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Private Schools Are Indefensible
The Atlantic ^ | 3/11/2021 | Caitlin Flanagan

Posted on 03/19/2021 4:30:15 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom


Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene
Elite schools breed entitlement, entrench inequality—and then pretend to be engines of social change.

Dalton is one of the most selective private schools in Manhattan, in part because it knows the answer to an important question: What do hedge-funders want?

They want what no one else has. At Dalton, that means an “archaeologist in residence,” a teaching kitchen, a rooftop greenhouse, and a theater proscenium lovingly restored after it was “destroyed by a previous renovation.”

So it was a misstep when Jim Best, the head of school—relatively new, and with a salary of $700,000—said that Dalton parents couldn’t have something they wanted. The school would not hold in-person classes in the fall. This might have gone over better if the other elite Manhattan schools were doing the same. But Trinity was opening. Ditto the fearsome girls’ schools: Brearley, Nightingale-Bamford, Chapin, Spence.

How long could the Dalton parent—the $54,000-a-kid Dalton parent—watch her children slip behind their co-equals? More to the point, how long could she be expected to open The New York Times and see articles about one of the coronavirus pandemic’s most savage inequalities: that private schools were allowed to open when so many public schools were closed, their students withering in front of computer screens and suffering all manner of neglect?

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: classenvy; elitism
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I wonder if the author checked to see how many senior Atlantic editors sent their kids to one of these schools?
1 posted on 03/19/2021 4:30:15 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Virtue signaling is all that has ever mattered.


2 posted on 03/19/2021 4:34:12 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (WHEN TYRANNY BECOMES LAW, REBELLION BECOMES DUTY 1-6-21, American Revolution II Began)
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To: CincyRichieRich

Private schools for party loyalists will remain.

For everyone else, it is the public (re) education camps


3 posted on 03/19/2021 4:36:57 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (We are being played by forces most do not understand)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Maybe they could fix the public schools, instead.


4 posted on 03/19/2021 4:41:36 AM PDT by Fido969 ( Sc)
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To: Erik Latranyi

GUM department stores.


5 posted on 03/19/2021 4:42:08 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Patriots, stop looking at the politicians as enemies. Look at the complicit Legacy Media.)
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To: CincyRichieRich

Caitlin Flanagan is truly an insane person, as is the Atlantic editor for allowing such insanity to be published.


6 posted on 03/19/2021 4:44:46 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Oh, Caitlin...

7 posted on 03/19/2021 4:47:33 AM PDT by BookmanTheJanitor
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Its jealousy pure and simple.


8 posted on 03/19/2021 4:48:31 AM PDT by MrRelevant
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Caitlin Flanagan, FU.


9 posted on 03/19/2021 4:49:52 AM PDT by Vision (Elections are one day. Reject "Chicago" vote harvesting. Election Reform Now. Obama is an evildoer.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
I know! Let's ban all private schools in America.

The elites can still send their children to boarding schools in, in, hmmmmm, Russia, and China?

10 posted on 03/19/2021 4:51:38 AM PDT by null and void (The media decides what news you can see and NOT SEE. But don't you dare call 'em Not-Sees)
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To: BookmanTheJanitor

Exodus 20:17
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.


11 posted on 03/19/2021 4:51:57 AM PDT by Theophilus (Dems fear fear. Christians fear God. )
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Anybody can get their kid a vastly superior education to public school - and for free. But you have to want it.

Khanacademy.org is one way. But there are many others.


12 posted on 03/19/2021 4:52:23 AM PDT by cuban leaf (We killed our economy and damaged our culture. In 2021 we will pine for the salad days of 2020.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Many of the elite private schools are as infected with the “woke” social justice nonsense as the public schools.

Here is a recent news article on Dalton and an “anti-racist” manifesto created by its teachers:https://www.foxnews.com/us/teachers-at-posh-nyc-school-release-8-page-anti-racism-manifesto-sparks-uproar-report


13 posted on 03/19/2021 5:00:34 AM PDT by Stravinsky
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
Alinsky Progressives have concrete, immovable goals.
They have tactics that help them achieve those goals.
Nothing is to get in the way of achieving those goals.

Jim Best is an Alinsky Progressive.
14 posted on 03/19/2021 5:06:26 AM PDT by 100%FEDUP (I'm seeing RED!)
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To: Stravinsky
Many of the elite private schools are as infected with the “woke” social justice nonsense as the public schools.

Sadly, even Catholic schools, which are generally much more affordable, are being infected. The old school nuns with the rulers are retiring and being replaced by liberation theology wing nuts.

15 posted on 03/19/2021 5:14:43 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
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To: CincyRichieRich

Part of her complaint is that private schools don’t pay taxes on “income” from tuition and donations. She doesn’t realize that the money was already taxed when earned by the payer.


16 posted on 03/19/2021 5:15:22 AM PDT by HapaxLegamenon (You can numb you got the plate OK thanks)
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To: Sirius Lee
Good times...
17 posted on 03/19/2021 5:16:04 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Envy is poisonous.


18 posted on 03/19/2021 5:33:02 AM PDT by NicoDon
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To: Carl Vehse; Oshkalaboomboom
Caitlin Flanagan is truly an insane person, as is the Atlantic editor for allowing such insanity to be published.

If you read the article (!) you'll find its pretty much spot-on. Here's one example:

But what makes these schools truly ludicrous is their recent insistence that they are engines of equity and even “inclusivity.” A $50,000-a-year school can’t be anything but a very expensive consumer product for the rich. If these schools really care about equity, all they need to do is get a chain and a padlock and close up shop.

That could have been posted by anyone on FR and gotten kudos. The writer actually has a decent sense of humor:

These are fundraising events dedicated to financing a major school project: paving the locker rooms with gold coins, annexing Slovakia, putting out a hit on a rival headmaster.

Finally, there is the soft racism that comes with elite private schools...

the expectation that Black kids would be excellent athletes (and possibly weaker students); insulting assumptions about Black students’ family backgrounds; teachers repeatedly confusing the names of Black students; other students constantly reaching out and touching Black girls’ hair; and non-Black students using the N‑word.

...and the crux of the article, in an Instagram post ...

our kids are being taught terrible values: that hypocrisy and dishonesty are fine so long as you virtue-signal the right fashionable politics. And that those fashionable politics are basically meaningless—they are just for show, a way to make being privileged and wealthy truly guilt-free.

The Atlantic is an odd publication: it stumbles around in the leftist fog of wokism, elitism, and every other ism that stands against classical liberalism and good taste. But once in a while, a subversive mildly traditionalist piece gets published.

In a way, the same hope accompanying such a piece's publication is what propels Deplorables in the darkness of the Biden presidency*.

19 posted on 03/19/2021 5:35:29 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

My children all went to “Blue Ribbon” Catholic schools since birth at a tremendous personal financial sacrifice.

The public schools in my area are excellent however just academic education is just a part of raising a child. The moral and ethical component is critical as well.

The public schools were lacking in this area.

Of course, your children can go to public school and as parents deliver this component as well (which we always reinforced at home) but the battle is more difficult.

Leading by example at home is the first step...


20 posted on 03/19/2021 5:37:54 AM PDT by nevergore (I have a terrible rash on my covfefe....)
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