Right Wing Watch - School Vouchers?

I note that over at Townhall (conservative website, founded by the Heritage foundation), there seem to be several articles on what they eupemistically describe as School Choice.

Walter E. Williams writes, for example, "Most people agree there should be public financing of education, but there is absolutely no case to be made for public production of education. We agree there should be public financing of F-22 fighters, but that doesn't mean a case can be made for setting up a government F-22 factory." - http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/06/13/competition_or_monopoly I'll note parenthetically that Walter E. Williams is generally a libertarian extremist, and I have little doubt that the best solution in his mind is neither public financing nor public production.

Jonah Goldberg goes one further, arguing that we should phase out public education entirely. "Here's a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?

OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave any child behind.

The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government.- http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=do_away_with_public_schools&ns=JonahGoldberg&dt=06/13/2007&page=full&comments=true Goldberg does spend time on discussing how our schools are supposed to teach citizenship and a common culture, but then assures his audience that Private schools will do just as well. He does not waste any time wondering how such a system might create an educationally based caste system. We practically have one already, but I can't help but imagine totally private education would be worse.

Why so many articles about School Choice? I don't know that the right wing punditocracy has all that many arrows in the quiver anymore. I think writing about school choice is a bit like saying "How bout them Yankees" to the religious right; gets you points but doesn't require you to do anything (because frankly Republicans aren't even talking about going in this direction right now).

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

There's a couple of other articles as well.

They are a RUSE, pure and simple.

But certainly if I ran a private school or schools I'd be lobbying like hell to get these vouchers.

Bryant

would you accept all comers as long as they had the voucher?

But naturally I assume if I ran the school it would be for white heterosexual males only.

Actually it would depend on my facilities verses how many wanted to come in. But I would like to think I would try to help those who need the most help.

Bryant

Public schools have to accept everybody. I've worked in both public and private schools, and know for a fact that the huge majority of American private schools aren't going to enroll a lot of the kids I've worked with (behavior and learning disorders, many just socially maladjusted) on a bet, even with voucher money.

I'm not talking about race or sexual preference. I'm talking about the 13-year-old who'll tell you to fuck off then trash the classroom, the office, and your car.

in terms of race, nationality, etc but they are free to use "selective" criteria.

Precisely why they should absolutely NOT receive tax funding.

wealthy kids get a quality education and thus the better paying jobs while the poorer kids stuck in the "free" public education system get left further and further behind so that they can be stuck in whatever menial job the upper class has for them.

Those families will be further burdened by the tuition costs they will still be responsible for after the "voucher" reduction.

Vouchers are not a guarantee of a free private education - they are a pennies-off coupon for access to an unchecked, unregulated educational enterprise.

I hate the idea of vouchers. They are snake oil.

over to the government" in the next few weeks?

They're planning something and we better be ready.

Would be a pretty impressive bait and switch, though.

Bryant

I can show him a government owned ammunition factory that operated from WWII through Vietnam less than fifty miles from my house.

many of the voucher schools are no more than "home schools" set up for collecting we the taxpayers money to promote less than progressive agendas. I would would not fear the use of home schooling as long as it does not take our tax dollars and pass them to whoever can register their home as a school. Here in Floriduh, voucher school kids do not have to take the FCAT, why? As far as I'm aware, they don't have to pass standardized tests in line with their publicly schooled peers. Why? Seriously, I would much prefer to keep my grandkids home and teach them what I felt was a worthwhile agenda while collecting tax dollars for my own salary.

There's no accountability in private schools, at least not in non-accredited ones. Wasn't accountability the big thing with the cons?

If they perform poorly and don't educate your kids well, they will go out of business - in theory.

In practice they would presumably expell troublemakers fast so as to keep their numbers high.

Bryant

that they rid themselves post haste of any kid that doesn't toe the line...or meet any test requirements that might be imposed. Otherwise, it looks like an ineffective school.

I admit I tend to focus on the long term negative consequences of this idea (the permanent caste system) but there are plenty of short term negative consenquences as well.

My bad - sorry. :)

And they can't push the agenda through until they have convinced enough of the public that it's time for vouchers for private schools, and it's time to eliminate public schools.


FWIW, the older I get, the more I question the use for public schools.

18. Which of these quotes regarding education is not real?

1. "School produces mental perversion and absolute stupidity." --Vincent Youmans, world-famous American physician and academic (1867)
2. The creation of the compulsory public schooling system was ordered by "certain industrialists and the innovative who were altering the nature of the industrial process." --James Bryant Conant, President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953 (1949)
3. "We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science." --Rockefeller's General Education Board (1906)
4. Education is "the development of critical reasoning and the acquiring of basic facts relating to science, history, the arts, and similar areas." --Education Department (1968)

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/other/id2118/pg1/index.html

The answer? #4 is completely made up.


Our schools are turning out automatons by the ton.

Curious to see what backing you have for that.

Education is an industry made to benefit employers. The widgets it turns out are the students; some will go into McJobs, others will be lucky enough to take out 6 figure student loans in order to be content creators in the "knowledge economy."

Thanks for the command, but I know what I put into getting my kids to think. Also, what change do you think you'll effect on the job market, much less on society as a whole, by going after public ed?

that I'm "going after public schools" from "the more I question the use of public schools?"

Fun leap in logic. I'm assuming you don't teach math.

a crock designed to create a servant class.

But you're not the one who's giving me a hard time :)

"the more I question the use of public schools"

"Education is an industry made to benefit employers. The widgets it turns out are the students; some will go into McJobs, others will be lucky enough to take out 6 figure student loans in order to be content creators in the "knowledge economy.""

What about those statements doesn't mean that you're going after public ed?

Who's actively pushing an agenda, either by way of political lobbying, or propagandizing with the purpose of encouraging others to join me and march on City Hall or the local Board of Education.

I had no idea that the mere act of sharing an opinion counted as either.

Yeah, sharing an opinion - on a public, political message board - about the "widgets" that public schools produce. Glad you're not pushing an agenda. :D

You're not a math teacher. :)

I do teach math. :7

Quite well, if I may say so.

Although I think I'm glad I didn't have you for trig ...

I don't teach high school.

Or what?

Bryant

I don't like the idea of eliminating funding for public education, not when those who are screaming for it the loudest have a partisan/religious agenda.

I think real reform has got to come from parents.

I'm not one, but if I had one at this stage, I would seriously look into home-schooling. When you look at those who made some of the greatest contributions to US society, many of them had little, if any, formal education; others dropped out altogether - and yet their math and language skills kicked the ass of most of today's college grads. That motivation came from within.

the general terms of "Providing for the General Welfare".

Who says there is a problem with public education? And typically, when one speaks of education "reform" they're speaking of punitive sanctions against teachers and schools that are accused of "underperforming." Fire the teachers, close the schools. Move the kids around. Disrupt the community. Test them one-two-three-four times a year. Underfeed the students. Deprive the students of time to exercise, to play, to work with one another independently. Deprive the teachers of supplies, of salaries.

It seems to me the "problem" with public education is excessive governmental mandates for testing, repressive and appallingly low public financing, and a bureaucratic failure to work cooperatively with the needs of their constituents.

These are all problems that can be changed FROM THE TOP DOWN.

And some day, they will be changed.

with public education.

I do hope though that Democrat solutions to educational problems would be different than the type of Republican efforts you mention. Like maybe increasing the funding as you note.

Bryant

Or perhaps only educating a select group of them?

Because if you are questioning the use for public schools, then surely you have a plan for educating our youth? Or not?

Putting words to my post that I did not write.

As well as demanding that one have an alternative system ready to go, to be able to legitimately criticize something.

What are your constructive ideas for reform?

All of us have heard the criticism over and over and over again. We know you are unhappy. Now what is it you think should be done to solve the problem?

and not having one, I'm supposed to shut up and sit down?

That's what Republicans were saying to Dems, before November 2006. Don't like the war? What's YOUR plan?

The Dems were right to not fall for that crap, and keep hammering Bush.

If so, I am done. I have heard the critics. Many many times.

The subject was not "How can we reform schools?" The subject was, "what's the deal with all the ... stories."

I'm sorry you feel your work is under attack. It's not you that's the problem; it's the devaluation of education in favor of the measured scores, for competitive purposes on the students' parts, and job hiring/educational advancement for industrial purposes. That's something no school district can fix without parental help.

I work with college grads who can't properly use there/they're/their or do simple math without a calculator. But they have wicked Pro-Tools skills ...