Posted on 08/11/2006 8:19:46 PM PDT by Coleus
I was planning to cite Title IX if this debate went on much longer ... Thanks for the pre-emptive strike.
In what way?
Ok, I see what you are in favor of. However, It seems that the Feminazi/liberals are actually for stifling same sex education for a ridiculous fear that boys will get better math and science classes and girls will only learn to be Mrs. Cleaver. Keep in mind, this is not the only instance feminazis have fought such options. In fact, when a same sex voucher school like NYC's Harlem Girls School opened and showed promise for the community, the NAGS stomped in to close that down, because of discrimination issues.
While not about homeschooling, this article about all-girl and all-boy classes may be of interest...
If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Michigan? As in Detroit? As in.... Do I detect other cultural influences on the desire to separate boys and girls? If it were any other city.....
The Brown case didn't take away the right to "free association." Americans can associate freely; but, if it's a gov't-funded "association" (such as a "public school"), then it can't exclude people based on what is an unalterable characteristic - your "race".
However, I agree the case has led to bad programs such as bussing kids to schools all over the place in some kind of crazy social experiment.
Brown served as a springboard for a the revision of most common law traditions regarding public accommodation. Prior to its ridiculous ruling, shopkeepers, landlords, and private citizens could refuse to do business with any individual simply because they chose to. Brown changed all that. Because of its overarching -- and inevitably expanded -- umbra, a Christian landlord can now be FORCED to rent a house or apartment to homosexuals. Pharmacies can be forced to sell abortifactants. Football teams can be forced to allow women in their locker rooms. Heck, they can be forced to allow women on the TEAMS.
These regulations are not applied only to governmental associations, but to any entity that is nominally accessible to the public at large. Brown had the effect of making state "tolerance" a public requirement, despite its conflicts with personal value. The individual lost; the collective won. It DESTROYED free association as an inherent right. And all on the most specious of "logic," an argument that a second-grader could defeat.
Sorry. I had put sarcasm in brackets after that comment.
Brown was only about government-run schools and "race". I disagree with you that it was a "ridiculous ruling."
Brown didn't affect private business at all. It was about "public" schools funded by the government. It was a ruling that made sense. The way I see it, if the gov't doesn't have a racial restriction on tax collecting, then its facilities (purchased with tax income) shouldn't have a racial restriction, either.
(For the record, I don't think there should be government-run schools, period, but I digress...)
It's the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that you probably disagree with. I have read opinions that it was overreaching. But I wouldn't blame it on "Brown".
For the record, I am old enough to remember how, as a child in the late 60's and 70's, bars and restaurants in our town here in the northeast would refuse to serve people. There were "white" bars and "black" bars, for example. But, my grandfather owned a tavern, and he served everyone. It was a very popular place, I might add, among everyone in town. The business is still going strong today, btw, long after my grandfather passed on, and long after those segregated places went out of business, and it's still owned and operated in the family line.
So, I do think private property owners should decide whom their businesses will serve, though I don't think it makes good business sense to put a limit on the number of customers.
About that comment on pharmacies, it's my understanding that the owner of a pharmacy doesn't have to sell pills that he doesn't want to sell. But, state laws permit employees to deny selling pills, even if the owner is willing to sell them.
By "ridiculous ruling," I simply meant the principle that separate is inherently unequal, an argument that is unsound legally and logically.
Of course, this wouldn't be an issue at all if the gov't weren't in the education business. The NEA should be booted out, and education should be bought by parents on the free market.
The differences cannot be merely arbitrary. They have to carry some demonstrable weight. Yes, you can say that Estes Kefauver High is in a three-story building at the top of a hill, while Dean Rusk High is a rambling single-story complex in a valley, but since that has no effect on the quality of the education, those factors are irrelevant.
Teachers may not be the same at each facility, but as long as their academic credentials are roughly equal, for legal purposes, they are the same.
You are citing distinctions that make no difference.
There is no reason to assume that facilities segregated along any line would INHERENTLY be unequal! That is like saying that 2 + 3 can't equal the same thing as 4 + 1. The two facilities may not be the SAME, but that doesn't mean they aren't EQUAL.
Logically and legally, Brown was built on quicksand.
Two teachers could have identical credentials but not offer the same quality of teaching. No one is equal.
Location is relevant because it's relevant for the kid who has to travel the distance to school. The distances from the house to each school won't be equal.
Here's another way to look at it: Compare segregated public schools to forced bussing later where kids were being bussed out of their neighborhoods to schools farther away, this time in the name of "integration". I'm sure you'd agree that that was a bad idea. Why be forced to attend school farther away, based on your skin color, when there's a school closer to your home in your neighborhood.
Well, both "segregation" and "integration" are the same issue - with both, kids were being bussed all over the place in some kind of crazy social experiment.
The real issue is that the state is running schools for children. Otherwise, there would be no discussion, and we each could just send our kids where we wanted to send them or homeschool them.
You've got your own agenda in this thread -- to push for an end to the failed government school monopoly. It's a move I support wholeheartedly. But that's another issue -- maybe an overriding one, but one that's not the focus of my posts.
The result: It was a nightmare! There wasn't a single classroom problem, nor were there any negative effects to student performance... nor did it last long enough to track any potential improvements. The parents were just appallingly problematic. I abandoned the idea (by transferring a grand total of 5 students from one class and 6 from the other) within weeks.
I agree. England did it that way for a long time. And Smith and Vassar outclass coed ivy league and have for a long time.
Maybe I should just ask: Are you in favor of racially segregated public schools?
I am in favor of intellectual honesty. If the Supreme Court was determined to end segregation, then it should have found a logically sound reason for doing so. If it was determined to simply re-engineer our society according to some egalitarian dream, it should have just said so. Instead, it conjured up a feeble, invalid "moral" justification for its meddling, then proceeded to elevate that gibberish to the stature of law.
I don't favor segregation, but I think there is certainly an arguable case in its favor. Law is not about what I think, or about what a bunch of judicial activists think. Law is supposed to rise above petty prejudices and dispassionately serve the People through Reason.
I can't honestly say that the nominally desegregated schools that came out of Brown are any improvement over the segregated schools that came before that era. The statistics on dropout rates, illiteracy, and academic performance would seem to buttress that perception.
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