child (I.e. meeting the gaps of the public school while advocating for change) without additional money (not losing income or spending money) to do so.

We are the children of public school teachers and we have every reason to believe in the system. However, I have found reality to be far different from my liberal fantasies of educational utopia. If you are looking to change things one parent is often written off. You have to organize a mass movement with racial and socio-economic diversity to get the attention of school administrators. Even then, you have to deal with important Board of Ed meetings on your issue scheduled at 2pm, which makes it difficult to show the mass community support. Meanwhile, you have to be at the school during the work day for IEP meetings for your own child. If you don't have the money to hire an advocate or possible lawyer, you need to have the time to become a special education advocate yourself and to go to the school often if needed to fight for services. Oh and if you are not hiring outside tutors, for your child, you are home schooling at night.

I weighed all of this before going the private school route and realized I would have to either not work (don't think we could afford this unless DH changed jobs) or change careers to a far flexible job that still allowed us to be able to pay our bills (not sure what job meets that criteria) AND get my own undiagnosed ADHD under control to have the time and organizational skills needed to become leader of social change able to rally the people across all socio-economic/racial groups and publicize the cause/special education expert/special education tutor/ while not sacrificing my marriage or children. The other option was to spend lots of money to hire people to do those roles with the hopes it would change something for my kids and other children in a similar situation. Either way I was paying taxes to the school system and staying in the public school system could cost me more than moving to an affordable private school that would meet more of our needs without changing anything.

I would agree though that it isn't an all or nothing. I still plan to vote, I still may write letters to the Board of Education, and I will still donate money to community causes. We may be back in the public school system at some point and we are a part of the community whether our kids attend the school or not.

Amy Carter got sacrificed for the cause.

Like DC has any idea how to educate my child despite having plenty of money. In fact, they should give me tax credit for not sending my child to DCPS and adding to the problem.

Anonymous wrote:I don't have time this morning to read the article, but I am already supporting the public schools via tax dollars and have been for 20 years. Tens of thousands of dollars . . . If I choose to layer on another private expensive (Private school) on top of everything I am already being taxed for, how does that harm future generations? - private and public parent.

I agree, and what I choose to do with my money is my own damn business. My property taxes help pay for public schools, and I choose to spend other money for private schools. That's my prerogative, my choice, my money, my business.

Our public schools will improve when the majority of people in this country actually decide that education is valuable. Until then, all the specific things that need to be done will never happen.

Its just a stupid article -- sloppy, lazy, poorly reasoned, intended to get everyone all rankled up. if she really cared about the topic she would do even the most minimal research. if she cared about her arguments she would actually make them, as opposed to sweeping, conclusive statements. She's written other things as equally lazy and sloppy. This has nothing to do with politics or caring for anyone. Its just one hack trying to create her 15 minutes of fame.

Left, right or center. Blue, red or purple--The abject lack of concern for the common good in this country, and on this forum is appalling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the Red State.com article where she admits that she and her husbsnd had to stop funding their retirement accounts and "couldn't wait" until their child was out of private preschool -- so they could get back to normal levels of discretionary income. Also note that her husbsnd is a writer and barfed this screed LAST year that private schools "should be banned.".

1. She is her husband's puppet posing as a thought provacateur.

2. They're moderate income writers who couldn't afford to send kids to private ***even if they wanted to.****

3. This is sour grapes.

3.5 They remind me of a lot of parents on the Hill who pretend to eschew private school as elitist but are actually hiding the fact that it's not even a decision they could make for themselves -- it's been made for them since they make $130,000k a year.

Defensive much? It sure looks like you're saying:

1. Private schools are for rich people, not writers.
1a. The writers and their ilk can suck it.
1b. This is about the writers' sour grapes, not societal values.
2. Because it's all about the $$$$, there is no validity to any of her points re societal values.

That is what she is saying and it is correct.

This author is advocating a socialist communist hybrid of education (of which I am familiar because I come from a country where both of these parties have controlled). the sacrificing of the those with means, to benefit those without, to ultimately achieve a utopian goal of uniform equality, regardless of whether it takes 5 or 500 years. I think we can all agree that this would never work in the US, this is a capitalist, free choice society. The closest thing that exists to this structure is in Finland, but it is so different culturally, socioeconomically, tax structure, etc.


I do not take this author seriously whatsoever, the essay is poorly written and IMHO meant only to shock and awe, because there is no such thing as bad publicity, right? I am not surprised, since the author freely admits she did horribly in school because she went to such bad ones, but it also seems like she was lazy and her parents were not very involved (who allows their child to only read 1 book in high school, for example, without demanding more for their son/daughter). She also seems to have no idea how public schools are funded, for what state property taxes are, how private schools are funded, how public schools are governed, how unions work, etc. The author has done no research, my 5 year old has a better thought process and more convincing argument structure.

I think she just wanted to get notice and get on tv and stir up articles (which she did).

I love when other people tell me how to live/raise my kids (not!!!)