Woodruff wrote:thegreekdog wrote:Woodruff wrote:thegreekdog wrote:Woodruff wrote:I feel reasonably comfortable that Hillary wouldn't, at the very least, nominate an unadulterated and unqualified trainwreck for the Secretary of Education post. That one scares the shit out of me.
Yeah, she's not unqualified Woodruff. Her "unqualification" results from her support of school choice. The Blue Team, which supports public school teacher unions, has determined that school choice and vouchers are bad, even though they benefit poor and black Americans to the extent that they are largely in favor of school choice. To avoid having you post more, yes, I have read all the bad things about her (like the Christian stuff and the stupid things she says), and it's irrelevant. Think about why the Blue Team is posting all the bad stuff about her. Think about what school choice does for poor black kids. I've seen it real time and I know it's ad hominem, but private schools and charter schools help these kids get a good education. Any Democrat worth his or her salt should be in favor of school choice because it helps poor American kids. But they aren't because public school teacher unions give them loads of loot. As you can probably tell, this whole thing disgusts me more than anything that Trump is currently doing. I'm very happy she's on the verge of being confirmed.
This really couldn't be further from the truth. I'm even a little shocked to hear you say it, because it shows a lack of critical thinking, which is something I've always thought you had in bundles.
School choice (particularly regarding vouchers) results in great things for those who have parents who are interested and involved in their childrens' educations. Unfortunately, those qualities are lacking in our poorer areas, for many reasons...not the least is that many of those parents DON'T HAVE TIME to be involved in their childrens' educations. The result of this inability is that those children who, through no choice or action of their own, will be relegated to schools that hold only those like them...the children of parents who are either not interested or just not involved (but many times both) in their childrens' education. These now-certainly-failing schools will be CREATED by school choice vouchers, and they will be a cesspool of poor results even for those students who desire to do well.
We would absolutely be failing a multitude of students, students who would be placed in that failing situation through no choice nor fault of their own.
Sigh. I was hoping you wouldn't resort to namecalling, but I guess I was wrong.
Namecalling? Where? I'm certainly well-versed in namecalling when I think it's appropriate, but I don't see anywhere in that post where I did any such thing. It seems like a very odd claim on your part, but I'd be curious to have you explain it if you think you can.
thegreekdog wrote:Your post ignores the issue (Devos and/or school choice) to discuss an issue (parental involvement) that (1) affects the status quo, (2) is relevant whether we have school choice/vouchers or not, and (3) is not solved by the Secretary of Education. In sum, your post is irrelevant to the discussion. In fact, your post lacks any kind of critical thinking at all, merely providing some broad generalizations that are irrelevant and not backed up by data. You did not address Devos at all in either of your posts. And your attack on school choice is "well, the parents still have to decide and since they're bad, public education is better" which in addition to having zero data is absurd on its face. If parents can be bad, how is having or not having school choice relevant?
Because public schools without school choice/vouchers where the parents aren't doing their duty can still be held up by those who are doing their duty. There won't be the "good parent flight" (or whatever you want to call it) and those schools will still get necessary funding, rather than being left in the waste of lack of funding that will result for those students and schools within the school choice/voucher system. Further, those "unchosen" schools will then further decay, due to a much increased percentage of parental non-involvement, seeming to prove the presumption, as long as one isn't willing to look at the situation very closely. Critics of public schools will be able to claim "see, those schools have gotten EVEN WORSE since this system was implemented"...well duh, of course they did. Think of it as the white-flightization (though rather than racial lines it will be along poverty lines) of the public school system.
You were "shocked" that I showed a "lack of critical thinking" and then proceeded to not explain your point. Dressing up "you're an idiot" is still name-calling especially when you provide no basis for the criticism whatsoever. In any event...
It appears, and you can confirm, that your point is that all the students with good parents will go to private schools leaving underfunded public schools with bad parents and therefore bad kids. I can't disagree with the bad parents and bad kids part except that it might be interesting to see what happens if an entire region had only private schools.
But let's talk about funding. As far as I can tell, public schools will not lose funding because students go to private schools. Is there something that shows that tax dollars will be spent less per student in public schools because some of those dollars no longer go to public schools (and "follow the student" to a private school)? If you spend $1,000 on public schools for 10 students, $100 per student, and then 4 of those students go to private school and that $40 goes with them, that leaves $60 for public school and $10 per student, same as before. And I don't even think that's what actually happens. I think something like $4 goes with each student, leaving even more money per student for the public school kids. For example, my kids go to Catholic school (which I pay for). I also pay taxes which pays for public education. I don't get to pay less taxes because my kids don't go to public school.
In any event, let's pretend that the public schools have less money. Is there any indication that money going to public education does anything positive? I believe you've indicated in this thread and in past threads that education is largely controlled by parents and students. If a student has a bad parent, he/she is likely to be a bad student. That is probably true no matter how much money we throw at the problem.
In 2014, the United States spent $12,731 per student, good for #5 on the OECD list. I'm not sure how our graduation rates or overall education measures up, but I recall that we're pretty sucky. So the view of the school choice people is probably worth a shot given that throwing more money out there has not appeared to help.
http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Ma ... 4-en#page2And for what it's worth, I was a big proponent of public education until I saw what it does to inner city kids in Philadelphia. A kid who wants to learn needs to get into a positive environment. It's all well and good to want to help everyone, but for the last 40+ years we've just been screwing everyone so I'd like to try something that helps some kids rather than something that helps no kids.
All that to say, Betsy Devos is getting attacked because she's a school choice person. Everything she said ("guns in schools" and "God's work") were completely taken out of context. I've read the full text of both of those speeches and the way that Team Blue is using them is despicable and is only done to serve the teachers unions, not their own constituents.
