Posted on 10/03/2009 9:39:57 AM PDT by Jeff Head
I will do that.
Great ideas!
I want to spend more time with this, but towards the end, he sums it up in a nutshell:
“No amount of money spent by government can compensate for failure in the home.”
A sub-issue is motivating the individual family leaders to take personal responsibility to accomplish the ends that are sought.
His premise that drugs, crime, etc. have an inverse relation to family stability is true, but at some point the cycle needs to be broken. There are many unstable families because there are parents with drug issues and criminal backgrounds; but until there is CHANGE in that cycle, unstable families will persist, and will produce another generation of criminals and drug users.
It is a diffcult and complex cycle to break in reality. It’s one of the bigger challenges that face our society.
You do realize that many colleges, including community colleges, are government institutions, right?
And, talk of vouchers and tax credits still doesn't remove the Government interference nor the "socialistic" nature from the problem of educating the youth. After all, education at the local and state level is funded largely through property taxes, the proceeds of which are distributed in a "to each according to his need" manner.
The proper way of "reforming" public education is two-fold: one, retain elements of the system that are in fact performing (e.g., TJHSST in Virginia) while cutting away elements that consistently do not perform; and two, dismantle the United States Department of Education in an orderly fashion through a "sunset" on its various programs, including Federal financial aid (including student loans) for college students. Then, let each State (and its sub-jurisdictions) decide for itself how to handle the problem of educating its youth, as is proper and Constitutional under the Tenth Amendment.
Eliminating the Department of Education is a promise once made by the Republican Party...a promise that was never kept.
Some important observations:
“2.Develop challenge exams to allow students to challenge classes and/or years of school so that any student can move ahead at his own speed.”
Absolutely necessary. ‘Social promotion’ has two evils. One, it prevents teachers from holding students back. Two, it prevents students from working ahead according to their ability. It removes the incentive for the students to perform well.
“3.Make available to parents the material on these challenge tests so that parents can help teach their children and reinforce what is being taught at school.”
This is less important then the former. The existence of challenge exams by their nature, will procure the following: former tests and examinations available, and tutors geared towards the preparation of students for these challenge exams. There is a financial incentive towards both. Just open up the challenge exams, and we will see this crop up.
“4.Allow students to finish the k-12 curriculum in less than 13 years.”
Very important. Again, combined with challenge exams, would mean that many students would be years ahead.
“5.For each semester a student finishes school early, award a scholarship of $1000 or more.”
Again, this is the incentivisation. The school will save on not having their best students there, but they will fight this tooth and nail. They want to keep their best and brightest come hell or high water. I know because I transferred to take IB courses.
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS CAN NOT BE **REFORMED**!!! ( Yes, I am shouting!) We must stop stop stop using the word "reformed". Why?
Answer:
1) All government schools **are** socialism, and socialism can NOT be reformed. It must be eliminated!
2) All government schools teach children to be comfortable with accepting government money ( taken by threatening their neighbor) to pay for something their parents want for free!
It was an easy step for the first one to three generations of government schooled citizen to having an income tax, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal, the Great Society, and every other socialist program we now suffer.
dismantle the United States Department of Education i
Yes, this is certainly a step in the right direction but not a solution. All government schools are socialist. All government schools acclimate the child to socialism. And...Socialism can not be reformed.
And, talk of vouchers and tax credits still doesn't remove the Government interference nor the "socialistic" nature from the problem of educating the youth.
I favor vouchers, tax credits, and charters onlyif it will lead to complete **privatization**.
After all, education at the local and state level is funded largely through property taxes, the proceeds of which are distributed in a "to each according to his need" manner.
Government schools must be abolished because they teach children every day to be comfortable with having the government take money from their neighbor to pay for a service their parents want for free. This is true if government schools are managed federally, on the state level, locally, or even if the district was a small as a suburban subdivision.
You do realize that many colleges, including community colleges, are government institutions, right?
Yep! And, they should be privatized as well.
But...Government K-12 is more urgent if we are to succeed as a nation in our experiment in self-rule. Our colleges and universities would not be able to get away with their Marxist/fascist indoctrination if the classrooms were filled to the brim with students well prepared to defend their faith, capitalism, and our nation's founding principles. Their Marxist professors would wither before the force of their righteousness.
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Isn't it that way with practically every function of government, including such things as emergency services, internal improvements (i.e., roads and highways), law enforcement, and national defense?
and socialism can NOT be reformed. It must be eliminated!
According to your train of thought, then we might as well privatize emergency services, law enforcement, and even national defense! [Of course, when Ron Paul proposed using letters of marque and reprisal, i.e., privateering, many Freepers called him...an antiquated kook.]
Now, as for the rest of your post, it does not actually address the two main points of the post of mine to which you were replying: one, retain elements of the system that are performing (working just fine), and two, dismantle the United States Department of Education by creating a "sunset" for its various programs (so that students already in the pipeline for, say, student loan programs, can at least be allowed to finish, rather than being cut off in the middle and defaulting on their debt to the United States government as a consequence of their inability to finish their degree program and obtain a job to properly service the debt incurred).
The entire point of my comment was to reduce the problem of educating youth to the state and local level where it properly belongs. Then let each individual State and its constituent jurisdictions (i.e., let the People themselves) decide how to educate their children. If the folks in one county want public education, I say, let them have it, so long as I, living in another county in another state two thousand miles away don't have to fund it.
That is, after all, the beauty of the system created by our Founders, isn't it? The folks from different States act collectively, via representatives, on certain, limited, enumerated matters (such as national defense) and then are free to decide for themselves and for their own States on everything else. Of course, that means that neither you nor I can go about deciding for the folks in States and jurisdictions that neither one of us are legally domiciled in.
Now, to return to my first point, there *are* schools (presently publicly-funded) that are in fact living up to their mission of properly educating their students. I even gave one example, which you completely ignored. It's all fine and dandy to explore the option of privatizing such institutions, but to eliminate them outright would be stupid and short-sighted. After all, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," right?
However, both of your posts have done little but spout off about the supposed need to eliminate all schools presently publicly-funded, which, in other words, means, get rid of them entirely. If you are up for privatizing them, that's fine by me, however, killing off the ones that are in fact living up to their mission is, as I have already said, stupid and short-sighted.
Our colleges and universities...
*Our*?
The University of Virginia does not belong to the United States but rather to the Commonwealth of Virginia and to its citizens and lawful residents.
The United States consists of fifty individual States, at least fourteen of which (counting Texas) were individual, sovereign powers prior to their entrance into the Union, and, given the Tenth Amendment, there is no such reason to believe that they have wholly ceded their sovereignty to the Federal apparatus.
Great post Jeff. Thanks for sharing.
FWIW, most of the primarily Biblical principles that held our culture and our nation together for the better part of 200 years are patiently but inexorably being dismantled by d'evil. ANYTHING that runs counter to these principles is targeted by our would-be masters, period. NOTHING is off limits to these bottom feeding gutter snipes. One has to wonder WHY this battle needs to be fought again and again, generation after generation, but the nature of d'evil is such, it will always be with us.
History seems show that tyrants win in most cases only to eventually be laid low by their own debauchery. But rarely does it seem to slow 'em down any. They march to sick and immoral drummer.
What you said!
Absolutely!
I would add only:
Government schools and the criminals who have continued, over the past decades, to abuse their offspring by committing them to these indoctrination centers did not make Obama and his Marxist minions possible. They made him INEVITABLE!
Sadly I'm living in Maryland: a state that has gone over the socialist/fascist cliff...
I will be posting a pdf file format of the essay on my site at JEFFHEAD.COM tomorrow. I will let you know here when I do.
Long read, but finally got to it. Why do I have the impression that this is precisely what the founding fathers had in mind, and yet in the same thought, know that the liberal establishment and the mainstream, drive by, the state run, etc, media would laugh these P R I N C I P L E S of T R U T H to scorn.
I have been a mind lately to profess, the only way out of the mess we are in is for state government, and governors to get tough on the federal government. The people have lost control, by allowing their freedoms to be whittled away by Congress to the point that froggy is beginning to boil.
And lastly, do you see any principled folks or state governments, rising up to refuse the federal handouts, called blackmail by me, but free money to those with their hands out. Even those without their hands out, were castigated by the media when they acted as if they didn’t need or want stimulus funds.
I fear nothing but wo wo wo is headed our way. I do wish I could be more positive. Perhaps I will be proven wrong by the very people who must prove me wrong or we will all perish.
Yes. This was written by a State Legislator in Idaho and is being implemented in law here. We see more and more of it around the country in the state soveriegnty movments. Like in Montana with the new interstate handgun law stating that any firearm made wholly within the state of Montana and sold only within the state of Montana does not have to abide by any federala firearms law. A similar bill is working it way through in Texas.
This is the crux of the matter. It's also crucial to understand the source and the pedigree of that failure. The deliberate destruction of the family unit has long been a primary goal of Machiavellian, Gramscian Marxists since the turn of he century. They knew that as long a families stood more or less intact, none of their goals could be realized.
Remember their methodology:
Demoralization. The direct assault on the canons and the customs that provide the foundation for a moral existence. Everywhere you choose to look - arts, culture, most mainstream religious organizations, education, etc - all have been corrupted by that Gramscian 'long march through the institutions'.
Destabilization. This is where we are now. Take a good long look at what’s happening now in America. Then dare to turn around and take another look. If what they're saying doesn't square with what they're doing; if it looks like there's an concerted effort to destroy our once Constitutional Republic and replace it with... something else - then you're probably right. None of what's happening today makes any sense unless you look at it that way - and then it makes a perfectly clear and terrible sort of sense, doesn't it? Skeptical? Then check this out.
Normalization. This is the full realization of the concentration camp culture of the communists who have now gotten their hands on the apparatus of the American state. The fate of liberalism's 'useful idiots' will come as a complete shock and surprise to them.
By every measure of reason, this regime is working to destroy our republic for their own ends. Even at its worst, America with all its faults, is a paradise compared to the concentration camp culture of the Machiavellian Marxists who have gotten the upper hand today.
So here are the hard facts with which you must deal:
* You’ve got to understand that you're not going to talk or vote your way out of the tyranny that’s coming. And that’s precisely the point of tyranny, isn’t it?
* You’ve got understand that the people who've now gotten their hands on the apparatus of the American State would rather rule in Hell than live in peace with the rest of us. They will happily reduce Western civilization to stinking pile of rubble and corpses as long as they believe that they will be the ones sitting on top of the ruins. Why? Because a free and prosperous people cannot be enslaved. They must be broken first. Laid waste, just as Machiavelli prescribed so long ago.
* You’ve got understand that we’ll never see another truly free, open and honest election in this country until after the next American Civil War – the Left, ACORN, massive vote fraud and gutless Republicans have seen to that.
Lately, I've begun to understand that the chief unintended consequence of this concerted effort to destroy America may well be a broad and general civilizational collapse. The supporting infrastructure of our current technological civilization is surprisingly fragile. The underlying social 'glue' that holds us all together is also surprisingly fragile. Look at the erosion of one of the America's founding principles: the sanctity of contracts. Obama and his minders have made a mockery of that. When Francis Fukuyama wrote Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity, his sole focus was on the economic outcomes of what he characterized as 'high-trust' and 'low-trust' societies. I submit that Fukuyama may have missed the crucial point: that once we can no longer trust one another in the simplest exercise of our personal lives, than our society is doomed.
America's broad tolerance for the lie - as exemplified during the Clinton years was a hallmark of the erosion of that trust. If someone weren't trying to undermine our trust in our social and financial institutions, then why was Bernie Madof allowed to perpetrate his fraud for so long - well after numerous red flags were raised?
The thing here is that unless drastic measures are taken - and I mean blood-in-the-streets drastic - we are facing a broad and general civilizational collapse. Civilizations the Bronze Age onward grew prosperous and complacent and corrupt - and they fell via barbarian invasion. We are being taken down today by our own now-institutionalized Marxist barbarians - our enemies within. But even they haven't recognized the awful and potential consequences of kicking the slats out from under their own civilization: once it falls, it is not likely to stand back up again.
Something else awaits: and that's the new/old tribal barbarism of Islam. How does a thousand years or more of Islamic tyranny look? Well, it looks like a real possibility if we don't do what is necessary to reclaim our culture and our civilization from our own domestic barbarians.
We’re going to take it back...and I pray we can get it done in 2010 and 2012. But we’re GOING to take it back. And we will out down and ultimately put away the islamic jihadists while we’re at it...or thereafter.
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