Penguins
Have You Played Atari Today?
join:2001-12-01
Cleveland, OH
1 edit | Heartland Instutute
Neo-con shill orginization.
These are the same idiots who want to create a new slave class by shutting down all public schools. |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| said by Penguins  :These are the same idiots who want to create a new slave class by shutting down all public schools. As opposed to the idiots who have created the existing slave class by keeping them open, and telling said class that the reason they're not well off is because of evil conservatives trying to close down their schools.
PS I highly recommend the bucket of pills.
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Dear Hollywood:Shut up and dance monkey! |
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chex383
join:2003-03-13
Montreal, QC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Comcast
| I'll take the post New Deal idiots slave-class over the pre NewDeal EvilConservative idiots slave-class any day. Hmm. were getting off point, but its really the same argument.
said by Combat Chuck :As opposed to the idiots who have created the existing slave class by keeping them open, and telling said class that the reason they're not well off is because of evil conservatives trying to close down their schools. PS I highly recommend the bucket of pills.
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Sung to the old New England Telephone Ad Jingle: " We're the only one New Eng-Lund, Hell-Ri-zon Tele-phonnnnne! " |
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Penguins
Have You Played Atari Today?
join:2001-12-01
Cleveland, OH
| reply to Combat Chuck
> As opposed to the idiots who have created the existing slave class by keeping them open,
You really should stop drinking the kool-aid. Do you really think you can maintain a competitive society in the modern world without educating your citizens?
We are not the center of the universe as you might like to think. We need an educated populace to complete with countries like China and India, who are providing a much higher level of basic education and getting better results than we are.
Going backwards is not going forwards, despite what you may have been lead to believe. Returning to the old system of serfdom and feudalism is not 'progress' and will not make America a success in a world in which we have to compete, rather than dominate.
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Pure magic in 2k of 6502. |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| No. The voucher folks don't want to destroy publicly funded education. They just want to institute some competition so that the lousy public schools get some incentive to produce students with a reasonable education, rather than a new list of 10 ways a lousy teacher can keep from getting fired.
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
| reply to Combat Chuck
said by Combat Chuck :I highly recommend the bucket of pills. Combat Chuck rocks! |
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX
| reply to calvoiper
said by calvoiper :...rather than a new list of 10 ways a lousy teacher can keep from getting fired. You have got to be kidding me. You are blaming the current state of education on poor teachers?
You can't discipline a student without being sued by the childs parents. You can't give a student the grade they deserve because schools are being pressured to pass them in order to get funding. You are discouraged from encouraging students to THINK because thinking isn't on the test. You can't assign homework anymore because it takes up too much of the students time. All this stupidity just barely scratches the surface of what teachers have to put up with on a daily basis.
What part of this is the teachers fault? And exactly how are vouchers going to fix any of these issues? |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Funny.
Private schools consistently turn out better educated students. That's why parents pay additional dollars to send their kids there.
What voucher people want to do is to open these better schools up to people who can't afford them now. And encourage schools to to those things necessary, including changing the problems you mentioned, so that they don't lose all of their students to private schools.
(Strange--government aid directed at the STUDENT, rather than just the PUBLIC SCHOOLS, seems to work well at the college level....)
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX
| All of this is way off-topic, but this topic rankles me --
said by calvoiper :Private schools consistently turn out better educated students. That's why parents pay additional dollars to send their kids there. This is a myth. On average, private schools rank no better scholastically than comparable public schools. Yes, you will find outstanding private schools, but you will also find outstanding public schools. Its a wash.said by calvoiper :And encourage schools to to those things necessary, including changing the problems you mentioned, so that they don't lose all of their students to private schools. Economic competition may be fine for breakfast cereals, but it could be disastrous for schools. Public and private schools don't compete on an even playing field. Public schools must accept all children regardless of academic ability, physical handicap, or family background. Private schools may reject any child with problems and enroll only the academically gifted.
Public schools will improve only if our government officials and the public decide to make a serious commitment to educational quality. Diverting money away from public schools to private schools will not achieve this goal, but will hurt the nation's public education system. |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| I thought for a moment, when you mentioned several of the structural problems with education, that you might be one who would advocate something other than the boring, tiring union refrain of "more money, more money" which is invariably sucked into higher salaries to settle strikes. I was wrong in thinking that.
Actually, it's your "overall" stats that are a myth. There are many good and outstanding public schools, and they see little or no competition from private schools. The private schools appear, and attract students, in areas with lousy public schools. When you compare private schools to the public schools their students would otherwise be forced to attend, the private schools win hands down.
And public schools have options for dealing with the most difficult students through special classes and special schools.
I think it's sick and criminal to force students to attend crime-ridden, poorly performing public schools when the same tax dollars could fund their attendance at far superior private schools. It's not all the teachers' fault, not any more than WorldCom's collapse was all the fault of the 30,000 or more employees that have been laid off. But in each case, if the organization can't cut it, it needs to shrink or die.
Saying bad public schools should stick around to "provide a public education" to students who most definitely would prefer a publicly funded private education is a perversion of logic pushed only by the teachers' and administrators' unions and their political cronies.
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX
| I never suggested that bad schools should stick around. Those are your words. My whole point was to respond to your original statements about bad teachers being the cause of poor education in this country and that shifting all the money to private schools will somehow solve the problems with public education.
Public schools have a huge number of problems, many of which can't be fixed with money, and I never said money was the cure for every ill. But the vast problems with the infrastructure - decaying schools, out of date equipment, text books that are falling apart - can't be fixed without money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with objecting to having the money the public school system urgently needs being diverted into some other system.
The voucher people are all about turning their back on the current system because it serves their own needs to go somewhere else. I'm of the opinion that the public school system is worth fixing, because it serves everyones needs, and that by sucking money out of that system you will end up destroying it.
Private schools do not ensure that everyone in this country gets a basic education simply because they can pick and choose who they will teach. Who will teach the kids that these schools refuse to take? |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| First, most voucher programs so far proposed haven't "taken" money from public schools--they've been attempts at additional funding to see what might work differently in an approach where the politicians weren't running everything. The monopoly public schools oppose any form of competition to the point where they routinely turn away new money for education if it isn't going to to into their own pocket.
Second, those that have proposed "taking" money have always proposed taking LESS than the per student capita amount the public schools were spending--thereby leaving the public schools RICHER as it relates to the remaining students. These have also been universally opposed by the unions.
Again I say that opposing vouchers isn't about quality education. It's all about maintaining the current union shop monopoly that the teachers' unions want.
(You like the teachers' unions? Try defending their opposition to imposing teacher standards--they can't even pass tests at the grade level they're teaching in many instances.)
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX | Why do you keep bringing the teachers unions into this discussion? I haven't mentioned them one way or another. It sounds like you have an axe to grind. |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Because they're a huge part of the problem--who else would go so far to protect incompetent teachers?
Why do you ignore them? It's as impossible to address school problems without dealing with the union as it is to address steroids in baseball without dealing with the players' union.
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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