Posted on 08/23/2014 7:22:52 AM PDT by lifeofgrace
Parents sending their three- and four-year olds to preschool are facing increasing pressure to use government schools, as secular, elitist educators use government funding as a back door to remove parental choice from pre-school options.
Alabama’s First Class program is growing quickly, using federal funds from the popular Head Start program to extend restrictive government regulations to preschools who agree to accept public money. Hiding under the blanket of “ensuring quality”, these regulations cover every aspect of pre-school education.
First Class funding casts a net over preschool programs, supporting those that agree to restrictive government regulations. An extensive list of programs and classroom regulations dictate everything from the length of the school day (6.5 hours) to the number of students per classroom (16, with mid-year growth to 18 allowed). Even the physical environment of state-funded preschools— displays, furniture, materials—must meet specific requirements, and the daily classroom schedule must be approved by the Alabama Office of School Readiness.Every year, educators make progress in getting legislators to increase funding, frequently using lottery money, and target those funds away from religious organizations. In Alabama, the buckle of the Bible belt:
Approximately 300 preschools are enlisted in the program; only approximately seven of those are faith-based, said J. Robin Mears, executive director of Alabama Christian Education Association. Basically, religious preschools must give up their basic mission to comply with state regulations, he said.We live in Georgia, and have three- and four-year old boys, whom we send to a church-based pre-school, and we pay tuition for that, $228 per month for both kids, plus incidentals and supplies. Many parents can’t afford that, and opt for Georgia’s Bright Start program, offered by the Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL).
Georgia’s Pre-K Program is a voluntary, universal program established in 1993 to provide the state’s four-year-old children with high quality preschool experiences. Currently, nearly 58% of Georgia’s four year olds are served in this nationally recognized program. During the 2012-2013 school year, approximately 84,000 children will be served in every county in the state.I searched the Bright Start provider list for my zip code, and not one faith-based pre-school is on the list. A parent’s choice is pay up, or submit your kids to the government’s rules, taught by the same teachers and staff as at public schools. The same public schools where a child is told not to pray over her lunch. That school is in Oviedo, Florida, a small town about an hour west of Cocoa Beach. I’ve been to Oviedo, and it’s not a bastion of atheist activism.
I don’t oppose using lottery money to fund public pre-school and other programs for kids. That’s a worthy cause, it helps avoid problems like working mothers arrested for leaving her child to play at a play at a park while she worked at McDonalds. When that state money is funneled by elite educators only to schools of which they approve, it limits parental choice.
Parental choice is the cornerstone of American education. American children belong to their parents, not to the government. Programs that limit choice lead to censorship and erosion of First Amendment rights, and this is especially true of pre-school programs, where small children’s minds are open to indoctrination.
It’s a fine line that separates parents passing on their values and beliefs to their young children and government indoctrination. Liberal elites see no difference—they feel that they have the right to pass on their beliefs to our children. As a parent, this is intolerable. State legislatures need to provide equal access to all pre-schools with public funds, and not allow liberal elites in the educational system to push faith-based pre-schools out of the market.
Yes, I know about poor people. I also know that many poor people raise perfectly responsible children because they choose to be important and early influences in their lives. I’ll cite my own parents as examples. Show me a school district that’s failing, that’s rife with corruption, that’s a violent, gang-ridden hell hole, drug-infested sewer, and I’ll show you some parents who have checked out. Many such districts also push the notion of early “schools” for the toddlers.
We don’t need to continue beyond this.
“Yes, I know about poor people.”
But you have the gall to blame them for their condition, without knowing the first thing about how they got that way.
You got lucky, so you presume everybody could have gotten lucky.
“We don’t need to continue beyond this.”
No, people who blame others and congratulate themselves for random, accidental circumstances give me a case of the red-ass.
Give Obama and the rest of the commies the finger. Homeschool.
“The First Great Depression was not as bad as today”
You are factually incorrect.
Look families raised their children for thousands of years without needing preschool. It is only since the late 1960s that the US has decided that preschool is somehow good for children. Try reading something like Why Johnny Can’t Read. I don’t know if you are feeling guilty or what but the ‘failing to find a job’ is nonsense. I had to return to work recently. I had to change my resume. I had to hit the streets. I had to go to places and ask if they were hiring. AND most importantly I had to take a job outside of my field.
This is what people used to do. It is only when you have 99 weeks of unemployment that people feel entitled.
Do some serious reading about the 1920s and 1930s in this country and learn a thing or two.
And by the way....How in the world does someone afford pre-school if they aren’t working and have no gas to get any where???
And since you live in Colorado (which is where I was raised) how about mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling snow, running errands....there are plots of jobs out there just too many folks who don’t want to do them
You don’t know what area I walked in....
To be specific when I was in high school our hall monitors were DPD and their dogs
“You don’t know what area I walked in....”
I believe I said “era,” not “area.”
“And by the way....How in the world does someone afford pre-school if they aren’t working and have no gas to get any where???”
I said high school, not pre-school.
Are you feeling all right?
“And since you live in Colorado (which is where I was raised) how about mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling snow, running errands.”
There may have been such work for white Americans decades ago when you were raised here. Now there is not.
“...there are plots of jobs out there just too many folks who don’t want to do them”
That is so gob-smackingly wrong that I can’t imagine you are serious.
“The First Great Depression was not as bad as today”
>You are factually incorrect.
You’re as wrong about that as you are about the existence of “plots” of jobs. I’d advise that you at least open the drapes and have a peek through the picture window.
“Look families raised their children for thousands of years without needing preschool.”
I think you have become confused as to who is who. I have never argued that preschools are a good thing; only that they are a necessary evil for people who are so far out of your social circle that you don’t even suspect their existence.
“but the ‘failing to find a job’ is nonsense”
Sometimes one just has to gaze in amazement. Christian scientists declining medical care, muzzies with four wives, this...You’d better pull your head out and see what’s going on.
“I had to return to work recently.”
So, uh, something just occurred to me: are you a woman?
“I had to change my resume.”
There are tens of millions of people in America who have *never* had a resume, because they would never apply for a job that requires one. This, according to you, is because they are bad people who feel entitled.
“I had to hit the streets. I had to go to places and ask if they were hiring. AND most importantly I had to take a job outside of my field.”
Unless something happens to pull us out of this depression, the day will come when all of that will net you nothing but heartache.
“This is what people used to do.”
Oh, I say, we are grand, aren’t we? ‘Oh, oh, no more buttered scones for me, mater. I’m off to play the grand piano’.
My word, try—just try—to comprehend that there are people who have done all those things for freaking *years* without even a nibble. And not just a few losers. Once again, tens of millions of people.
The America you seem to be living in no longer exists in mankind’s shared reality.
“It is only when you have 99 weeks of unemployment that people feel entitled.”
99 weeks, eh? So why do people who have been out of work for almost a decade feel entitled?
“Do some serious reading about the 1920s and 1930s in this country and learn a thing or two.”
I know quite a lot about those two decades. A lot of it I got from people who lived through it.
But why bother? You’re not even living through *this* decade.
I’m checking out of this futile conversation. I hope reality won’t be too brutal when it comes knocking at your door.
and you still are unaware of what the area was the I lived in....it doesn’t matter the era.....
You either aren’t looking hard enough or you are one of those who won’t take a job that is ‘beneath them’. I have never not had a job even the kind that I didn’t consider to be anything other than ‘it is always better to have a job than not’.
I now live in a state that has the second highest unemployment rate in the US and yet there is work to be had. It is not full time. It is not glamorous but it is out there.
What I find interesting is that you are going on and on about high school students when the story it self and my original post was about PRE-SCHOOL aged children.
Do you lack the logic to understand that pre-school children have different needs than teen agers?
You are so far afield it isn’t even funny.....and high schoolers should be walking to school
Random, accidental.
People who do well - and you don’t know anything about me, btw - are just winners in the great lottery then. Or maybe they stole from the poor.
I don’t blame the poor. You evidently blame those not poor, though.
Go back to your Marx primers and leave good people alone. You’re more annoying and puerile than sentient, and it insults me to be in the same conversation with such a one-cell.
Random, accidental.
People who do well - and you don’t know anything about me, btw - are just winners in the great lottery then. Or maybe they stole from the poor.
I don’t blame the poor. You evidently blame those not poor, though.
Go back to your Marx primers and leave good people alone. You’re more annoying and puerile than sentient, and it insults me to be in the same conversation with such a one-cell.
“People who do well - and you don’t know anything about me, btw”
You have revealed quite a bit. In my 6.3 decades of watching this show, I have learned to size people up.
“are just winners in the great lottery then. Or maybe they stole from the poor.”
I have said nothing of the kind, nor do I think that. I respect hard work. What you don’t understand is that for many people, great effort results only in failure, with no moral transgression on the part of the individual involved.
“I don’t blame the poor.”
Buncombe. You sit in arrogant judgment of people who have failed in life, or are currently in a state of failure, and obnoxiously deny that they tried just as hard as you.
“You evidently blame those not poor, though.”
Now you’re just making things up. Shame on you.
I don’t blame you for any good things that have happened to you, or for any achievements you worked hard for, or any kind of success.
I do blame you for your attitude toward those who might be termed “poor but honest.” You insist that they could achieve the same level of success as yourself (appx.) if they only tried, and the reason they don’t try is that they are morally depraved.
You never answered my question: are you a woman?
“Go back to your Marx primers and leave good people alone.”
You failed to carry on a discussion of a philosophical and economic nature without resort to insult, and you think you’re good people?
I won’t make that judgment, but your conduct in this thread has not been up to the standards one hopes for.
“You’re more annoying and puerile than sentient, and it insults me to be in the same conversation with such a one-cell.”
Yes, insult my intelligence, because I’m so insecure about that.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3197132/posts
Go away, dunce. I have important things to do.
“Go away, dunce.”
Doyle must have been thinking of you when he wrote, Mediocrity knows nothing better than itself.”
“I have important things to do.”
Sure, you do.
6.3 decades puts you smack in the middle of the Baby Boom Generation, which, if you’re not a liar, means you’re one of the losers responsible for bequeathing this flaming crap sandwich of a world to us and those who may follow. From inheriting a world where your country sat atop the heap as the lone superpower thanks to an incredible work ethic, the entrepreneurial genius, and industrial supremacy of a good, brave, hard working, right thinking generation before you, to this near apocalyptic tinderbox of tribalism, where you and those of your failed ilk think it’s noble for people to be so poor in spirit that they are encouraged to beg the government to raise their children for them from the age of three onward. Why not just give up children at birth? Those people before you may have been poor, but they at least had enough dignity not to allow deranged enablers like yourself to congratulate them for their poverty and help to promote a poverty of purpose. So don’t even try to lecture me with your faux righteous indignation, gramps, and instead at least have the decency to slink off into the sunset with your head held low in shame for the failure that your and your fellow generationals have proven yourselves to be. We will spend the next several generations hoping to dig ourselves out of this Everest of crushing debt, dispiriting economic profligacy, squandered opportunity and flabby, morally relativistic, if-it-feels-good-do-it, upside down existence, where having standards of behavior is a hate crime. Go away with the rest of your fellow boomers and spare us the sanctimonious claptrap meant to camouflage your losing record. There’s serious repair work to be done, and we don’t need lectures by those whose collective legacy isn’t even that of a has-been, but a never-was.
It’s disgusting to see a flame like that here.
No one ever need hold his head low before such as you.
“Collective legacy,” indeed. Howls of derisive laughter.
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