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Destroying private schools

Thread ID: 16713 | Posts: 28 | Started: 2005-02-12

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weisbrot [OP]

2005-02-12 02:46 | User Profile

From BADLANDS [url]http://www.littlegeneva.com/badlands/[/url]

“Conservatives” want to destroy private schools Filed under: General— Badonicus @ 4:27 pm

Back in 1954, when Brown v Board of Education was handed down, real conservatives were horrified. They knew that it meant the destruction of public schooling. They knew that because real conservatives face facts, whether those facts are “nice” or not, and it’s a huge, glaring fact that Whites and coloreds are not equal, and can’t be educated in the same facilities without doing great harm to Whites. Blacks and mestizos and Hmong tribesmen just aren’t very smart. That’s why their countries are the way they are. And it’s a horrible cruelty to White kids to throw them in the same classroom with colored kids, and then teach to the lowest common denominator. It’s HATE, when you get right down to it-hatred of White children. And most people realized this, so they began moving away from Negroes, so that their kids could attend White schools. The Judeoestablishment didn’t like that, and responded by ordering forced busing to integrate public schools. After busing, private schools sprung up all over America so that White kids could get a real education, and the only place to find good public schools is now in rural areas, or extremely expensive suburbs.

And fifty years after Brown, and thirty five years after busing, Negroes and Mexicans still haven’t turned into White people. And they never will. But we can’t admit that. And since we can’t admit the truth, we’ve got to come up with more and more hate filled lunatic schemes to attempt the impossible. Now we’ve got “conservative” Boy George and his No Child Left Behind act, which means, of course, no White kids out in front. How do people get left behind, anyway, except that those around them are making forward progress, and they’re not? And if you can’t help the cripple to run as fast as everyone else, you can certainly force everyone else to hang back and wait for the cripple. And that’s the real goal of NCLB. It promises to close the “achievement gap", which is the huge and embarrassing gap between White test scores and colored test scores, by taking away funding from schools who don’t close the gap. Given the tens of billions of dollars at stake, and the corrupt nature of most of those who run inner city schools, this is an invitation to massive cheating and fraud. There’s already been [URL=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=+suspicious+patterns+scores+school&btnG=Search]several instances[/URL] of it, and the problem’s only going to get worse and worse. Because it’s simply impossible to turn black and brown kids into White kids. They’re just not as smart as Whites, and never will be. That’s just a fact. I can’t help it that fact makes ladies and preachers cry; it’s still a fact. And until we face it, our public schools are only going to get worse.

But soon, the plague will spread to private schools, thru the magic voodoo of vouchers. I’ve written several posts about the destruction blacks have wrought on the once Queen City, Cincinnati, Ohio, including on the topic of blacks and schools. In Cincy, just like the rest of the nation, the schools that have more than a handful of Negro or Mexican students are “underperforming". But the genius governor has a [URL=http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050211/NEWS01/502110386]plan[/URL]-give the kids who’ve destroyed the public schools vouchers so they can do the same thing to private schools:

[QUOTE]Thousands of Cincinnati public elementary and middle-school students could be eligible for state-funded tuition vouchers to attend the private schools of their choice in two years unless the public schools improve their test scores.

Gov. Bob Taft outlined the voucher program as part of his two-year, $51.3 billion budget plan introduced Thursday.

“I just want to encourage, in every way I can, the school leaders in Ohio to address and challenge their consistently failing schools,” he said. “I know these students can learn.”

Taft’s budget, which would have to be approved by the legislature, allocates $9 million for tuition awards to students in persistently low-performing schools statewide, beginning in 2006-07.

Overall funding for primary and secondary education in his budget would increase to $6.9 billion for fiscal year 2006, a 2.1 percent increase, and $7.1 billion in 2007.

Public schools also would receive 3 percent annual increases in base per-pupil funding.

If the voucher program were implemented today, about 70 Ohio schools that were operating last year would be considered low-performing and their students would be eligible for the vouchers. Many, but not all of the schools are in metropolitan districts; Cincinnati had the largest number of schools of any district in the state listed.[/QUOTE]

As NCLB fails to turn black into White, look for “conservatives” to claim that the problem was that NCLB only offered students the option of transferring to another public school, and that the final solution to the achievement gap problem means that they must be allowed to transfer to private schools, paid for by vouchers. Vouchers will become huge in the next several decades, as the search for the Unholy Grail of Equality goes on. And if private schools refuse the vouchers, they will be have no end of trouble about “racism” from the government and the Jewsmedia, and it will finally be made illegal to refuse voucher students. And of course, private schools will be closely watched to make sure that they don’t “disproportionately” discipline or expel colored voucher students.

Then, when the private schools have all been tamed, and turned into miscegenation factories, they can go after the HATE schoolers-the homeschoolers who practice the ultimate in segregation. Because, as the fruitless 50 year old battle to close the achievement gap demonstrates, there’s really only one way to solve the race problem. Interracial marriage. Because as Bob Whitaker always points out, the “race problem” is the White problem.

Happy Hacker

2005-02-12 04:48 | User Profile

[QUOTE]But soon, the plague will spread to private schools, thru the magic voodoo of vouchers.... And if private schools refuse the vouchers, they will be have no end of trouble about “racism” from the government and the Jewsmedia, and it will finally be made illegal to refuse voucher students.

I'm sorry that whole post was an attack on vouchers. A school need merely require every student to attend chapel to prevent vouchers from ever being forced on them, or some other such thing which would disqualify them from accepting vouchers.

Schools that accept vouchers won't be allowed to discriminate racially (how many blacks will want to attend General Lee European Heritage Elementary School). But, schools that don't accept vouchers will not be under any more pressure than they are now.

Given the choice, blacks would go to black schools, leaving the white private schools nearly black-free (ala church on Sunday). Vouchers will segregate the students now in public schools, which is the vast majority of all children in the country.

What you anti-voucher people need to understand is public education is the key tool used to destroy America. Nothing offers as much oppertunity to change the course of America for the better than vouchers. You need to worry less about the nearly insignificant number of children with good parents in good private schools and more about the masses in public schools.

grep14w

2005-02-12 18:39 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I'm sorry that whole post was an attack on vouchers. A school need merely require every student to attend chapel to prevent vouchers from ever being forced on them, or some other such thing which would disqualify them from accepting vouchers. Not if Bush has his way; he's already pushing the intermixing of religion and politics in his recent proposals for federal funding of religious-based charities.

Schools that accept vouchers won't be allowed to discriminate racially (how many blacks will want to attend General Lee European Heritage Elementary School). But, schools that don't accept vouchers will not be under any more pressure than they are now.

How do we know they will continue to be accredited once vouchers for private schools are a fact? Vouchers for private schools by definition get the government more involved in private schools. It's a slippery slope.

It's also a question of money; how many private schools can afford to turn away paying customers? Vouchers vastly increase the number of people who are able to pay for private schools, because it puts tax money in their pockets and it equalizes them with richer parents, so it becomes impossible for private schools to institute de facto segregation based on income alone. Thus, private schools would suddenly be confronted with an influx of students who can now "afford" them (at taxpayer expense) and the private schools would have no legal means to deny them entrance, since they could now afford the tuition, and it is illegal for the school to discriminate based on race.

As to racially aware (pro-white) schools - if any were to actually exist, they would immediately be targeted by the feds and the other usual suspects, vouchers or no vouchers.

Since there aren't any openly pro-white private schools, any of them that tried to "sneak" their way into de facto segregation are in for hard sledding, even without vouchers. Vouchers just muddies the situation more and gets the government even more involved.

Given the choice, blacks would go to black schools, leaving the white private schools nearly black-free (ala church on Sunday). Vouchers will segregate the students now in public schools, which is the vast majority of all children in the country.
If that were true, there would never have been legal racial segregation to begin with.

You seem to think that any voucher system would be fairly and impartially administered. On the contrary, we must assume that it will be deliberately targeted against whites, just as anti-discrimination laws and hate crime laws are rhetorically impartial, but are in reality de facto anti-white. Read Yggdrasil's essays on the importance of the Inner Party in "administering" policies selectively in an anti-white way, while fooling whites into thinking they are in actuality fair and "color blind".

The problem of white naivete is systematic and should always be foremost in our thoughts when addressing these allegedly "neutral" policy questions.

What you anti-voucher people need to understand is public education is the key tool used to destroy America. Yes, and vouchers would then spread this problem to private schools by further erroding the distinction between public and private schooling. Vouchers don't address the problem of why the schools are so terrible. It's not because public schools are inherently bad (they weren't in the past), but rather because they were deliberately made that way as a matter of policy, and vouchers would spread that to private schools even more so. Nothing offers as much oppertunity to change the course of America for the better than vouchers. You need to worry less about the nearly insignificant number of children with good parents in good private schools and more about the masses in public schools.[/QUOTE]In theory, that is a good argument, but it ignores the deliberate nature of the problem; in other words, what we are seeing today isn't a result of the inherently bad nature of anything that the government does, as the libertarians foolishly argue (you see these kinds of arguments regularly like clockwork on Lew Rockwell and similar sites), but rather the deliberate result of a conscious, but usually unstated, policy, to dumb down and miscegenate whites so as to make them more easily manipulatable by the Inner Party.

Vouchers do not address this essential problem. Not addressing the problem, they therefore will become part of the problem.

In a situation where this Inner Party control did not exist, vouchers would be a wonderful solution to merely routine problems with public schools, by introducing some competition. But, if this Inner Party control and its agenda did not exist, there would be considerable less need for any alternatives to public schools and thus less need for vouchers.

Since vouchers don't address the real problem, and spread the real problem to private schools, they don't constitute a panacea for our problems.

Faust

2005-02-13 03:31 | User Profile

weisbrot and Happy Hacker

You both make some good points.

I do agree with Happy Hacker for the most part. [QUOTE]Given the choice, blacks would go to black schools, leaving the white private schools nearly black-free (ala church on Sunday). Vouchers will segregate the students now in public schools, which is the vast majority of all children in the country.

What you anti-voucher people need to understand is public education is the key tool used to destroy America. Nothing offers as much oppertunity to change the course of America for the better than vouchers. You need to worry less about the nearly insignificant number of children with good parents in good private schools and more about the masses in public schools.[/QUOTE]

The high school district in my city used to have open inrollment and it worked great. Blacks went to their schools and whites went to their schools. Someone sued and started busing it was a mess the whole school district went down hill, it was the best school district in the state in the 1960's now it was the worst by the 1990.

The fear that Liberals will use vouchers to school is a very real one.

weisbrot

2005-02-13 15:11 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I'm sorry that whole post was an attack on vouchers. A school need merely require every student to attend chapel to prevent vouchers from ever being forced on them, or some other such thing which would disqualify them from accepting vouchers.

Schools that accept vouchers won't be allowed to discriminate racially (how many blacks will want to attend General Lee European Heritage Elementary School). But, schools that don't accept vouchers will not be under any more pressure than they are now.

Given the choice, blacks would go to black schools, leaving the white private schools nearly black-free (ala church on Sunday). Vouchers will segregate the students now in public schools, which is the vast majority of all children in the country.

What you anti-voucher people need to understand is public education is the key tool used to destroy America. Nothing offers as much oppertunity to change the course of America for the better than vouchers. You need to worry less about the nearly insignificant number of children with good parents in good private schools and more about the masses in public schools.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the lecture, H.

So vouchers will not only improve spelling, they will cure the ills of the U.S. And the way to strengthen and improve private schools is for them to accept federal money and federal regulation, and to accept masses of black and Hispanic children who are suddenly hungering for a quality education?

These masses you speak about- presumably the same masses watching MTV and NFL on their widescreens, and swilling Cokes with their Cheetos. These fine specimens are to suddenly gain a serviceable IQ, reason and judgement, and decide that private schools are the way to go, correct? Then, when market pressures begin to close the formerly successful church oriented private schools- now awash in Hispanics and blacks, who could care less either way about chapel, although the Jews will of course immediately target those schools- these now brilliant "masses" will band together and save the few remaining decent private schools?

Take a look [URL=http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=101&ItemID=7219]here[/URL] at how the No Child Left Behind renders your argument moot. Private schools are on the same "agenda" that Iraq was on a couple years ago, and homeschooling is next. Vouchers won't save private schools, they'll only accelerate their destruction. I don't claim to have answers, but I do think the cure is worse than the disease at this point. And accepting further intrusion and control from the Federal government over education is simply giving up. We're only twenty years or so removed from a time when abolishing the Dept. of Education was considered an achievable goal. Accepting defeat by embracing vouchers is only pushing such goals further away.

CWRWinger

2005-02-13 18:08 | User Profile

IMO, private school educators are only interested in staying a couple percentage points above the local publik indoctrination center/skule. For bragging rights. They are not interested in high academic standards.

Private skules are on the same slippery slope no standards and no real learning.

Private skules have become profit centers for churches, also.

Just my two-cents worth.

jay

2005-02-13 21:55 | User Profile

Great post!

I haven't ever considered the fact that the feds are pushing "vouchers" as a way to infiltrate private schools and dictate their bullshit agenda there. There's a reason people send kids to private schools - to ESCAPE PUBLIC ONES!

What happens when escape is no longer allowed? This whole thing is stupid, and the next time Hannity goes on tv and argues for vouchers, i'll probably vomit (caveat: i don't watch him much anyway, so...)

Bardamu

2005-02-13 22:39 | User Profile

Government involvement in education can never be a beneficial thing.

Sertorius

2005-02-14 01:23 | User Profile

[QUOTE=jay]Great post!

I haven't ever considered the fact that the feds are pushing "vouchers" as a way to infiltrate private schools and dictate their bullshit agenda there. There's a reason people send kids to private schools - to ESCAPE PUBLIC ONES!

What happens when escape is no longer allowed? This whole thing is stupid, and the next time Hannity goes on tv and argues for vouchers, i'll probably vomit (caveat: i don't watch him much anyway, so...)[/QUOTE]

It works the same way with Bush's "Faith Based Initiative". All these preachers who think this is such a fine idea should consider that when you accept fedgov money you accept fedgov control. Talk about the proverbial camel's nose in the tent! On top of it it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 02:18 | User Profile

[QUOTE=weisbrot]And the way to strengthen and improve private schools is for them to accept federal money and federal regulation, and to accept masses of black and Hispanic children who are suddenly hungering for a quality education?

No, the way to improve the quality of the general public is to encourage or enable them to go to schools the government has less control of.

Vouchers won't save private schools, they'll only accelerate their destruction.

You have done good no notice that private schools are being destroyed. And, that is the course you want to stay on. This isn't about the schools that are now private. I'm sure good parents with children in good schools will survive corruption. This is about saving America.

And accepting further intrusion and control from the Federal government over education is simply giving up.

From where I'm standing, you want to preserve the control of the federal governmetn over education.

Quantrill

2005-02-14 02:47 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]No, the way to improve the quality of the general public is to encourage or enable them to go to schools the government has less control of.[/QUOTE] HH, I think the problem is that vouchers will likely not end up sending kids to schools the government has no control of. Instead, it will end up expanding government control to cover private as well as public schools. For a school to be beholden to federal regulations, all it must do is accept any federal money. Vouchers are federal money. It doesn't matter if each familiy decides what to do with the money, it is still federal money. And it will not take long for a federal court to rule to that effect. Once that happens, every private school that has voucher students enrolled (who by that time will account for too much income to simply let go of) will be under the thumb of the federal integration and sensitivity police. Vouchers are a deal with the devil.

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 14:51 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Quantrill] I think the problem is that vouchers will likely not end up sending kids to schools the government has no control of. Instead, it will end up expanding government control to cover private as well as public schools.

No private school will have to take vouchers. Understand?

You're being a bit kneejerk about how much control vouchers will give the government. Look at all the billions in subsidies the government gives to private individuals and companies with very little control going with it.

I doubt if the government offers you a voucher that you'll all of a sudden become an anti-white racist. But, I bet that if millions of children are moved out of public schools that there will be millions fewer being taught to hate whites.

You're focused on a small handful of people with the backbone and resources to resist "free" education while willingly ignoring the many millions of children in public schools who will grow up and control the course of this nation. You're so afraid of a little temptation going to a small handful of people that you willingly ignore the millions of children who will be greatly liberated from government control. You're so backwards that I can hardly believe that it's government control you're worried about.

Vouchers are a deal with the devil.[/QUOTE]

Vouchers are the best hope for America. Every leftist and big-government group knows that and so they violently oppose vouchers. For a conservative to oppose vouchers is just dumbeth. For whites to oppose vouchers is suicidal.

Your vote for America to stay the present course has been registered.

Quantrill

2005-02-14 15:14 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]No private school will have to take vouchers. Understand? And you can guarantee that in perpetuity? The income tax was originally never supposed to affect anyone except the top 5% of wage earners. Understand? The Social Security number was never supposed to be a de facto national identification number. Understand? Nothing in the 1964 Civil Rights Acts was ever supposed to be construed as requiring quotas. Understand?

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]You're being a bit kneejerk about how much control vouchers will give the government. Look at all the billions in subsidies the government gives to private individuals and companies with very little control going with it. Very little control going with it? Perhaps that is the case for money going to corporate welfare, but otherwise, it is certainly not. In what areas does government have 'very little control'?

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker] I doubt if the government offers you a voucher that you'll all of a sudden become an anti-white racist. But, I bet that if millions of children are moved out of public schools that there will be millions fewer being taught to hate whites. You seem to have misunderstood my point. I never said that vouchers will make people anti-white. I said that vouchers are government money. Government money always brings government control. Private schools will take the vouchers, thus taking government money (perhaps some won't, but most will, and even the ones that don't may eventually be forced to.) After a few years, in which the private schools have gotten used to the revenue the vouchers provide, the government will begin regulating certain aspects of private schools that take vouchers. At first, it will be that they can't turn down minorities. Then they won't be able to require religious observance. Then they'll need to make sure they are teaching PC-approved history, etc. etc.

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]You're so backwards that I can hardly believe that it's government control you're worried about.

...For a conservative to oppose vouchers is just dumbeth. For whites to oppose vouchers is suicidal.

...Your vote for America to stay the present course has been registered.[/QUOTE] My original post was pretty mild-mannered, and it makes me wonder why it engendered such an emotional response. Does one post disagreeing with vouchers really make me 'backwards,' 'dumb,' and 'suicidal'?

weisbrot

2005-02-14 15:57 | User Profile

[QUOTE]Look at all the billions in subsidies the government gives to private individuals and companies with very little control going with it.[/QUOTE]

Please excuse the impertinence, but this statement goes past simple ignorance and beyond naivete into an area of near-idiocy.

[QUOTE]I doubt if the government offers you a voucher that you'll all of a sudden become an anti-white racist. But, I bet that if millions of children are moved out of public schools that there will be millions fewer being taught to hate whites. [/QUOTE]

By what curriculum? The one that- by accepting federal money- schools will have to submit for approval to the federal education establishment? This education establishment currently formulates, encourages and approves anti-white curricula- how would the use of vouchers change that practice rather than accelerate it?

Will that federal education bureaucracy suddenly take a hands-off and benevolent approach to the traditional white family, simply because the magic of vouchers has been applied?

[QUOTE]No, the way to improve the quality of the general public is to encourage or enable them to go to schools the government has less control of.[/QUOTE]

And allowing the federal government to channel funds to those schools would reduce their control over private schools? How would this work? Have you ever heard a federal bureaucrat refer to federal funds as "your" money as opposed to "government" money?

[QUOTE]You have done good no notice that private schools are being destroyed. And, that is the course you want to stay on.[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what you meant to say here.

[QUOTE]This isn't about the schools that are now private. I'm sure good parents with children in good schools will survive corruption. This is about saving America...From where I'm standing, you want to preserve the control of the federal governmetn over education[/QUOTE]

Saving America is a noble goal, but is only doable if there is anything left to save. Using the corrupt system we now live under to "save America" is no solution. You're on the right track, HH, but in my opinion you've chosen the wrong engine.

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 16:28 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Quantrill]And you can guarantee that in perpetuity? The income tax was originally never supposed to affect anyone except the top 5% of wage earners. Understand?

Even now, government control of private schools is increasing. It's only a matter of time before the government starts dictating curriculum to private schools. I can't guarantee that vouchers will change that, but vouchers are the best oppertunity to change that. The more people taken out of public schools, the more people there will be who respect private schools, and the fewer there will be who are taught to love big government.

Again, you are voting to stay the course that is leading to increasing government control of private schools.

What you seem bound and determined refuse to appreciate is that this is not about private schools, it's about the nature of society. If the government banned all private schools today, it would hardly make a difference in society. But, if millions of students were moved from government schools to private schools, postive changes would result in society.

You need to start looking at the big picture.

I said that vouchers are government money. Government money always brings government control.

Again, any school that doesn't want to accept that government control they can reject vouchers. That will never change unless America becomes so corrupt that private schools wouldn't be allowed to exist, anyway.

At first, it will be that they can't turn down minorities. Then they won't be able to require religious observance. Then they'll need to make sure they are teaching PC-approved history, etc. etc.

All that is already at risk, even without vouchers. Of course, vouchers will be used to increase the pressure on private schools. And, that is something that we'll always have to fight. But, the schools will always be free to reject vouchers.

Your argument that schools will be addicted to vouchers doesn't stand. As private schools are forced to be inreasingly like public schools (assuming that happens), more parents will be putting their children in voucher-free private schools. If the existing schools don't want to drop vouchers, new private schools will open.

My original post was pretty mild-mannered, and it makes me wonder why it engendered such an emotional response. Does one post disagreeing with vouchers really make me 'backwards,' 'dumb,' and 'suicidal'?[/QUOTE]

Why the emotion? Because you oppose the greatest oppertunity to save America... and your reason is nothing more than vouchers are so good that they'll be too tempting to private schools. You refuse to look at the big picture. You have refused to even acknowledge that there's a world outside of private schools.

Texas Dissident

2005-02-14 16:41 | User Profile

I gotta agree with HH here. Strikes me that some of y'all are making perfect the enemy of the good. The fact is the current system is full-fledged hemorrhaging. Vouchers are a good first step and we can fight those other imagined fights in the future if and as they occur. Get done what we can get done now.

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 16:58 | User Profile

[QUOTE=weisbrot]Please excuse the impertinence, but this statement goes past simple ignorance and beyond naivete into an area of near-idiocy.

There are billions in welfare spending given to people with no string other than that they're poor. There are billions in welfare given to companies with no strong other than that they locate in a given area. There are billions in tax credits and deductions given for many things, with no strings other than the one thing the credit is for. Private colleges have been getting billions of taxpayer dollars with no strings. You can send your preschooler to a church preschool where he will be openly taught to praise Jesus and you can get a credit for it on your taxes.

Where is this great corruption that comes from accepting some government money?

By what curriculum? The one that- by accepting federal money- schools will have to submit for approval to the federal education establishment that currently formulates and approves anti-white curriculums?

What now prevents private schools from being forced to teach anti-white curriculums? Eventually, private schools may bee accused of civil rights violations and forced to teach anti-white curriculums as defense against lawsuits. But, how can vouchers be used for the same thing? The school would use Free Speech and Academic Freedom to shield itself. It would be exceedingly difficult to attach controversial curriculum strings to vouchers.

Besides, it's trivial to undermine any curriculum requirements if the school isn't under direct government management. And, if the schools cannot do this, the parents who now send their kids to private schools would look for private schools that don't accept vouchers.

And allowing the federal government to channel funds to those schools would reduce their control over private schools? How would this work?

Allowing the government to channel funds to private schools would reduce the government influence of children in public schools because those children would no longer be in public schools.

I have no idea what you meant to say here.

I'm saying that private schools are already under assult. The opponents of vouchers want to keep things this way by continuing to raise the masses in public schools where they will be taught to oppose private schools.

weisbrot

2005-02-14 17:06 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]I gotta agree with HH here. Strikes me that some of y'all are making perfect the enemy of the good. The fact is the current system is full-fledged hemorrhaging. Vouchers are a good first step and we can fight those other imagined fights in the future if and as they occur. Get done what we can get done now.[/QUOTE]

If it's bleeding, then let it die. Or put it out of it's (our) misery. I see the point about vouchers being some sort of funded distancing, and I agree that the likely effect would be a temporary improvement for many families who desire but cannot afford to leave the public system. But I think this positive effect would be very short-term, and would result in greatly enhanced federal control mechanisms. In fact, I think that is the goal of the Republican voucher proponents. Remember, the legislators supporting vouchers are the same ones supporting HR 5005/Homeland Security Act. And they're doing it to "protect the children" and save us all. They're the ones pushing "No Child Left Behind": [url]http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=101&ItemID=7219[/url]

Why trust the hand that extends this tempting morsel? Surely we don't believe the "I'm from the government; I'm here to help you" line they're feeding us with this voucher plan...

Texas Dissident

2005-02-14 17:23 | User Profile

[QUOTE=weisbrot]Why trust the hand that extends this tempting morsel? Surely we don't believe the "I'm from the government; I'm here to help you" line they're feeding us with this voucher plan...[/QUOTE]

If the government will give me back even some of the money they take out of my pocket, I'm certainly not going to argue with them about it. Got nothin' to do with trust. You can't truss it. :alucard:

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 17:40 | User Profile

Education (schooling) is the engine that moves America. If you don't change this, nothing else matters. I would not advocate vouchers in a society dominated by private education. But, America is dominated by government schools. I would not advocate vouchers if I thought there were a better and more viable way to get children out of government schools.

"If it's bleeding, then let it die." The problem with that is that all of us will be, and are being, dragged down with the current system. This is small-minded thinking, as if education is a minor issue with not much of an impact on society.

What today's children are taught is what tomorrow's adults will believe. And, I tired of the relatively petty and paranoid concern of some conservatives that if there's a voucher system that some podunk private school ran by counter-culture conservatives (excuse the irony) is going to end up teaching children that Columbus was a slaver, who discovered nothing, but did commit genocide against the Indians.

You don't see Jewish groups and other leftist groups salivating over the prospect of vouchers with the hope of sinking the government's teeth into private schools? They violently oppose vouchers. Why? Because they're not stupid. They know it's not in their interests.

The ADL on school vouchers, "School Vouchers: The Wrong Choice for Public Education" The ACLU, "Bad for Education." Quantrill and Weisbrot, "Hey guys, you're preaching to the choir."

MadScienceType

2005-02-14 17:46 | User Profile

I can appreciate the temptation of getting sumthin' "back" from the gubbermint (oh, can I understand the temptation!) but I find myself agreeing with Weisbrot and others who see this as a camel's nose under the tent, where any short-term gain would be far outweighed by the long-term damage enhanced government oversight would bring. I further see this as another type of "safety valve" designed to placate the people who are fed up with the ridiculous state of the publik skools to prevent them from revolting against the whole sorry mess.

...when you accept fedgov money you accept fedgov control.

Sorry for the unappetizing metaphor, but it's apropos.

"Government money is like a tampon, they both have strings attached. But, unlike the one on the tampon, the government's string isn't useful."

CWRWinger

2005-02-14 17:50 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker] You don't see Jewish groups and other leftist groups salivating over the prospect of vouchers with the hope of sinking the government's teeth into private schools? They violently oppose vouchers. Why? Because they're not stupid. They know it's not in their interests.[/QUOTE]Last time checked, the largest private Christian schools in this area were still opposed to vouchers. They don't want the gov't ordering cirriculum and telling them they can't teach against evolution.

weisbrot

2005-02-14 18:16 | User Profile

[IMG]http://www.matthew-lesko.com/free/stuff/04.jpg[/IMG] Happy Hacker finds free money, new joy from Daddy G.

[url]http://www.matthew-lesko.com/[/url]

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 18:26 | User Profile

[QUOTE=CWRWinger]Last time checked, the largest private Christian schools in this area were still opposed to vouchers. They don't want the gov't ordering cirriculum and telling them they can't teach against evolution.[/QUOTE]

Vouchers would be against the immediate interest of successful private schools. They're doing just fine without vouchers.

They have nothing to gain by vouchers, so even a small string becomes an overriding concern. They also fear the cometition that vouchers will bring.

They might even think vouchers are a good idea, but won't say so because they know many of the parents have the same anti-voucher attitudes of some of you. And, that's great that there are parents that don't want their children going to schools that accept vouchers.

On the other hand, less successful private schools would be more supportive of vouchers.

But, so what?

Why do you anti-voucher people insist on focusing on existing private schools like a laser while ignoring the fate of society as a whole? Such wanton blindness...

Happy Hacker

2005-02-14 18:51 | User Profile

[QUOTE=weisbrot]Happy Hacker finds free money [/QUOTE]

Taxpayers stand to benefit because vouchers will reduce the growth of education costs. Is that so bad? I don't think of is as free money.

You may not be aware of it, but the vast majority of children in America get "free money". Taxpayers already pay 100% of their education costs. And, the government already gets 100% of the control of their schools. And, its fine with me if not a single existing private school ever accepts vouchers. The existing voucher programs are limited to children who start out in public schools.

You and the ADL are in perfect harmony. That doesn't cause you to pause? [URL=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=site:www.adl.org+vouchers]ADL on Vouchers[/URL]

Texas Dissident

2005-02-14 18:51 | User Profile

Well at least the anti-voucher folks here are keeping good company:

[url=http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1585]Fact Sheets: The Truth About Vouchers - Increased Racial and Economic Segregation (People for the American Way)[/url] :thumbsup:

MadScienceType

2005-02-14 19:40 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Taxpayers stand to benefit because vouchers will reduce the growth of education costs. Is that so bad? I don't think of is as free money.

You may not be aware of it, but the vast majority of children in America get "free money". Taxpayers already pay 100% of their education costs. And, the government already gets 100% of the control of their schools. And, its fine with me if not a single existing private school ever accepts vouchers. The existing voucher programs are limited to children who start out in public schools.

You and the ADL are in perfect harmony. That doesn't cause you to pause? [URL=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=site:www.adl.org+vouchers]ADL on Vouchers[/URL][/QUOTE]

Actually, the ADL part does. That could be a warning shot to the Bushies that "proper controls" need to be in place before they'd support the idea. Of course, we all know what sort of "proper controls" they have in mind.

They're most likely worried about the short-term impact the idea would have on their control of the schools and the propaganda they inject daily there, but again, that could be taken care of pretty easily.

As far as reducing the growth of education costs, I've gotta disagree. This isn't about Johnny not having new books, being forced to learn from a 1920's copy of McGuffey's Reader (though he'd get a better learnin' if he was). Nope, it's all about the exploding population of mestizos in "our" schools, as well as a generous bit of padding for the construction of new (and mostly useless) things like stadiums, fine arts centers, etc. You see it all the time here in Texas and it's especially bad because school is entirely funded by property taxes. Of course, the helpful legislature is floating ideas like a state income tax to "take the burden off property owners." How sweet! As if the property tax would go down at all instead of just adding another way to fleece the sheep. Anyway, Districts in rural counties that have a total population of 6000 kids are floating $300 million+ bond proposals. I worked it out once for a nearby county. If their population figures were correct and the proposal passed, they would have been spending $14,000 a year per student over and above what they already spent at the time. This was assuming a five-year pause before they came back demanding more money. Boy, was I wrong on that! Every three years they "need" more money in the wake of a successful bond package. At the time, I said to the missus, "Well, there's a good chunk of private school tuition right there." when I had crunched the numbers. The campaign of course featured all the usual "it's for the chiiiiildren" rhetoric, with some nasty letters in the paper accusing the bond naysayers of hating children as well as some misleading info on how much the bond would cost a property owners (they listed the figure, but put "per month" in small print at the bottom. Times 12 it was quite a lot of money). But, people just couldn't get past the mind-boggling figure the district was proposing and it went down, to be brought back again for three straight years, going down every time. They've given up for now...

I feel for you Tex, getting hammered at private school as well as paying for the ineducable flood of mestizos crashing the party :angry: (we're all in that boat), but there's gotta be a better way than letting Uncle Schmuel stick his nose into private schools, hasn't there?

weisbrot

2005-02-14 20:41 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Well at least the anti-voucher folks here are keeping good company:

[url=http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1585]Fact Sheets: The Truth About Vouchers - Increased Racial and Economic Segregation (People for the American Way)[/url] :thumbsup:[/QUOTE]

Yup, ADL and PFAW just have to be our soulmates. I would ask HH if he still beats his wife but I've heard he's a homo sapiens and might not have one these days.

On the other hand, Tex, these low blows coming from you- well, it just makes a fella wonder. Very disconcerting.

Oh, by the way, your portrait is in and ready to frame; thought you'd want a look...

[IMG]http://dioforamerica.com/dio-face.gif[/IMG]

Come worship wit' me......Love, Tex