Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
View past Libertarian pings here
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.
A child who is stressed or anxious can neither think nor learn. The brain’s neurons always give priority to messages conveying fear (anxiety and stress related), which is why fearful people often do stupid things — they cannot think until calmed. ‘Challenged’ to excell is not equivalent to stressed.
My kid was stressed because of a bully in a parochial school. The school’s authorities were trying to ‘save’ the bully at the expense of the other children. Eventually I had to home school and my kid, no longer having nightmares, performed outstanding work.
(My kid was taking Kung-fu lessons at the time and when he did defend himself, the parochial school officials punished him).
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
Odungo wants them in school and away from their parents who know WHAT and WHO he is and what he has planned for our country. He is pure unadulterated evil, pure and simple and he and his government cronies need to disappear. Remember November!
A Catholic priest once said: “Give me your child and I will return to you a Catholic”.
My mom and dad both worked at the elementary school in our small town. And among the many things I owe them is a simple lesson that I’ve learned, that this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity...
So I signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education even better...
This was the spirit that brought me to the governor’s office when I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau, when I stood up to the special interests, and the lobbyists, and the Big Oil companies, and the good-old boys...
When oil and gas prices went up dramatically and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged: directly to the people of Alaska. And despite fierce opposition from oil company lobbyists, who kind of liked things the way that they were, we broke their monopoly on power and resources. As governor, I insisted on competition and basic fairness to end their control of our state and return it to the people.
Didn’t work with me. I was agnostic for many years and now I am a Christian but refuse to be tied to any one church.
Our 9 year-old special needs son was in a so-called “good” public school in northern VA, but come to find out, they were merely pretending that he could read. They’d literally teach him to sight read a passage and then make a display of it, showing us how he could “read” for us during the back to school nights. Trouble was, I’d hand him a totally different book and he couldn’t read it.
Well, we pulled him out and sent him to a private school at the cost of $25K per year, and he is at least now reading. However, even that private school had its shortcomings, and for $25K per year, I figured I could homeschool and do at least as good a job.
However, homeschooling is a huge committment. I can’t take off after 8 a.m. and go for coffee or morning walks. I can’t shop, can’t hang out at yoga class, and I really can’t work or pull shifts like I wish I could. I’m stuck providing education that someone else can’t provide, yet they STEAL my tax dollars, or, I end up paying even more at a private school on TOP OF the money I pay in taxes. It’s an OUTRAGE.
VOUCHERS, please — many of us out here are killing ourselves to get our kids educated. We know what our kids need — just don’t make me have to pay $25K per year to get it. What family can give up this kind of money??
Sorry — thanks for the vent.
That was well said, and I agree! I’m afraid that having vouchers legislated and funded might be difficult during the years ahead, as we may be headed for austerity, and eventually, default. So it may be more about shutting down the Dept. of Education and other worthless offices.
So right! I don't know how to lobby for this locally, but I'd get behind any movement here that would disengage us from fed money and run our own business our own way.
Property tax is an abomination. You work hard, you pay off your mortgage, and the gov’t can take your home for taxes. Absolutely wrong. Property tax and death tax keep the aspiring poor downtrodden. A family should be able to work hard and improve their lot cross-generationally.
Personally, I'm opposed to vouchers, as alluring as it sounds. If your private school can charge $25K now, and suddenly everybody is known to have an extra $5K from the gov’t in their pocket, how long do you think it will be before the tuition is $30K? And that aside, take government money, get government intrusion. Why go to private school if the government has a say in what it teaches and how it is run?
I'd like to see the opposite of vouchers happen ... I'd like to see those who use the public school system have to kick in for their own children's education. I understand asking the community to help pay for the education of the truly poor (although I'm not sure that is necessarily a government function), but I don't get why a retiree with no children should be forced to pay for my or my neighbor's childrens’ schooling. A great side affect of this, I bet, would be that parents would be way more attentive to what is going on in their schools.
FACT Children who are home schooled score higher than public school children on college entrance exams.
FACT Home schooled children rarely run afoul of the law, and do not get involved with drugs.
FACT Home schooled children do better in life than public school children, and earn more money.
Public schools? Follow the money.
And don't forget to include the value of the school building itself. In Arizona, we have one of the most user-friendly school choice programs in the nation, yet even here the alternatives get screwed in comparison to what the government schools get, and the teachers unions STILL act like they're being skinned.
Charter schools are privately run and receive almost as much as the government schools do per pupil-day. But the government schools get their facilities for free on day one and the charters have to supply their own out of the pupil-day money. Between that and the fact that they get somewhat less in the first place, it's not a level playing field.
We pulled our daughter out of public schools when she was 11. She had complained to the teachers that there was no challenge for her, and had been villified by the school for having done so. By the time she was 16, she had finished all of her high school requirements,including 3 AP courses, and scored 780 V, and 800 M on her SATS. She entered Stanford a year later.
Public schools are anathema to everything conservatives hold dear. Children are being indoctrinated into leftist politics as early as the first grade. No thanks!
Mr. Jeffrey, in spite of his antipathy for government schools, appears to have no problem with the very same band of thieves, robbers and vandals compelling us to pay for the education of other people's offspring.
"Vouchers" would indeed break the public school monopoly, but that in itself is but a small victory in the larger war against state control of our lives, our children and our God-given rights. While some would argue it is a necessary step on the path to freeing education from the grasp of bureaucrats, a case can be made that in having government agencies certify which schools qualify for vouchers we will end up with a more centralized, more expensive and likely more unyielding bureaucracy than currently exists.
The old axiom, "He who pays the piper calls the tune," still applies even if all government schools are abolished, as long as it's tax money that is used.
I could have saved the time it took writing my own reply if I'd seen yours first.
Agreed that the feds should butt out of education.
But...in a totally free market system you’re still going to have the Macy’s, the Sears, the Walmarts, and the Dollar Generals.
Could private contractors do better with less?
Does the author beleive that every public school is liberal and ever private school conservative?
Does the author actually believe that social problems in schools vanish when the students wear uniforms while attending schools with “academy” as part of their name?
What about homeschooling? Does the author really believe that homeschooling is a viable option for anyone and everyone who wants to do so? (I’m betting that everyone knows someone who should absolutley never homeschool children!)
Privatizing school won’t eliminate political influence, won’t elimnate social problems, won’t make teachers any better than they are, and won’t eliminate objectionable topics (sex ed, revisionist history, etc).
Public schools are easy targets, but nobody wants to admit that schools are normally a reflection of their community. If the community sucks, then so will the school. It is hard to find a really great community with really terrible schools.
You don’t HAVE to send your kids to any school - but, as you just pointed out public schools are required to deal with all students and cannot refuse to take “welfare” children. If we, instead, send welfare children to your private schools then private schools would have the same problems as public schools. Your knee jerk tendency to blame public schools and public school teachers is off the mark. Try to “think outside the box.”
That doesn't mean, though, that any level of US government has to operate and staff the schools. The Supreme Court ruling can just as easily be met through the private sector. But the catch would be that the government would have to pay for it (meeting the 'provide' mandate).
In any case, having the private sector run schools as a 'for-profit' industry would increase the quality and decrease the cost... providing that government didn't turn it into another monopoly like how some do with cable television.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.