Anonymous wrote:bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid

What I determine to be best for my kids is more important than what some bureaucrat thinks is best. My kid is not going to a ghetto school so some pathetic post-hippie granola-head can feel good about "changing the world" and enjoy better job security.

Whatever you think your children need—deserve—from their school experience, assume that the parents at the nearby public housing complex want the same

I assume parents in public housing are there because of poor decisions: drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity, dismissing education in favor of ignorant, cop-hating gang music, and overall just plain stupidity. I have purposely moved far away from the city and public housing complexes. It was one of my criteria when buying a home. I do not want my children having anything to do with "garbage people". I do not want my kids influenced by such people, or to ever think their culture and values are important or worth emulating.

If these public housing people want what s best for their kids then they need to take responsibility and make it happen, not expect me to sacrifice my child's education for some stupid idea of fairness.

Hey, I have an idea: how about these parents in the public housing complex take responsibility for their own kids rather than make the rest of us suffer and sacrifice to give them more handouts and freebies and government assistance?

How about schmucks like Allison Benedikt mind her own business?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

I believe it's covered in the Constitution. When you find me the amendment about the right to a public education, let me know.

Huh? The constitution doesn't require a draft. All it talks about is funding and commanding an army. You don't have a right to serve. You are not require to served. The men and women in our military have volunteered. They are sacrificing for the common good. When you make ridiculous sweeping statements about how sacrificing for the common good is somehow wrong you just sound ridiculous. Maybe you're an objectivist but I doubt you are so pure as to oppose all altruism.

There's nothing in the constitution saying kids have a right not to work in sweat shops for 12 hours a day. We also have laws.

Anonymous wrote:

My child is not awful. The point is DC, despite having plenty of funding and thus the ability to have the best schools in the nation, has absolutely no interest in reforming it's educational system. None. The one competent person this city has had, dedicated to actually making a difference was run out of town like she was being chased by a witch hunt. Why? Because she wanted authority to fire underperforming teachers? It's laughable. I was educated in public school and wish that I could send my childen to public school but it isn't going happen. Not for a long long time. Sad but true.

The point is that if all the parents who can now avoid the public school system had to send their children to the public school system, they would successfully push for the public school system to change.

The point is that plenty of funding is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good public schools -- but that's a different issue.

The point is that "Michelle Rhee was run out of town because she wanted to have the authority to fire underperforming teachers" is a vast oversimplification -- but that's also a different issue.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

My child is not awful. The point is DC, despite having plenty of funding and thus the ability to have the best schools in the nation, has absolutely no interest in reforming it's educational system. None. The one competent person this city has had, dedicated to actually making a difference was run out of town like she was being chased by a witch hunt. Why? Because she wanted authority to fire underperforming teachers? It's laughable. I was educated in public school and wish that I could send my childen to public school but it isn't going happen. Not for a long long time. Sad but true.

Public schools 100 % liberal ... And they suck.
Obamacare 100% liberal and it sucks.
Military ... Mostly conservative and effective but becoming liberal and losing wars.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

+1. And they tax me to build roads in neighborhoods I will never drive on! Where will it end??!!!!

But yes, this piece is obviously a straw man intended to stir up controversy. Nobody but a paranoid tea bagger would think otherwise.

And if you don't like it, you don't have to live in that particular locality or state.

Ooooh, sign me up for a state without public roads. What state is that, exactly?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

+1. And they tax me to build roads in neighborhoods I will never drive on! Where will it end??!!!!

But yes, this piece is obviously a straw man intended to stir up controversy. Nobody but a paranoid tea bagger would think otherwise.

And if you don't like it, you don't have to live in that particular locality or state.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

I believe it's covered in the Constitution. When you find me the amendment about the right to a public education, let me know.

Of course you are elitist if you go to a private.

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.



+1.

+1000.

Well, unless my public school is suddenly going to offer class sizes of 12, like the private I am paying for DS to go to, I'm not intending to switch. The public school can't kick 10 kids out of his class to successfully accommodate his ADHD.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1

This article assumes by adding kids to the school something will magically change. Things do not change without pressure to do so - there will be too many people invested in the status quo. I could go to the public school and nothing would change, except that school would have one more person to educate and get the per pupil funding added to the budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

+1. And they tax me to build roads in neighborhoods I will never drive on! Where will it end??!!!!

But yes, this piece is obviously a straw man intended to stir up controversy. Nobody but a paranoid tea bagger would think otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope, it doesn't hit home because there is no "it." This piece literally makes no sense. She has no idea if the public school system would flourish if everyone was there, or whether it would be completely unsustainable to have so many students. I have to believe that economists have looked at this. She could do a google search and make some calls.

This particular write has a history of these kinds of bombastic pieces. Clearly, she just wants to get a rise out of people. If she actually wanted to persuade she would have put some effort into this.

Hay, PP, isn't military service sacrificing for the common good? Ae you against that?

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.

+1.