Thousands of young lives. Inner city schools are not turning out many kids who can get accepted to college. They learn from day 1 that society doesn't value them.

We don't need to choose between fixing them and having free public college.

We need both. We can have both.

It isn't "either/or".

Many people have more aptitude in the trades, but we have no real system of trade education, thanks to our union busting activities. We don't need more people with PhDs in emotional counselling for invertebrates. Both candidates need to fill in some blanks when it comes to improving access to higher education.

started out way behind in school and over the course of years has caught up. He is going to attend a college program designed specifically for people with cognitive disabilities. I do agree with you that some people may choose to go to trade school. Some choose not to go to college at all, but to say some people don't belong in college is wrong.

That is the simple truth.

I also have an autistic son (Asperger's) and he has struggled mightily with school, even though he's extremely intelligent.

He recently, at the age of 33, finally got his bachelor's degree. In physics. He applied to four grad schools and was turned down by all of them. I'm probably more upset than he is.

In any case, not everyone belongs in college. Not every career path requires college. I think that our country's mantra of college for all really is misguided. Vocational education is perfectly fine. Not everyone gives a flying fuck about philosophy or English or psychology.

The real strength of this country's secondary educational system is that people are not locked out if they don't go straight to college from high school. And that's as it should be. My son, referenced above, did go straight to college, and then flunked out of two schools. His specific circumstances were in play. For other kids, who might also flunk out of two schools, other specific circumstances would be at play. The beauty of our system is that people like that can get a second and a third chance.

Meanwhile, not all kids are college material. Not all jobs require college education. And that's perfectly okay.

But again, it isn't "either/or".

And college shouldn't be treated as if it is an indulgence for the few.

Great minds appear in every race, gender, and class.

I went to college mostly for recreation, eventually, almost accidentally, earning a degree in philosophy and political science. When I went to grad school, it was more focused, but I still had way too much fun. Taxpayer funding should be available to those who show some aptitude for something, those who have financial need, those who make satisfactory progress toward some kind of degree, not those like me. If we're going to provide money for universal or nearly universal college education, we're going to need to get a little tougher. For instance, somebody who struggles to maintain a 2.6 GPA in community college might have to settle for an associate degree, and not move on to a four year college. The idea that we can simply fund everybody's dreams is not realistic.

I'm glad we don't view K-12 that way. Although I have a feeling we are heading in that direction. I am so not a Democrat anymore. The Democratic Party doesn't stand for anything it used to. Sad. Just very sad.

The principle that anyone can do whatever he or she feels like doing, and the taxpayers foot the bill? I don't mind sending young people to college so they can find themselves, but they need to do that, not go looking in a different direction every two or three years. Unless they want to pay for it themselves

and figure out what they want to do. My daughter started out majoring in veterinarian medicine. Then she changed to psychiatry, and now she has settled on molecular science. Her boyfriend who is very ambitious by the way. He got his associates while still in high school took a while to figure out what he wanted to major in as well. He really didn't know what he wanted to do, just knew he wanted to be successful and earn a good living. He started out majoring in finance. Then dabbled with the idea of supply chain something or other. Now he has settled on actuary. We should support our young people, not punish them. Learning should always be encouraged at all ages and ability levels and frankly I think learning should be a life long journey. Look at how dumb we get over the years. If we went back to school every so often we could relearn all the things we forget and learn some new things too. Learning makes us well rounded and productive and the more people know the more they are tolerant and compassionate towards others(well most of the time anyway. Sometimes the more people know the more arrogant they get and the less compassionate they become).

We need affordable college. We agree on that where we differ is in whether it needs to be free. It doesn't need to be free in my opinion, and I say that as a person who is in debt from student loans and is hunting for a job as a cashier.
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You said you feel Dems are heading away from free k-12, well, in reality, it's just the opposite. In fact the Democratic front runner wants to expand it.
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https://www.hillaryclinton.com/the-briefing/fact-sheet-universal-pre-school/

Fact Sheet
Hillary Clinton Calls For Universal Preschool for America's Children

At an early childhood event in Rochester, New Hampshire today, Hillary Clinton called for universal preschool for all of America’s children.

She announced that we should build on the bipartisan work taking place in states and communities across America to expand access to preschool by initiating new federal support for their efforts.
Her proposal would work to ensure that every 4-year old in America has access to high-quality preschool in the next 10 years. It would do so by providing new federal funding for states that expand access to quality preschool for all four-year olds.
This effort would build upon President Obama’s Preschool for All proposal.
Hillary Clinton believes that expanding access to high-quality preschool for children would help strengthen families and communities, while giving children a hand up towards higher achievement in their education and better prospects for lifelong economic opportunity.

Clinton has said during the campaign that early development is critical for children. New research shows how much early learning in the first five years of life can impact life-long success.
Despite research showing its benefits, only about half of the roughly 8.1 million 3- and 4-year olds in the U.S. are enrolled in pre-K, with only one in four enrolled in publicly funded pre-K.
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, we also know that "the vast majority of children served in state funded pre-k are in programs where funding per child may be inadequate to provide a quality education."
Nationwide, state funding for pre-K programs increased by $479 million from fiscal year 2013-14 to fiscal year 2014-15 – an 8.3-percent increase in state investment – while federal funding increases have not followed suit. Of the 44 states that funded pre-K programs in FY 2014-2015, 25 had Republican governors and 19 had Democratic governors, showing bipartisan agreement for the need to invest in preschool.
In calling for universal preschool, Hillary Clinton is continuing a cause she has fought for throughout her career.

In 2007, when she was Senator, she called for a national pre-K initiative to provide funding to states to establish high-quality pre-K programs, including providing pre-K at no cost to children from low-income and/or limited English-speaking homes.
As First Lady of Arkansas, she introduced the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program which provided resources for parents to better educate their children at home before they begin kindergarten. HIPPY now operates in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
In addition Monday, Clinton committed to rolling out a comprehensive child care agenda in this campaign to make sure all children from birth to three have access to quality child care.

With child care costs soaring by nearly 25 percent during the last decade and with our knowledge increasing of the importance of brain development in the earliest years, Hillary Clinton committed to rolling out a comprehensive child care agenda during the campaign.
As a first step in her child care agenda, Clinton on Monday called for doubling our investment in Early Head Start and the Early Head Start-Child Care partnerships.
As First Lady, Hillary Clinton helped to start Early Head Start. Today, the Early Head Start-Child Care partnership grant program brings Early Head Start’s evidence-based curriculum into the child care setting to provide comprehensive, full-day, high quality services to low-income families.
She said that Republicans aren't just missing the boat on early childhood education – they're trying to sink it. The Republican budget cuts puts one of the most effective investments for our youngest children – Early Head Start – at risk of serving fewer children. Hillary Clinton will point that in their budget, Republicans took care of those at the top and went after the kids.

funding for all education at all levels. Universal preschool will do nothing if those same children don't have the support they need in Kindergarten and first grade and second grade and all the way through high school and beyond. Hillary and many Democrats like Hillary spend so much money on war and giving corporations tax breaks that there is not enough tax revenue to pay for education. And don't get me started on Obama's Race to the Top education program. I watched my autistic son suffer because people seem to be under the assumption that if you just push them harder you can get special education students to catch up to their general education peers. It is this education policy that is the reason I am now an Independent. Democrats suck when it comes to education.

.

So it's really the opposite.

young people going to universities so they can become knowledgeable enough to solve the world's problems. Who is going to solve the climate crisis? Who is going to solve the coming water shortages in the coming decades? Who is going to find cures for diseases? We need to invest in our future and the only way to do that is to invest in our children's college educations, all four years and beyond of it.

I proved the opposite (that, in fact, the Democrat front-runner intends to work to expand it in both directions).

No one is arguing against improving access to education.

It's much like the COLA freezes to SS. It may not be a cut but freezing funding for years on end is the same as a cut. They do the same thing to education. They many not cut it outright, but they freeze spending increases for years on end. It is the same thing as a cut.

until recently the court. That's an awful lot of power. I know if they take this election they'll have 2-4 supreme court seats. I also know that the president doesn't have infinite power.

There's a limit. Those limits will apply to Sanders just as much as any other Dems trying to get their agendas through. The revolution he talks about depends on downticket dems who are more friendly to such ideas. I don't think even if with them, the friendliest allies you have, that you could get it through. You've said you don't like Dems. Well Dems are what you have.

Electing a different president doesn't change that. (How are you going to these plans through when there isn't support for them? Why put down the people working toward a similar agenda when there ISN'T anyone else you have to work with than the people who are actually there doing the work in the trenches right now. Democrats.)

Further, Unfortunately there are other many, many, many conservatives who will see it differently, who will be smart, who will be well-funded, and who can and will push back just as hard as we can. Sorry you don't like the liberals. But they're all you've got to work with in real life against Republicans at this time.

to take algebra because of Common Core and when he didn't learn it they passed him anyway. Three years of this. We finally move to another school district they assessed him and went back and taught him multiplication and division in 9th grade. He had to learn multiplication and division in 9th grade because the other school district that was pushing Common Core were so busy trying to force him to learn algebra they never taught him anything. Sorry. You will never convince me that Democrats care about education.

I hated school. It sucked. Personally I would rather have taught myself after elementary.

You sure seem to dislike Democrats, but what do you replace them with? How does replacing the president get rid of all the Democrats you dislike who are filling up the liberal portion of the government? Do you have something in mind to replace them that actually exists?

have a great night.

at this time.

for tuition free college and Medicare for All. Pragmatists and incrementalists have had over 30 years to prove their way works and have failed. It is time for something new.

Same pushback. Same gridlock. I don't want snake oil, I know it will be hard and I want the one I see as the real fighter. I think she has the better tools to deal with what the situation and further a progressive agenda than he does.

I support Bernie. You are not going to convince me otherwise.

I'm not trying to persuade you, believe it or not I don't think that'll happen. Both of our minds seem made up. I'm just arguing with points that I don't agree with. Like when you suggest that Democrats are trying to cut K-12 when that is the opposite of what is happening and what they represent.

I just think we all need to start voting. No they aren't perfect but I didn't vote in mid-terms and give them the tools they need to do their job.

It's easy to be a critic. Harder to get out there and do it yourself and work with the real life limitations and pushback from the other side.

Who supported Common Core? Who supported tying teacher pay to standardized tests? It is not just the Republicans that are doing this. You can argue all you want. I am done arguing the point. You can think whatever you want. It matters not to me.

Here's what I think about that.



"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

-Roosevelt

I don't think Dems are all perfect people. I don't think all their ideas are perfect. I just think they're the people that we do have to work with in real life.

It's about the fact that we have a better, more civilized country when we fund the pursuit of knowledge as a good in its own right, when we fund intellectual curiousity(which is the only thing that really leads to any genuine leaps in knowledge-true learning almost never occurs in the name of increasing some corporation's profits).

We are better off when we treat the acquisition of awareness and education and insight as their own justification. That's what civilized nations do. That's the only way societies ever really advance.

We should be celebrating the wish to learn and the need to teach.

Those things should never just be commodities.

If there are people who wish to pursue knowledge as an end in itself I don't mind. After all I studied philosophy, so I'm aware of Socrates and Plato. But I know people who just hung out in college because it was a nice place to be, and they learned very little contributed almost nothing to the general welfare, and created a drag on the system. I wouldn't want to pay for such people to hang around forever.

They don't represent the vast majority of people in college, and they didn't even in the Sixties.

Some people who present like that are probably depressives.

And some are folks who just need some more time to work out their direction.

As to people who slack for slack for slacking's sake, nothing will really keep them out of college is they want to be there.

But why do we need to do so for wealthy people? Why not just target people like myself who actually needed the assistance and go through other work to get universities to lower tuition?

Most of them don't go to public college as it is. They go to private colleges to avoid contact with the peasantry.

In the very least, people who wanted to attend religious colleges would still do so. I see no reason why rich people wouldn't do the same.

And we, "peasants," could probably still get in on scholarships, though it's good to keep working on expanding access.

So, why should I, one of the, "peasants" , have to pay for rich kids to go to college? Why is that better than simply assisting lower and middle class income students?

The only thing that matters if you are a prole in the system is whether or not you are a "yes man."

Must do your masters' biddings, ethics, morality, and legality be damned. That is your only path to financial stability.

Primary and secondary schools either encourage a love of learning, or they do not. Nothing is more important. A child would is defeated in those schools will almost certainly not succeed.

Minimizing the importance of education in children's early school years is a horrible mistake.

That is my opinion, of course, but is a carefully considered one.

Of course they matter.

And of course they need to BE improved and need to instill a love of learning(which is hard because a lot of parents are scared of their kids learning anything that questions any of their personal prejudices or historical delusions).

What I was responding to was the idea that we have to choose between improving those schools and offering low-cost or free public college education. We don't

What we need to do is cut the war budget significantly and start taxing the rich properly again in order to free up resources for humane priorities like education.

Primary and secondary schools are in crisis mode. If we don't focus on that, college will be irrelevant in a few years. Look around. We are failing an entire generation.

Frankly, nothing is more important right now, in my opinion. I don't know where you live, but public schools in our major cities are useless. We have abandoned them as a society. We will pay dearly for it.

I'm 70 years old, and its unlikely to affect me. I have no children and will be dead before the children in ou primary schools graduate. College? Worry about elementary schools. They're the problem that will affect today's young adults.

Make no mistake: a society that abandons its children is doomed.

But if we just make the elementary schools and high schools better and do nothing else, that doesn't give most of those kids anywhere to go when they are done with high school.

It means a genius kid in Bed-Stuy or East L.A. or the Pine Ridge Rez or Appalachia leaves high school, having excelled against the odds, yearning to fulfill her or his potential and...unless she or he impresses a rich patron, it's pretty much over for them right there.

We need to make sure the kids aren't abandoned...and that means making sure they can develop their minds to the full extent. It means ceasing to see education as a commodity and treasuring learning and the pursuit of knowledge as positive goods IN THEMSELVES.

Otherwise, we end up embracing the attitude of the well-meaning teacher who told the young Malcolm X that, because he was black(and the teacher, kindly man though he meant to be, didn't use the word "black"-he used that other word) he shouldn't try to be a lawyer...he should be happy being a carpenter. Nothing wrong with being a carpenter if that is what you want to be, of course, but that isn't what that exchange is about).

Since the late 1960's, this country has treated higher education as if it was nothing but self-indulgence, to be handed out only if it could be shown to be something that would enable someone to make a greater monetary profit. Democrats endorsed this view in the end, and we should never have done that. We should have defended learning for learning's sake, and we should defend that now.

Learning for learning's sake is the only true learning there can really be. As education gets tied more and more directly to "getting a job" and nothing else, it stops BEING education and is reduced to simply being training.

It has been useful in nothing. Everything I have accomplished in my life is because I am an auto-didact. That came not from college, but from my primary and secondary education. There, I developed a love for learning and the confidence to learn on my own.

I will not go into detail, because this is not about me. We care failing our children badly. If we do not correct that soon, the society will fail within 50 years. We discard a generation at ou peril . First things first.

I can see what is happening, because I am paying attention. If the problem is not corrected, and soon, disaster is certain.

Just saying...

Is to leave college hopelessly expensive, as it is now.

It doesn't have to be either/or.

I am pointing out something that may be more dangerous than expensive colleges. You are welcome to ignore me. Frankly, it's not going to affect me at all, either way.

It may, however, affect many. I have no idea what generation you are part of. Look to your future, though. I'll be out of here before too much time passes, and chose not to reproduce. There was a reason for that.

Good luck.

Last edited Fri Apr 1, 2016, 11:56 PM - Edit history (1)

The Republicans and the right wing of the Democrats(supported by HRC)took that away, forced tuition through the stratosphere, and did all they could to reduce K-12 education to rote memorization of facts, "teaching to the test" and the removal of anything from K-12 textbooks that neanderthals in Texas disapprove of, and reduce post-secondary education to nothing but white collar trade school.

I've lived in a country that has spent most of my life trying to keep everyone but the few out of college, to destroy the potential for education-as-liberation that your generation fought for on campuses all over the country, and to stop kids from being taught anything honest about this country's history in K-12.

This country is at war with the very idea of education. If we don't challenge that idea, if we don't challenge the commodification of education and use of massive costs to deprive the majority of the chance to learn anything beyond what is needed to "get a job, dammit!", nothing we do to improve K-12 is going to help much of anybody.

Improve the public schools, but REALLY improve them. And improve them in such a way that we encourage everyone to grow an imagination and a soul, not just be able to recite facts like a catechism and be ready to join the workplace.

We need to bring education to life again.

I wasn't ignoring you, btw. Simply defending my own position.

It is equally true that millions have minds and abilities to learn that are squandered because they are denied the chance to go to college due to cost issues.

And that millions of other people are denied the ability to use their education truly for the greater good by being forced to do what amounts to high-paying drudgery to pay off student loans.

And millions of others who would like to continue their education after retirement are unable to do that because of the insanely high costs of even going to community college in many, many areas.

It's you that equate support for access to higher education with elitism, not me. I'm for redistribution of knowledge in addition to redistribution of wealth...for everyone who wants to live a life of the mind to have the chance to do so.

Access to knowledge and personal development should be seen as human rights, necessary to "the pursuit of happiness" and the pursuit of meaning.

Our party should never join Republicans in seeing education as a luxury or as an indulgence.

free public college would make it much harder to get into public colleges--it would draw applicants with better test scores and grades.

with limited spaces available at any university, those who come from affluent school districts would receive the lion's share of the program

We don't have to do triage on this. We just need to cut the war budget and start taxing the rich at the proper level again.

What's more likely to happen if college is free is that everyone who can do college work will actually be able to go to college, rather than have to stay home and do drudge work just to support the family.

We didn't ask anyone for free stuff. We started saving for their college education when they were born through US Savings Bonds. They began their college years at our local community colleges, which were much less expensive than private colleges. We also paid for them to go to private schools because we knew as members of the black race, we had to take control of the education they received. The all went to Catholic schools as I did. We paid for it by not buying cars every couple of years and driving our cars until we couldn't repair them anymore. I currently drive a 11 year old Chrysler, and my husband drives a 1998 Honda, and a 1994 GMC truck. My youngest, 26 year old college graduate son drives my former 2002 Honda Accord. They also didn't have all the latest electronic games and phones that our white neighbors kids had. We have lived in the same house since 1993 and it will be paid off in a couple of years. We didn't take out home equity loans on it when housing prices were rising in Southern California like all our neighbors and friends and then subsequently abandon them when they were upside down on a mortgage because they had borrowed so much on them prior to the market crash because like everyone else, they thought that prices could only go up.

So yes, college is expensive, but it doesn't have to be a debt laden experience if you plan ahead and prioritize what is important, and stop trying to keep up with the Jones. Our kids didn't have everything they wanted, but they had everything they needed, and some of their wants. Since they have left home, my husband and I began putting away as much as we could for our retirement into our respective employer sponsored retirement account. We will be fine. It wasn't that hard making the sacrifice for our kids since both of us grew up in home dirt poor so, we both knew that just by having some savings, we were far ahead than our parents were when they were our age. As Californians, we pay some of the highest State taxes in the land, and I don't want my taxes to to go up any further.

It's just that you should never have had to go to all that trouble.

As a society we should be encouraging people to seek knowledge and to expand their minds because that is a good in its own right.

And "free stuff" is a Republican slur...Romney used it on Obama...why on earth would YOU use such a word?

Finally, a lot of people who have trouble affording college aren't personally self-indulgent. The vast majority aren't, actually.

You are obviously in a much better financial state than the majority of the US population.

Your story is one of middle class, which is unreachable to vast swaths of the population in this day.

food, clothing and shelter. That doesn't mean designer clothing, or Michael Jordan sneakers, or expensive video games and electronics. Quite the contrary. My kids were never the first on the block to get any new gadget or thing, or go to movies every week to see whatever new movie just came out. After all, my luxury item at the time was Catholic school tuition, because I couldn't afford to have them fall through the cracks, or become another statistic. The fact that they wore school uniforms meant I didn't have to spend lots of money on clothes, which I wouldn't have even if I could have. My youngest child will be 27 next month, and my oldest will be 35 the month after. They all experienced what this nation went through with the collapse of the financial sector in 2008 and know what it's like to either look for a job in a difficult market, have a couple of part time jobs rather than a good full time job, or to be stuck in a job that they didn't like until something better came along. After all my children are Black and part of that segment of the population with the highest unemployment rate. But they are educated, articulate, and have a strong work ethic, and people who have hired them recognize that. That doesn't mean that they haven't experienced bumps along the way.

Community schools are very important to the lives of working people in their area. Having public education crumble is eroding community cohesion.

We are a vital organ. College is great, I work for a community college, where we play a similar role for families. I don't really think my first priority is making Yale free though.

Just that we need to reject the ridiculous framing that it's a choice between free college OR improving K-12.

It's time to challenge the horrible Ronald Reagan notion that the state should not subsidize "intellectual curiousity". If we don't value learning as a good in its own right, whether or not it "prepares you for a job", we aren't valuing learning at all.

A wealthy country doesn't need to ration knowledge, for God's sakes.

I paid for my time in school and have debts to show for it that. I don't want anymore people to have to deal with tuition at that level. But, I really see no need for it to be free. I also don't believe that legislation like that would ever get through at this time, nor do I think Sander's would be effective in working with people to get any legislation, education-related or otherwise, through congress.

fellow Congressmen. It is not free. We would pay for it just like we pay for the K-12 system. Funny how people won't fight for Medicare for All or tuition free college but were willing to fight to get ACA passed. How many times did the Republican Congress try to repeal ACA again? Just because it would be difficult does not mean it is not worth the fight.

But, I focused on quality of life.
What good is a steller education if students are going to school hungry, if their parents work so hard that it is difficult for them to help with homework, etc...?

Possibly stronger efforts to alleviate some of the pressures on families should be addressed before we even think about improving k-12?

emotional well being. My husband has a friend who is struggling horribly right now and quite expectantly the children are not doing so well in school. Families who are struggling definitely need more community support so that their children can actually learn when they are at school.

It has to be addressed in states like Missouri where children are eligible for medicaide if their parents income is 300% of the federal poverty level. But parents are only covered if their income is 18% of the FPL. In other words an annual income of $3,612!!

That is an acceptable republican standard, but I think it is criminal. Education improvements mean nothing to those families. We really need to make sure parents have the healthcare, enough food to maintain a nutritional diet, and help they need with childcare.

The federal government has to find a way to force some changes that relieve some of the pressure on those families and help provide an environment in which children can thrive!

Our government (republicans for opposing it, Democrats for not trying hard enough) should be ashamed that that was not built into policy long ago.

Any time a republican talks about improving education without addressing their quality of life should be called out for neglecting children.

And we need to do some major work on income inequality to be able to truly address that.