[illinoissmith]

You trying to make serious education reform (privatization) look bad?

I think the government schools are deeply flawed, and I think the system should be changed, radically.

That said, I'm sure it is possible, on occasion, with good parents, lots of checking up, a well-chosen or luckily-happened-upon neighborhood, and perhaps supplementary education, for kids sent to a public school to turn out OK. For you to insult a stranger and her children for making the best she can given the situation she is presented with, is out of touch with reality.

I think there is a deep flaw with the current education system insofar as it is a government monopoly, and as a government monopoly it tends to:

1) suck a lot of wealth for little quality,
2) support an inflated bureaucracy,
3) fail to progress or fix problems, this from lack of competition,
4) be an attractive target for perverse ideologues to use to spread ideologies adults would reject as gibberish,
5) be an attractive sitting target of fiddling for socialists who are interested (for ideological and short-term power reasons) in making a populace of people more concerned with pleasing authority figures and infantile peers than becoming thinking, potent,self-reliant human beings.

The long-term solution is to treat education like food, clothing, shelter - parents are required to provide it to children, by paying for it. For the few who can't afford it (as for the few who can't afford food) even after the reduction in taxes privatization would cause, you don't socialize the whole system for those few (stifling competition and possibility for positive change), rather you set up charities or the equivalent of food stamps for those few.

The short-term solution is vouchers, homeschooling, private schooling, or working really really hard as a parent to get the most out of your local government school, and to counter the negative influences of it, if that's the best you can do...

Insulting other people who are doing the best with what they have, and are very possibly getting good results with this hard work, does nothing except make your cause look insane, and reveal you to be a utopian.

You make my position look bad. Your post reads like you're Gene Ray.

[wintertime]

To Illinoismith,

I do not recall posting to any of your comments. Perhaps you could provide me the number.

I disagree with you.

Your carefully reasoned arguments are completely correct on an intellectual level, and I have made all of them myself many times but this isn't enough to bring about reform.

Reform will come about when parents **emotionally** feel differently about putting their **precious** child on the government school bus.

Government schools hurt children. At the moment they are failing to meet the needs of boys, possibly even actively pursing policies that directly cause them to fail.

No,,,,it is time to stop the " My children are thriving in government schools" arguement. No, they are not thriving. We have the statistics to show that boys are failing. It is not at all good for either boys or girls ( who may seem to be doing well) to witness this abuse of other children.

Also...we should reject the arugment, "My children are going to a wonderful public school". No, they are not. The government school culture is pervasive. If the government school is staffed with Education School graduates, it is NOT a wonderful school no matter how many Blue Ribbons it has been awarded.

It is time that we make government school defenders explain to the rest of us their exact reasons for sending their children to government schools that educationally and sometimes physically, and emotionally damage and abuse children. Why are they doing this?

The only excuse acceptable response is that they are so poor that absolutely have no other option. They have made every sacrifice possible and this is still not enough. They are doing it because if they didn't armed police, social workers, and court action would be brought against them.

If you want to see privatization of universal K-12 education, then parents must begin to be **ashamed** about their decision to use government schools, if they could and can sacrifice to provide a different environment.

[Tired of Taxes]

Wintertime,

For the record, I agree with you that we need to go on the offense more often. I read through those posts on this thread, and I saw nothing insulting that would warrant hitting the abuse key.

We homeschoolers are hammered over and over again by relatives, neighbors, friends, politicians, teacher's unions, and so many others for our decision to homeschool. We've heard far worse from anti-homeschoolers than what you posted. You were criticizing the public school system and the decision to place one's children into them. When Freepers criticize homeschooling and the decision to homeschool, we fight back, but I don't remember anyone reporting the anti-homeschoolers for abuse here.

Once a Freeper cursed me out in a Freepmail. I mean, literally cursed and called me names. All I did was calmly post a message telling her that I would report her for abuse if she ever posted to me again. That was the only time I ever even thought about hitting the abuse key, and it would've been perfectly warranted in that case.

I am 100% supportive of complete and total separation of school and state. An institutional-like school setting that requires children to attend six hours/day 5 days/week is not only unnecessary but harmful in many ways.