AZ has another bill.Follow

Omega,



How about using tax dollars to exclude children from attending certain field trips based solely on their race? Apparently this is acceptable to liberals.

And what you call "US Flag waving" I call US History. I know liberals don't like this either; can't very well have the populace valuing concepts like freedom and independence for liberalism to work.

Conservatives are the producers; liberals are the theifs. I would much rather have children taught conservative values than how best to rip off their neighbor.

Homoseuality is a plague on american society and should be taught as such.

Would it really matter to you? Honestly?

Depending on the poll, 60-70% of the AZ population supports the latest immigration law. Did that change your position on the issue?

California citizens have consistently voted in opposition to redefining marriage to include gay couples. Has that ever been a factor in your decision to accept or reject that position?


I just find it unlikely that your position would be different if it were revealed to you that a majority of AZ citizens agreed with the law. You never know though, one day you might just surprise me! ;)

Ok. Found another:



I addressed this in an earlier post. The reason there aren't very many (or even "any") non-religious private schools aimed at working and middle class families is because of the opportunity costs involved, which make it almost impossible to compete with existing public schools. For most families in that income range, the choice between "free" public school, and even moderately priced private school isn't going to be made at a sufficient rate for such schools to exist.

The presence of public schools effectively eliminates any competition in that price range. Switch from directly funding those schools to simply handing out vouchers and you'll see that change very quickly.

The argument for vouchers isn't based on whether the education would be "better" though (although there's plenty of debate on that as well). The larger point is that it eliminates a whole host of problems and arguments about what can or should be taught in the "public school system". Once you give parents the freedom to choose which school to send their kids to, arguments over curriculum, indoctrination, religion, cultural studies, etc all become less of an issue. They'll never go away entirely because there's never going to be a perfect set of choices, but at least many more people will have choices.

IMO, as long as the quality of education in core curriculum areas are even the same, it's worth switching to an all-voucher system over time. The only reason not to do it is if overall education quality would suffer, and I'm not aware of anyone making that claim. If we can offer the same quality education while giving parents choices, and reducing the number of arguments over what must be taught in our existing one-size-fits-all education model, then we should do it.


It's like having a choice between a deli that serves just ham on rye, and one that serves 15 varieties of sandwiches, and you're arguing we shouldn't switch because the other 14 choices aren't any cheaper than the ham on rye.

Edited, May 20th 2010 6:23pm by gbaji

Except that they don't taste the same, and if we go to the other deli, we don't have constant arguments about what one sandwich the deli we have today should serve.

The analogy is more accurate if we assume that the deli we have only serves one type of sandwich, but that sandwich is determined based on some labyrinthine process of public discussion and debate and political interest groups. We're also not talking about "driving across the state", but rather changing that deli into one which serves multiple sandwiches and lets everyone choose which one they want.

Even if the prices are the same and the quality is the same, the very fact that people get to choose for themselves rather than constantly fighting over which sandwich everyone must eat is worth it. Don't you agree? Even if the number of choices is limited, it's still better than just the one, right? It's kinda overwhelmingly obvious that this is a better way to go.

And yes, it is about political ideology. But one ideology says that it's a good thing for everyone to have to eat the same sandwich because that way they get to choose which sandwich everyone has to eat, and the other ideology dares to suggest that each person should be able to choose which sandwich they eat. I'm just not sure how anyone could argue against the second position, yet a whole lot of people still do.

When it can be proven that a voucher program will produce a less effective education, I'll stop advocating that we use such a system.



As opposed to the pitfalls of the system we have now? How much time and money do we spend arguing about what should or should not be allowed in a public school? Prayer debate? Done. Prom date requirement arguments? Gone. Sex education arguments? A thing of the past. Concerns about social indoctrination? Not a problem anymore.

I know you want to make this 100% about whether or not core curriculum would be improved or not, but that's really the smallest part of this issue. There are so many good reasons to switch to a voucher system and pretty much zero not to. The best argument against it is that it would take some time shifting over and there would be some issues along the way. IMO, that's a pretty weak reason not to do this. For a guy who sees nothing wrong with massive changes to our nations health care system, where the benefits are far more debatable, it's kinda strange that you take this position on education.

I already answered your questions.



But what would really matter to me is the fact that you keep saying that these parents want these classes canceled. I would like to see you prove that. I'm pretty sure you can't. But so long as the class isn't mandatory, I don't see a problem keeping it.



And, once again, I've already addressed this. My problem is with the bill saying that promoting solidarity is bad. I disagree. I wouldn't want to see a class that is designed primarily for students of a particular race, or to promote resentment towards a certain ethnic group. And I don't believe these classes do either of these things. I can easily see them promoting solidarity, and I have no problem with that. In fact, I see solidarity as a good thing. Can you read my points and understand what I'm saying before replying?



And if I don't see that change "very quickly" after your vouchers are put in place? If I live in Middle Tennessee, in the Bible Belt, I have a child that I specifically do not want taught in a religious school, and that's all that's offered to me, what then? I have to leave my extended family behind, quit my job, have my husband quit his job, move to a place with a school that won't indoctrinate my child, and pray that we can find jobs to support us? That's ********* And what we have now already addresses that. Unless you want to see the government force private secular schools to places like this that wouldn't ordinarily have one.

You can't use tax money to exclude anyone, hillbilly. Since they're excluded, they aren't using the tax money. What I do have a problem with, would be using tax money to fund a school trip where kids of only a certain race were excluded (like the PA case I believe you're inferring too). That is unacceptable to this liberal.



America can, has, & will continue to make mistakes. Instead of learning from them, the history books leave them out (I dare you to find any citations in any US textbooks that mention that we LOST the Vietnam war, as an example). "World" history is also left out of most text books & despite how awesome the USA is/was, America is a pretty young country compared to almost everywhere else in the world. NOT teaching this stuff perpetuates the "stupid American" mind set of much of the rest of the world, which many Americans don't care about. Yet we wonder why we're getting "left behind" when compared to the rest of the world. The US is 15th out of 27 developed countries in reading comprehension, 24/29 in Math, & 21/30 in Sciences.

#1? Not quite.




These conservative certainly were thieves.


Cite? Remember hillbilly, we Massholes legalized the gay marriage years ago & there have been no plagues, no raining down of sulfur, no earthquakes (here), & no locusts. There was some gnashing of teeth, but they got bored with it & moved on to getting casinos legalized.

Edited, May 21st 2010 3:54am by Omegavegeta

There appears to be disagreement over whether or not there is education benefit to private schools. And not all private schools are conservative placation hives.

Exactly. And that's just one study. It's not as though voucher programs haven't been tried before, they just aren't any sort of silver bullet and each experiment with the shows it. Even the cited study has a flaw in; you can adjust for economic status but by their very nature private schools are self selecting. Ignoring things such as testing to get in, it is more difficult from a paperwork and logistic perspective to send your kids to a private school than to a public school. Parents who go through the hoops are innately more likely to be involved in their child's education. When cities have tried mass voucher programs and eliminated most of the effort, they've found a couple of things: The first year or two, parents flood into the program and use the vouchers. Afterward, there's a pretty high attrition rate back to public schools because parents don't see any extra results from the private schools. And that students perform, on balance, equally well in both settings. I'm personally looking for more compelling evidence than that before I start advocating a complete change of the system.


I understand that it wasn't your argument but I found it telling that Gbaji's examples weren't even "A parent might want a school that focuses more on math than science" but "what about prayer? And keeping gays away from prom? And Sex ed? 'Social indoctrination'?..." He's not asking for better education -- he even admits that it won't be better education. What he wants are conservative placation hives. He's envisioning a cottage industry of new schools popping up, funded by taxpayer vouchers which offer not a better education but a comfortable political ideology for the parents.

Education is all ready in the hands of the states.



I know you're trolling hillbilly, but really?

Moebius,




Bingo...of course to liberals they're still state controlled. That's kind of like liberal politicians running freddie and fannie into the ground then blaming big business.

I know it happened & it was certainly significant, but Katrina didn't happen because God's a homophobe.