First shots fired in Republican plans to defund public schools

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/610

So... lets make public schools worse, and no longer require nutritious meals... lovely.

This is your party, Republicans, these are your parties actions... and you shan't be allowed to disown it!

 

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And we have a real life example of what the future holds for US education, Kansas has been down the Trumpian educational path:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/kansas-school-funding/

Kansas ranks 46 of of 50, just 4 from the bottom, in national rankings.

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-states-compare

 

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When they say, "Government doesn't work!" it's not a complaint, but a thesis Republicans are trying to prove.

We should note that working against the basic concept of civilized society is, by definition, antisocial.

To the one, it sounds like hyperbole to suggest the vote for Trump was an anti-American demonstration.

To the other, they're trying to wreck the country.

 

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I have a real big problem with the voucher system, which is basically using tax money (our money) to fund private (mostly religious) schools. It's just not right.

Of course I realize how shitty our public schools have become, so the solution has to start here.

 

Like profitable prisons with a quota of 90% occupancy before any prisoners are sent to the government one, or kickbacks to judges for sentencing juvenile offenders to private "rehabilitation facilities" that are not held to the mandated standard of care? Do you know that some of the charter schools don't actually exist, or close a couple of weeks after cashing the cheque?

How shitty? In what way? How do you know? All of them? If so, how come you're still ranked 14th in the world?
If there is a discrepancy in the quality of education from state to state, shouldn't there be some federal oversight?

All these bozo want to do is make education unavailable to poor people and black people - like in slavery days. That was obvious from the appointment as heads of departments to the worst enemies of those departments.
That's what it's really about: they want their serfs back.

 

Doesn't Canada have any decent public stations, eh? (giggles)

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Public stations - for what?
Our schools are fairly good, last I heard.
But there was a decade of conservative government, during which the religious and private schools got a boost from public funds, so a fair bit of damage was done.
In this case, the fact that education is under provincial jurisdiction is an advantage - at least for BC and Ontario.

 

What, people will have a choice to avoid sending their children to leftist propaganda? What did you really think would happen from effectively excluding half the population from education policy decisions? You have the schools you wanted. Deal.

 

And science classes, etc.

The problem was that the teachers and the like weren't able to exclude them - they had got hold of the financing, and other decisions.

 

This is a complaint I've encountered before, but none of the complainants elaborate. What, exactly, is being taught in public school that qualifies as "leftist propaganda"?
In what subjects does it manifest, and how does the curriculum differ from that of private schools?

 

In the factual world that wasn't an issue. Parents sent their kids to learn math, science, English etc.

In the post-factual world, right wingers demand an alternative to the liberal propaganda known as "science." As a result, kids will grow up denying science, and society will accelerate its decline.

 

Evolution. Paleontology. Geology. Climate science. Space science. Things like that. We hear it more and more often - "why not teach both sides and let kids decide?"

 

Oh. I thought it was things like Democracy, equality under the law; liberty and justice for all. You know, this kind of stuff:

She must have gone to public school.

 

A People's History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn.

“If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
― Howard Zinn

“What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor--inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing--permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.”
― Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

As a young man, Zinn made the acquaintance of several young Communists from his Brooklyn neighborhood. They invited him to a political rally being held in Times Square. Despite it being a peaceful rally, mounted police charged the marchers. Zinn was hit and knocked unconscious. This would have a profound effect on his political and social outlook. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn#Early_life

Let's talk about socialism. I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let's have a kinder, gentler society. Let's share things. Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn#Socialism​

Common-core and it's underlying critical theory.
Public school sex-ed.
Political correctness.
Environmentalism.

Or do you think these are conservative ideals?

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I do not see the relevance of the book excerpts.

Really? This doesn't sound all that radical

Do private schools have a philosophy of low-quality math and grammar? Or is it important that kids from Tennessee should have a lesser chance at higher education than kids from Connecticut, because their parents have lower incomes? I suppose there is something conservative to be said for keeping the underdogs under forever.

Oh yeah, better they should find out behind the barn... or in the ER.

Whatever that means. I suspect you mean all that same stuff I mentioned about equality and justice.

Yeah, heaven forbid children find out what's poisoning their water and air.

I think these are ideals that promote the survival of mankind. If survival is conservation, then these are conservative ideals.
Certainly not Republican ones.
I can see why some people would be eager to protect their children from them. After all, you need to rear up the next generation of mean, gun-totin, unemployable ignoramuses.
Troube is, these are the kids whose schools will keep deteriorating until they fall down altogether.
The people who can afford private school will rear the next generation of manipulators of the ignorant armies.

 

The sooner we end the monopoly Government Schools have on education, the better. I'd sooner send a child to a well-run Catholic school than a Government School. And I'm a strong atheist.

 

Common core? I sure hope both conservatives and liberals support basic educational standards.
Sex ed? Again, both parties have a stake in keeping teen pregnancy, abortion rates and STD rates lower.
Political correctness? That's basically politeness - and yes, schools should require their students be civil to both other students and to teachers.
Environmentalism? Both parties should support teaching science and should discuss human impacts on that environment.

 

Monopoly? When were private schools disallowed in the US? When were religious schools forbidden? http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/types-of-schools/
People with money have choice, and always did. The well-heeled religious always did, as well.
Public schooling was instituted for the children who would otherwise not have any education at all.Back then, they were put to work in factories, mills, mines or shipyards, on farms or on the street - now, there isn't even work enough for their parents and child labour hasn't been needed in almost a century.
However,

, so it's up to the states how this will play out. Disparity will go back to pre-60's level.

When the public schools in red states are sold off - just as when any public asset is sold off - the people who have been supporting it lose their investment and their benefits; the 'public servant' who does the selling gets his kick-back; the buyer gets a bargain.
60% or more of children in those regions of America are left out in the cold.
You can't send them back to the cotton fields. Guess what they'll grow up to be.

There is nothing like a Republican for cutting off his nose to spite his face.

 

Those aren't "ideals". I presume you meant "ideas", in some vague manner.

Common core and its measured outcome based theory is famously a conservative idea, championed by Reagan's Secretary of Education William Bennett. (https://www.brookings.edu/wp-conten...nservative-Roots-of-the-Common-Core_FINAL.pdf

Political correctness is likewise an obsession of conservatives and rightwing media folks, to the point that they send memos around establishing the proper vocabulary to use, and guys like Bill Maher get hounded, boycotted, and fired from media positions they handle well simply for not going along with the nouns du jour.

Environmentalism is just science, and cleaning up after yourself - expressions of conservative values, both of them.

Sex ed at school is perhaps a liberal notion - conservatives prefer traditional ignorance, on the apparent presumption that it worked for them and their parents and on back to the olden times of virtue and innocence (when, btw, syphilis was a major cause of death in the US, and teenage pregnancy was significantly more common than it is now).

And so forth.

 

I wonder how a society would turn out if there were only public schools and religion teaching confined to Sunday school.
Would teachers at a private school become less able to provide good teaching when they teach at a government school.
Could not the opportunity of equal education for all members of a society be considered to be a good thing.
Alex