Posted on 04/18/2006 1:01:27 PM PDT by neverdem
Mayor Overrules 2 Aides Seeking Food Stamp Shift (Bloomberg does something right for a change.)
Dozens stuck on Roosevelt Island Trams Rescue cable car is in the process of removing passengers now on ABC TV.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Quite the contrary. Catholic schools still deliver a far bigger bang for the education buck than the public schools.
Catholic -- and all other private schools -- can "cherry pick." You got a kid with a severe or even moderate disability, then you best look someplace else. You got a kid with severe or even moderate emotional problems, then Catholic school isn't for you.
$15,000 a student, good lord. and we're giving them another 5.6 billion?
Remember, that government money always comes with "strings attached" ie adopting gay non-discrimination, etc. The Catholic Church, as always, wants to take MY taxpayer money without any strings attached.
The Catholic Church = Big government wannabes in many cases.
F--k school choice. PRIVATIZE EDUCATION!
F--k school choice. PRIVATIZE EDUCATION!
Won't work in NYC.
Just because your local parochial school teaches in English, doesn't mean that many will not adopt "bilingual education."
Muslims will choose madrassas, Jews will choose Yeshivas, the secular rich will choose nonsectarian private schools like Dalton and Fieldston.
The Catholic Church has just lost their semi-monopoly on private education in the outer boroughs. The lower middle to middle class Catholics who supported such schools left the city decades ago.
And I got paid nothing (in cash) for homeschooling my kids. I don't think we paid half of that for homeschooling three kids for their curriculum for 12 years of school.
"...but I don't see how Bloomberg has done anything illegal."
Are you a lawyer?
I ask because, in my experience, only lawyers and Democrats can look at a situation that is immoral and/or unjust and say, "But it's not illegal."
My opinions may be colored by the fact that I am a single man who is PO'd that I have to send tax dollars to schools nobody in their right mind would allow their children to attend. I can't think of one area I have lived in (New York, Illinois, Florida, Washington, NJ) where the public schools were mediocre at best, even in wealthy areas.
More than twenty years ago, I read an article in New York magazine in which it was said that the paperclip budget of the NYPS exceeeded the total administratice cost of the archdiocese central office. The public schools suffer greatly from overmanagement. Even paying teachers $100,000 does not mean that the money goes to teach English and math. the classroom. After all, each class of 30 sixth graders brings $450,000 into the school system.
Scarsdale apparently has pretty good public schools.
Also, some of the elite public schools in NYC rival or surpass most private schools.
But let's be frank here. Public schools in NYC have always served two purposes. They educate those who are highly motivated (but without money) to take leadership positions in their fields and they serve as the first step of integrating new immigrants into American society.
Oh yeah, and don't get me started on how many Nobel Prize winners there are just between Bronx Science and Stuyvesant.
My paternal grandfather attended the Jersey City public schools. According to him, only the Jewish kids actually studied. My grandfather's stay at PS whatever was noteworthy only for the fact that he beat up the principal! (Completely justified IMHO, but I will save that story for another time).
The elite schools change their face according to the immigrant population. Now, there are a lot of Asians and Indians, etc. However, another school has popped up out in Brooklyn in the Russian community that has pretty strict standards and there are one or two in Chinatown.
My feeling is not to screw around with this stuff. NYC has been educating kids for a long time. Keep trying to make the system better, but don't take the thing apart.
There is probably no other city in the country that gets more full academic scholarships than NYC.
Would you say such a silly thing about Catholic hospitals in non-Catholic areas? Charity is Charity.
The trouble with Catholic systems like the schools and hospitals is that they weren't designed for paid staff. Dedicated and willingly poor nuns and monks handled the work. Now the few nuns left, rather than recruiting more teaching and nursing nuns, generally complain that the Catholic teachers aren't unionized and well-paid.
Of Course, Priests molesting children has nothing to do with it.
"Converting the sinner" and "instructing the ignorant," however, are Spiritual Works of Mercy -- in a Christian context. "Instructing the ignorant" doesn't mean teaching them to read and to master subjects like mathematics and geography, it means educating them with the explicit intent of passing along the timeless truths of Christian doctrine.
So there is absolutely no need to spend a moment of my time or a dollar of my money on any non-Catholic who wants to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Catholic schools in education regarding secular subjects -- while openly rejecting any religious aspect of a Catholic education.
Yes. It seems that a majority of public school resources are going to help the "special needs" students in all their diversity, while the others are neglected. My daughter, who is independent, bright and well-behaved, deserves just as much attention as a student with a learning disability or a behavioral problem. She attends a Catholic school which has very strict standards of behavior.
This is why the issue of school choice is so critical: so that parents can match the school to their child's needs.
Though American Catholic schools tend to focus only on vocational training and the bare minimum of ethical behavior, that's a reason for improvement, not abolition.
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