Posted on 12/26/2015 4:58:56 AM PST by Kaslin
Can you name the most contentious issue in American politics?
Here's a hint. It's being fought at the federal, state and local levels. And it doesn't go away. The struggle is persistent, ongoing, unending.
Here is a second hint. The issue is not gay marriage, or gun control, or police brutality and or immigration. Those issues are either settled, largely settled, isolated or completely out of the control of local and state governments.
Here is a third hint. The issue divides Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. But it is especially divisive among Democrats and among people who call themselves "liberal."
Give up?
The most divisive issue in American politics is: What should we do about the education of children from low income families?
To appreciate how divisive the issue is among Democrats consider that Bernie Sanders can't talk for two minutes without bringing up the issue of inequality. But when it comes to allowing poor children to escape bad schools and go to better ones he is virtually silent. He opposes public money going to private schools and has little encouraging to say about public school choice. Yet the state he represents (Vermont) has the oldest and most extensive system of school choice found anywhere in the country.
Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to vigorously stand up for the kids is costing her big campaign contributions. Although she has supported student testing and charter schools in the past, her recent cozying up to the teachers unions is making wealthy school reform Democrats close their checkbooks to her presidential campaign.
To make matters more complex, parents are becoming more of a factor. In a recent election in Los Angeles pro-reform Latino parents managed to prevail against the teachers unions and white voters in affluent suburbs in what USA Today called "the priciest and most bitter school board race in history."
The Obama administration has been completely inconsistent. Under Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the administration tied state grants and waivers from onerous federal regulations to support for charter schools and the linking of teacher pay to student test scores. His replacement, John King, is a charter school co-founder who, as New York's education chief, pursued reforms designed to root out bad teachers.
Yet the administration's Justice Department fought a losing battle in court in an effort to stop Louisiana's new state-wide voucher program. And the administration joined with Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats in an ongoing struggle to end Washington DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program. Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform explains the issue this way:
Democrats oppose this program not because it is failing but because it is succeeding. They fear that as these choice programs succeed, poor and minority moms and dads are going to figure out the Democrats are selling their kids out to the teachers unions.
To appreciate what's at stake, consider two Harlem schools that operate side by side in the same building: Wadleigh Secondary School (a public school) and Harlem West (a charter school). At both schools 95 percent of the students and black and Hispanic and most are from poverty level families. As one of the teachers describes it:
The students … eat in the same cafeteria, exercise in the same gym and enjoy recess in the same courtyard. They also live on the same blocks and face many of the same challenges.
Yet not one of the public school students met state standards in math (a typical question: What is 15% of 60?) or English, while the passing rates at the charter school were 96 and 75 percent, respectively. The city wide scores, by the way, were 35 and 30 percent, despite New York City average spending of $20,331 per pupil.
So, should there be more Harlem Wests and fewer Wadleighs?
Hard to believe, but that is currently the most contentious political issue in New York City and maybe in the whole of New York state.
Also hard to believe, the CNN panel asked not one question about the public schools in last Saturday's Democratic presidential debate.
LoL. Some Hillary staffer is plagiarizing your reply right now.
Khanacademy.org
It’s free and far better than public schools. Many of them actually use it now.
Public schools are a 19th century paradigm that outlived its usefulness at the turn of the century.
What ever happened to the apprentice programs the were once available for the young folk..???
“I’d first ask: What is the goal of education?”
The answer is the same as “what is the goal of government”?
And the answer in today’s America is “To provide pensions for legions of marginally competent people”
The corollary is that actual education (or whatever government is supposed to be doing) is accomplished despite government, not because of it.
Since the goal is pensions/employment, regardless of competence, there can be no actual standards, no tests of proficiency, no measures of efficiency or effectiveness.
A tertiary goal of government is to use government to perpetuate more government - squashing political opponents, or proponents of any sort of “reform” or anyone who might insert fiscal rationality - because it might reduce employment/pensions.
It doesn’t matter what agency - education, military, IRS, whatever or if it is local, state, federal. The first goal is to employ legions of the otherwise unemployable and get taxpayers who must live in the real world to pay for it.
The number one issue is education of kids from low income families?
That’s just crazy
>>I’d first ask: What is the goal of education?
Yes. The real goal. Not the one they tell parents.
Yep.
No favors from the government are free. In fact, the price is astronomical.
That’s good you figured that out in your head. I remember the formula for calculating % as part divided by total and x 100. Gotta use the calculator when the numbers aren’t ‘so round’.
The answer is 9 not 9% :).
The #1 issue in America is that we can’t agree on what the hell the #1 issue in America is. :-P
>>The #1 issue in America is the danger of Terrorism by ISIS
Only because people can’t do math. As an American, you are much more likely to die at the hands of a poorly-educated, but well-indoctrinated, black male than to even be an eyewitness to a terrorist attack.
Today’s schools teach kids of low intelligence or motivation two things: you can’t learn and it’s someone else’s fault.
Anything liberals control always end up the same. Costing more while increasingly becoming less effective.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing all education in this nation from pre-K through university graduate school. What is needed is complete separation of school and state.
@John C. Goodman/Townhall/GOP/Dems - Wrong question because it's none of your collectivist business.
Two of the largest contributors to Democrat causes in both effort and money are the AFT and the NEA.
Their impact has been lessened in states with right to work laws as union membership is no longer compulsory.
The primary concern of Democrats is not the education of children, but the perpetuation of that cash cow.
okay, than strike the % mark
Yes, precisely. It won't happen, of course, but in theory this is the only legitimate conservative position, in my view.
An ironic twist to "enlightened self-interest". Statists figure their best hope of continued employment is more government. So they create demand for more government by finding, worsening, or creating problems for government to "fix".
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