Posted on 09/29/2010 10:28:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
President Barack Obama said on NBC on Monday he would like American children to spend more time in public schools. Here is a better idea: American children should spend no time in public schools.
County by county, state by state, Americans should begin functionally abolishing government-run schools and replacing them with a free market in schools. On the federal level, Congress should kill the Department of Education by choking off its funding. The department was not constitutional in the first place.
Everybody's children should get the same chance Obama's children have had to attend the private school of their parents' choice.
American children should have the opportunity not only to attend schools where they are well instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic, but also where they are unambiguously taught that our Declaration of Independence is right -- that God is the Author of our rights and that even the government must obey His laws.
We should aim for a society where children spend more time with their most important teachers, their parents, and less time with the less important teachers at their school.
Obama wants the opposite. And he does not want our children spending more time with just any teachers, but with government teachers -- who often double as liberal propagandists seeking to indoctrinate children with values contrary to those they learn at home, while failing to teach them reading, writing and arithmetic.
"I think we should have a longer school year," Obama said on NBC. "We now have our kids go to school about a month less than most other advanced countries. And that makes a difference. It means that kids are losing a lot of what they learn during the summer."
Obama then made a class-war argument to defend his point -- in the process taking a snotty swipe at what he presumes to be the inferior reading habits of lower-income families.
"It's especially severe for poorer kids who may not be seeing as many books in their house during the summers, aren't getting supplemental educational activities," Obama said. "So, the idea of a longer school year, I think, makes sense."
In keeping with his Marxist analysis, Obama pointed to the education system in the People's Republic of China -- a nation governed by the Communist Party -- as a model for the United States to emulate when it comes to dealing with teachers.
"When I travel to China, for example," said Obama, "and I sit down with the mayor of Shanghai, and he talks about the fact that teaching is considered one of the most prestigious jobs and a teacher's getting paid the same as an engineer, that, I think, accounts for how well they're doing in terms of boosting their education system."
Obama's unstated assumption: Central planners, not the free market, ought to determine the value of a particular job and who gets paid what.
I say: Let the market decide -- especially in education.
The greatest problem with primary and secondary education in America today is precisely that it is dominated by government-run schools that people are compelled by force of law to pay for whether they like them or not and whether they send their children there or not. The second greatest problem is that the political power controlling these government-run schools has become increasingly centralized, gradually removing decision-making from local communities, passing it up to the state and federal level.
On NBC, Obama made clear he wants to use increased federal education spending to increase federal leverage over local schools, forcing policy changes preferred by him. That would move power in exactly the wrong direction.
The historical record compiled by the Department of Education itself shows that increased government spending on education does not improve the academic performance of government schools.
"From 1989-90 to 2006-07, total expenditures per student in public elementary and secondary schools rose from $8,748 to $11,839 (a 35 percent increase in 2008-09 constant dollars), with most of the increase occurring after 1997-98," says the Education Department's The Condition of Education 2010.
In 1980, 17-year-old students in public schools earned an average score of 284 out of 500 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. In 2008, they still scored 284. Despite increased per pupil spending, the needle did not move.
In 1999, 17-year-old students in American public schools earned an average score of 307 out of 500 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test. In 2008, they scored 305. The needle moved in the wrong direction.
Every community in America should give all parents a voucher equal to what it now pays per-pupil for its public schools, allowing those parents to use those vouchers at any school they choose. Let the market decide if government-run schools survive.
Government school teacher PING!
The Feds should get out of education entirely.
Leave it to the local communities to fund and manage their own districts.
ping
Engineers in China.....make like 1K one hundred a year....teachers make 1K.......just a guess.
I’ve been saying for years that the problem with public education is NOT a lack of funding. And a lot of the decisions made regarding public schools frequently benefit teachers’ unions at the expense of the students.
As the son of a retired high school teacher, I have a lot of inside perspective on the subject. My dad was ready to retire probably ten years before he actually did.
Obama doesn’t think private enterprise works at anything.
How are you going to dumb down America if you we are abolishing government-run schools?
“Every community in America should give all parents a voucher equal...”
No, giving money to the government just to give back is silly, counterproductive and expensive.
Cut taxpayer taxes the amount of education and we move on.
Should be an interesting thread! I am homeschooled by a self-taught brainiac — or as the brainiac would say, an autodidactic polymath — who was anti public school way back in the 1960s. We’re currently homeschooling my young sibling here at 668. So far the family sports just that one aforementioned genius, but even the youngun compares favorably to any college graduate.
Moreover, public school is a form of welfare. Just say no.
But amen to killing the Department of Education. Even if it was constitutional, judging by the performance of public schools these days, it should be shut down because it isn't doing anything.
Vouchers will just back-door federal/political control. Education isn’t expensive, but government school is.
The government school system must be dismantled....completely.
“The department was not constitutional in the first place”
The Supreme Court has ruled gov must provide education to every child, legal or illegal which is most of the problem.
They seem to have found a Constitutional clause to force this education.
“The department was not constitutional in the first place”
The Supreme Court has ruled gov must provide education to every child, legal or illegal which is most of the problem.
They seem to have found a Constitutional clause to force this education.
Since prisoners have to spend all their time behind bars, why shouldn’t our children have to spend more time at school?
There is still a place for community controlled public schools. The key words being community, as in parents and teachers working together to provide children with a decent education. An education that allows them to develop life skils and the academic skills they need. One that is focused on dispensing knowledge not indoctrination.
The sad truth is that if the home is broken then the child’s chances in school are also broken. The way government schools are set up they just can not help already disadvantaged children thrive in schools. Community schools developed with the leeway to use methods that work for the challenges facing that community would be a good alternative for those who can not afford tuitions.
Prepare to be flamed.
Just this year, that idiot senator woman Murkowski was saying that no Republican ever advocated for abolishing the Department of Education.
Rand Paul’s primary opponent accused him of wanting to abolish the Department of Education.
Shutting down public schools is not a “conservative Republican” idea these days.
I’m for abolishing government schools and the property tax. Let’s restore property rights while we’re at it seeing as how they say property taxes fund government schools.
I know, I’m just an evil misogynist and racist.
tuition tax credits would work.
Found in the penumbra, no doubt.
bttt
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