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Why One Woman Says Sending Your Kid To Private School Is Evil
theodp writes "Slate's Allison Benedikt is ruffling some feathers with her recent manifesto, If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person. 'Not bad like murderer bad,' Benedikt writes, 'but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.' If your local school stinks and you send your child there, Benedikt explains, 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.'"
I say that sending your child to public school is akin to child abuse.
Sounds like an really cool place.
If I give money to a private school I am positive that they will do everything in their power to use the money wisely.
Why One Woman Says Sending Your Kid To Private School Evil
Maybe she needs to learn that "is" belongs between "School" and "Evil".
Really? Some statements are just too stupid to be taken seriously
Thanks for telling me up front that you don't know what you're talking about so I got to save time by not reading the rest.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
Click here for a refutation of her argument.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
then your local government school doesn't stink. They must all be good -- or at least adequate.
based on these first comments this is going to be one stupid ass thread...
What is this doing on slashdot? Just sounds like a pissed off soccor mom who can't afford to send her kid to a private school.
where most schools are private, and the public ones are more prestigious than the private ones.
If my kid would have a better life going to a private school and that was feasible, guess what wold be happening.
Screw you and your latest batch of "do this for the greater good." Greater good arguments can be applied to taxes, not to setting your kids back for life.
Why send your kids to school at all?
I bet if you sent your kids to the ghetto, you'd do everything you could to improve it!
States are fictitious entities, and what exists in reality are individuals. There exists a need to make both private and public institutions as good as possible, and that can only come about through honesty on everyone's part. One example would be private schools that are affordable and do not set unrealistic entry standards to intentionally keep out what the management perceive as unsavoury segments of society. And on the other hand public schools should also improve their standards and not merely serve as a last resort for the lowest segments. Altruism is needed to some extent whether in public or private life. Otherwise we get evil/incompetent corporations and evil/incompetent governments and there's not a whole lot of difference between the two.
In Minnesota, money comes from cities to pay for schools. The quality of the education in the schools is mainly based on who pays the most property taxes. If I live in a crummy neighborhood, I wouldn't want to send my kids to the local school. Why not make the schools funded by states instead of cities? That would be a better way to improve the quality of schools. You're not going to make the school better by sending your kid there. You probably have a full-time job and don't have time to have a large impact on the system.
When I bought my current home I chose the school district I wanted my child to attend before I started shopping for a house. If I lived 3 blocks further north my kid would be in a school district which is perennially underfunded. Sure, home prices are 10% lower and taxes also a bit lower but graduation rates and college admission levels are also much lower. Even now with a much different employment situation I would not consider moving even though my commute 5 times longer.
why is this even posted to Slashdot?
The fundamental issue is not private versus public.
But if you have only one school system, then it's a monopoly, and the lack of competition leads to bad schooling.
Of course there are good teachers in a public system, same as they are bad ones. But a monopoly guarantees that the system will be bad.
I really hate people that tell me I'm a bad person because I do what I think is best for my kids. They still get my taxes to pay for public education so why the hell should I be a bad person for sending my kids to a better school?
She's just another damned collectivist who thinks that they should have the right to control another aspect of my life.
Bill Gates: " If they [my children] had to go to a general inner-city school, I would do anything I could to avoid that being the case, because as a parent, I particularly see the potential in my kids that that wouldn't unleash," Gates said.
President Obama: President Obama reopened Monday what is often a sore subject in Washington, saying that his daughters could not obtain from D.C. public schools the academic experience they receive at the private Sidwell Friends School.
Matt Damon: Damon told the Guardian there were no longer public schools progressive enough for his family so private was the only choice in their new home of Los Angeles.
Sadly (and really only generally speaking - there are exceptions), private schools' quality is driven by market forces whereas public school policies are driven by politics. School officials obtain and maintain decision making positions and power by there connections. There is little to nothing even a group of parents can do to address this. When they do, it gets taken away.
For example, in my city, parents organize "booster clubs" to raise money for their local schools and improve the quality. But parents in poorer sections of the city are often genuinely unable to do this. For example, they have a disproportionate number of families with a single parent who barely makes ends meet and works too many hours to have time to invest in a booster club. Since this is unfair, the school system is working to take money from the booster clubs to distribute to the poorer areas. So, the parents have the incentive removed and, disheartened, give up. The school system has decided, essentially, "If those schools are going to fail, it's only fair that all schools fail."
The parents can't do anything to fix their public school, so the ones who can afford it take their kids out and put them in private schools. Ms. Benedikt is correct that there are Bad Persons at play. She is dead wrong about who those Bad Persons are.
but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kid bad
This is a case of trying to shut the stable door after the Federal Government already ass-fucked the horse, gave it syphilis and is now in the process of strangling it (i.e. "No Child Allowed Ahead"). :p
If you send your child to private school, you still have to pay property tax and you aren't getting any benefit from the public school. You are increasing the resources per child in public school if you send your child to private school.
And Clinton. Not Amy Carter
Her premise is if everyone were more "invested" and more involved, schools would improve...in a couple generations. According to the Concul for American Private Education (CAPE) and the National Center for Education Statistics, private school K-12 enrollment is about 10% of the total. So 90% of students are already going to private school. Even parental annual income $75K or more, it only goes up to 12%.
So since 90% of people are not adequately "invested" in public education now, what reason is there to believe the extra 10% will make any significant difference?
But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve.
This makes zero sense. Without private schools to use as a yardstick, what does public education have to compete with? When private schools can produce better results with lower cost per student it at least gives public schools something to strive toward and maybe produces a model that could be emulated.
She also says sending your kid to private school because your own school district is crappy is not a compelling reason. Here logic? If the parents are smart, the kid will do fine. She personally got a crappy education and is doing just fine writing for Slate.....I beg to disagree.
And it still won't help under the sheer inertia of the entrenched system.
My grade school district was a fucking joke. There were some decent teachers, but the majority of them were misanthopic whack-jobs, including the school principal.
My mom did everything in her power to change the system. It didn't help.
So, if you're a parent who has the chance to:
A: Make your kid suffer because you were stupid enough to send him to a shitty public school because you thought you could actually change something.
B: Send them to a private school that'll fit themselves to your kid's educational needs and will foster learning in a better manner.
Anyone with the cash SHOULD pick option B.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well, some tiny percentage of us on SlashDot have interfaced with the opposite sex and had chlldren. Therefore, to those of us with exo-basement life experience, it is of interest when the **Managing Editor** of Slates' Double X sees fit to libel private schooling parents.
She effectively owns a forum and now we are expressing our push back in ours.
Of course, placing the long-term benefit of the community before ones own is something that requires altruism, or for those of simpler spirit "patriotism". The latter is often claimed, but rarely lived.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The national motto is "IN GOD WE TRUST"
In reality, since you invented neoliberalism, the Washington Consensus, Ayn Rand and the Chicago School,
it really should be: "BUGGER YOU JACK, I'VE GOT MINE".
What is this common good she speaks of?
... would be about half the articles, wouldn't it?
Larry Correia (multi NYT bestselling author of Monster Hunter International) did a point by point slam on this article:
Fisking Slate over Public Schools
Naked link to same article:
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/fisking-slate-over-public-schools/
The woman who wrote the slate article is married with 3 kids in New York. Strangely, last year she wrote in Slate about how happy she will be to stop paying $5000/month on private preschools.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
"Reading Walt Whitman in ninth grade changed the way you see the world? Well, getting drunk before basketball games with kids who lived at the trailer park near my house did the same for me. In fact it’s part of the reason I feel so strongly about public schools."
These three sentences pretty much sum up everything you need to know about the article.
Your primary duty is to your child. I promise you, responsible parents agonize about the best options for their children. Sometimes private, sometimes public.
We started private and then left. The early years at private were probably worthwhile. I tell myself that. They were expensive.
But we've been delighted with the quality of our public schools. They operate from one third the budget of the private school (per pupil). The buildings and landscaping are dramatically tougher, but we're happy with the change. The teachers have been high quality, highly dedicated to the job and responsive to us. My kids are engaged and enjoy their schools.
You have essentially no control over the private school or the public school. In both cases, you will monitor your kids' work, talk regularly to their teachers, meet their friends and their friends' parents. Your recourse in both cases is to find a different school.
No one should demonize a parent for trying to do the best they can for their child. Your first duty is to your child. Social welfare and activism should come after family.
There's also a discussion of this at Popehat.
Yes, those who doubt massive, growing, and all-encompassing government, and don't wish to be pwned by it, are morally suspect.
Dictators throughout history could not be more pleased useful idiots are trying to build this meme.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
School is a fundamental part of a childs life. If the school district I lived in was awful I wouldn't waste potentially years of my childs life trying to improve it when the chances of me being able to improve it on my own are less than 1%. I might spend their school age trying to improve their public school while they wallowed in it. Even if I did improve it then they would be out or almost out in which case my work did nothing to benefit my child.
So yes, I would send my child to a better school, even if that meant private. See if more parents did this then when schools started losing students in droves it would get changed, and that change would come a lot faster than me just bitching about it. You want change in schools? Then you have to effect their public image and money.
Besides, its not my job to be the parent for every kid in my school district. My job is to provide the best I can FOR MY CHILDREN. My kids are my priority so I worry about them first, myself second, and everyone else in order of importance last.
Sounds like this douche bitch needs to shut her cake hole and worry about her own kids.
Many moons ago when I was in high school I attended a slightly less than average school. The parents couldn't care less for the most part when it comes to districts such as that. Most of them graduated high school and that was it and those that went to college either struck out in the work force, didn't graduate or majored in communications or culinary arts (or some other useless major for the vast majority of the people that pursue said subject). Most parents whose children are attending poor school districts are not interested in fixing the system, particularly when it comes to having to pay more taxes to do so which is always the proposed cure. Sure, you get your handful of activist parents who try their best to make a difference but when it comes to actually improving school education and conditions they are faced with the uncaring mass of people who just don't care what you are trying to do.
You cannot say on the one hand that we can't have control over our public schools and then on the other hand that we have to be sent to them.
And yes, we've tried to reform our public schools but they won't let us do it.
How hard is it to fire a pedophile teacher? Nearly impossible. How hard is it to fire a bad teacher? How hard is it to put in hiring standards for teachers?
We've tried to put this in place for decades and the schools, teacher's unions, and politicians have stopped us. So fine. You don't want us to have any control over these schools. Mission accomplished. But why would I feel morally compelled to stay in the system if you're made every effort to systematically marginalize me?
You cannot have both. Either you let me have influence over the system... and I will change it so that I find it acceptable... OR you do not get me in the system.
Choose. Effectively, either the teacher's unions need to get neutered or you can expect intelligent parents to choose other schools when public alternatives are unacceptable. We are not sacrificing our children on the alter of your corruption and incompetence.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I changed my son to private school this year!! I tried working with the public school he was in. We met with teachers, with the principle, with the 504 councilor. Nothing, I mean NOTHING changed. The public school system is not interested in helping a child that needs help with his reading or spelling skills. Excuses at every turn and no one was willing to help. SO, now he's in private school and building his confidence that he can do the work in his classes.
There are no private schools in Finland. Turns out, when you make the kids of the rich and powerful go to the same schools as everybody else, those schools turn out to be decent. Here's an article on how Finland outperforms the USA in education.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
where I live in Arkansas, if you send you kid to a private school, you are considered a racist.
I REALLY think we in the US should have a hard look at Finland's education system - #1 in the World.
And we need to get away from this "school is to educate workers" mentality that American business sneaked into our collective conscious.
Our education system was for having an educated electorate - not for free training for Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
That mentality has to change and we need to basically tell American business that if they want trained workers, THEY need to do it themselves and stop passing their costs onto the public.
They bitch and moan about taxes and then bitch and moan about the education of the populace - American business has the this horrible case of entitlement and have the nerve to put the blame on the average citizen when THEY have the power to change things.
I was abused when I went to Scudder Oaks Private School in California. I hate private schools. As far as I am concerned you are the most Evil of parents if you send your child to a private school. The abuse I was treated I live with everyday. THAT is the most EVIL thing you can do to your child!
One day justice will be served for me until them I live with my scar on the inside.
Anonymous
Am I still a bad person for giving my kid the option of going to a private school?
When my son was switching from junior to senior high school, we gave him the option of going to the local public high school or going to one of numerous private schools bordering our city. He spent a few days at most of the private places and the public school seeing what they were all about- I believe they all paired him up with another student and he went to all the different classes and stuff. Afterwards, he made his own informed decision and that was that.
He chose to go to one of the private schools, but not because the public school sucked.
In fact, the public school was surprisingly well maintained and the majority of the courses seemed to have above average depth to them. He went to the private school because he knew he wanted to get into low level computer hardware design & programming, and the private school offered an electrical engineering course that was much, much more better then what the public school offered. The private school had a lab full of amazing hardware and the third year work involved some pretty crazy stuff with FPGAs and other programmable logic. For his last year project, he landed up building his own Von Neumann based computer and got the thing booting a rudimentary operating system that you could talk to over RS-232.
These were things that the public school simply couldn't offer him. How do I know this? Before my son made his final decision, I sat down with the principal of the public school and asked her flat out if I could donate to their electrical engineering program to improve it. Not to the level of what the private school offered of course (there's no way I could afford purchasing that many high-end oscilloscopes and high-speed logic probes for every student), but enough to buy a bunch of FPGA development boards and a few medium-end oscilloscopes and logic probes. They could have easily shared this across the entire class to implement a rudimentary version of what the private school offered.
The principal looked at me like I was from mars, and politely declined my offer. She spouted out several reasons as to why this wouldn't work- something about the complexities involved in implementing such a program, how the teacher probably wouldn't have the time to learn the new curriculum, the nightmare of adding that as an option for students to chose, and how it would give their school an unfair advantage over all the other public schools in the city.
So then I offered to buy the equipment for my son to play with at home, but he didn't want that. He wanted to be in a class where everyone else was at the same approximate level, so he could bounce ideas off everyone else if he wanted to and have discussions about something they were all interested in.
What else was I supposed to do?
The public school didn't entirely suck, but they also didn't want to change. The private school was the best fit for him (he's in University now) and he doesn't regret his decision. Does it make me a bad person for wanting what was best for my son?
I agree with the sentiment she is expressing. If we are all invested in the system then we'd fight to make it better.
But while I'm living in the US I'll be sending my kids to a private school. I went to public school in the UK and hated every second, if I can do something for my own kids such that they can actually enjoy waking up every day then I'll do that, bad person though it makes me. Not to mention quite a bit poorer.
In the small town in New Zealand where we lived for the last few years the choice between public and private was much closer, more the flavour you enjoyed than misery vs happiness.
Just do something to improve education. Everyone can do something to improve it. Do something, anything. No matter if you have kids or not, where your or any kids study. No matter what kind of shcool it is.
There are school board elections, school meetings, schools that need various kinds of labor, repairs, equipment, materials, and so on. Join a local hackerspace, and propose some projects to help local schools. Participate in some educational software project. See what is happening, just listen in on some meetings, invite someone to go with you.
Arguing endlessly over the money, financing, and organization will do little. Every organization has its problems. In health and educaiton, there are clear criteria. They need to be available to everyone, and of reasonable quality. Meeting those two goals, everything else is rather irrelevant. But I think the record will show that that objective is most often best achieved by public organizations, having strong support from the public.
If you can afford to send your child to a better school, doing any less is selfish.
"Sorry son, I could have given you a better education, but I didn't think you were worth it"
Indeed concrete individuals should take priority. I think she's approaching from a kind of categorical imperative. Hence her statement, "Whatever you think your children need—deserve—from their school experience, assume that the parents at the nearby public housing complex want the same. No, don’t just assume it. Do something about it." Or, again, her rather annoying, "ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kid bad." In other words, she would prioritize the needs of the "nation" over those of your "spawn" [her word, not mine]. After all, wouldn't it be wrong to put your own children before the common good? Isn't it selfish to secure for your own what humanity is often denied?
This kind of thinking always puts me in mind of a passage from the Brother Karamazov. In the passage a woman declare to Elder Zosima her great love for all of humanity, but her apparent inability to actively love an individual. Zosima replies:
Loving and caring for abstractions like humanity or the nation is comparatively easy. Humanity, nations, or the people are objects which can be loved without fear. They will never leave or reject you. They can be readily idealized, so one never doubts the worthiness of loving them. And since they're abstracts, one needn't have to worry about them remembering those times you didn't particularly feel like caring for them. It's also very rewarding. In some cases, all we need to do is vote the way we think best, and then we can hold our heads up high, even regarding neighbors in scorn who have failed to see our good sense.
Loving and caring for concrete individuals is quite hard. They are sometimes ungrateful--in the case of infants and teenagers, it can seem almost constantly so. They have bodily needs which require unpleasant cleaning. They have wills of their own and cannot be idealized. They can remember your bad days. They can suffer and you may feel responsible, even when you're not. They can break your heart. They die.
This, I think, is at the heart of the preference many have, particularly among the educated and white collar, for giving priority to abstracts. A person such as Benedikt can hold you in contempt, for she prioritizes the higher ideal of the national good, while you privilege your "spawn" by giving them the
This appears to be another of those broad, sweeping, statements made by groups with an axe to grind. Doesn't whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or home school them depend a lot on circumstances? What schools are available to the child? What can the parents afford? What is the child like? My grandson has public school available to him. He has two different private schools available. Home schooling is a possibility, since my wife (his grandmother) was a public school teacher, then got a doctorate in teaching teachers to teach (!). There are other home schoolers around, which means some swapping of things is possible.
But our daughter choose to put him in public school. Why? He is an extremely social creature, and needs the time with other kids his own age. That probably has a severe impact on the success of home schooling him. The local public schools are clean, and the teachers appear to treat the students with respect. They seem to have a genuine concern for the students' success. Frankly, we can't afford either of the private schools.
A number of years ago, our two kids went through a mixture of private schooling, home schooling, and public schooling. The circumstances and the kids were different.
Before we totally slam public schooling, private schooling, or home schooling, let's carefully consider what is availabe in that area, and what the kid(s) is/are like.
If every single person took public transportation, would public transportation improve?
If every single person lived in public housing, would public housing improve?
If every single person was on food stamps, would food stamps improve?
History indicates that way of thinking doesn't work out well.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Can you imagine how good our undergraduate education would be at public universities if all brilliant, wealthy and famous people had to send their kids to public universities... if all those Stanford and Harvard donations went to the state U instead?
The USA is all about "I got mine", screw you. It's sick.
Context : I live in Canberra, Australia. The public schools here are pretty good. I send my three children to the local public school and am pretty happy with it. In fact, for my town I think people who pay $20,000 a year to send their children to private school are completely crazy. My daughter used to run the debating team at her school, and her team won every year against private schools that had professional debating coaches.
Benedikt claims : 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.'
The thing is, your power isn't much. If a school and neighbourhood isn't good, you're fighting against :
- entrenched interests
- the innate levels of intelligence, training and experience of the teachers
- the innate personal attitude and personality of the teachers
- the family attitudes and relationship to learning of the other children's families
- the personality of the other children
I'd go so far as to say there is next to nothing that even an activist parent can do to change any of those things, within a few years, to the benefit of their child. And you'd be taking a heck of a risk that you could do so and benefit your child.
On the other hand, if one is in that situation and can find and afford a school where it isn't necessary to fight such a difficult battle, I can see why one would make the decision to send one's child there.
The author has forgotten, or never knew, that public institutions exist to serve us, the citizenry, not the other way around.
Maybe also tangentially relevant. (Yes I know it's not entirely on topic but neither was it where I originally posted it - in fact, now I feel I posted in in the wrong discussion.)
I am from Boardman Ohio, the township just south of Youngstown Ohio, where she is from. Youngstown schools are a joke, but Boardman was the best public school in the state when I was going(not sure if every year, but several when I was in middle school, I know that much) (graduated 2002) they literally share a 6mile boarder with each other, and they couldn't be father from each other. Ohio constitution outlaws property taxes paying for schools. so Ohio cities/townships/etc use a "levy" to pay for schools... which is a tax based off of your property value... (yes... property tax by another name, but it has to be renewed every 3~5 years, whereas, tax doesn't, and even then there are lawsuits against the entire thing all the time) ... SO... boardman is rich, and has great schools, Youngstown is poor, and doesn't. Thats the basic problem. Plus the 'public' schools in youngstown are all pretty much closed, they have almost nothing but 'charter' schools bleeding the funding from the city's public school funds. So Ytown schools will never improve with all the for-profit schools bleeding the money (and not even getting better results) than Ytown city schools.
There is no way If I had that choice I wouldn't sent my child to Austintown(township to the west of Ytown), Boardman, or one of the other excellent schools scattered all over the county. (The county Population is ~0.5million, and Ytown population is just barely 60,000.... if that tells you anything about the 'oddness' of the area.) However, for Higher education, and tech jobs... Youngstown is doing really great.... (it pulls from the rest of the county, not just ytown city schools). Youngstown State University, is in partnerships with tons of local companies and Youngstown got named the National. additive manufacturing center (3D printing/etc) because of all the talent locally for metalworking/engineering/etc. Hell, even 2 Silicon valley companies have moved to youngstown because of how much less expensive it is to operate, and the (honestly, over abundance until recently) of highly skilled engineers, CS grads, IT, chemists, etc. (I am subscribed to the business incubator newsletters, and attended YSU for my undergrad in CS, now going for PhD... Thats how I know all this -_- ) The key for ytown is to leverage those jobs/opportunities(read: funding) and rebuild their public schools (which used to be really good before the 60s/70s/80s).
I'm attending a 'Private' school right now, and think she is wrong in one way.... Private schools aren't the problem...(my school is private non-profit, and well known, etc, these schools aren't a problem for higher ed atleast...) the problem is CHARTER schools. Private schools didn't used to get (all, they got a small %, but not most) of the state/federal funding that went to the public school district (in ohio at least). Now they do, and these for-profit schools are just bleeding society dry, by taking money out of the education system, and putting it into their own coffers. If they were getting better results, I'd be all for them, however they don't do ANY better on average than the public schools where they located. (yes there are stars some places, and some lessons should be learned from them, but lets be pragmatic about things, not dogmatic)
First off, private schools have their flaws and merits.
Flaws: Kids learn to be cruel, in ways that public schools can't even contend with. They learn how to be sneaky, the learn how to play the game using other people. You don't learn that in public schools. IN public schools you just smack the shit out of someone who pisses you off. The teachers are more strict. The learning curve is steeper then public schools. The school policies are more strict. Bascially private schools strip you of your creativity, and teach you to comform.
Merits: Most students who graduate from private schools often find themselves attending one of the ivy league institution. (thats a flaw in itself considering how they are these days: Breeding ground for corrupt money grubbers)
So let's just say. YES Sending your kid to Private school is evil. But only if you are looking at it from a poor public school student/parent's point of view.
QQ another river sweetheart. This is the way it is. Get on board or get the fuck out of the way.
Smart people reject statism.
That's why statists always resort to coercion.
It's the parent's prerogative to send their children wherever they see fit. It's also the parent's prerogative to prepare their children the best they can for "real life". Some parents are well equipped to actually fully participate in their children's environment, try to make it better, implicate themselves, do activities, vote, give time, money, opportunities and trying to make the school a genuine good place for their children to be.
Not everyone is able to do that. My parents were able to do that. They were able to actually send me to alternative (and public) school, to participate fully in the school's life, always be there for me. It was a hard choice for them, not only needing to drive me an hour every day, then go to work, but also participate many nights and even some days to school life. Even for them, they eventually gave up one such school, and went to another one because it was plainly too demanding. So I wouldn't expect everyone to give the dedication to bring their prized school up to par to their expectations. Some parents are just able to pay up, are not able to speak or talk adequately, or they don't have time to dedicate themselves to such hard work, and we have to respect that. Alas, today in this world where parents are paying premium and expecting their young bastard children (exaggeration intended here) to do well, and screaming to the teacher (instead of screaming at your own children) whenever they don't have straight As is the norm, I expect the school system to remain crooked.
In the end, people are voting with their attendance. If your school system is bad enough to fear for lives just by attending, I'd expect people to try to move away from these places. There's preparing for real life and there's plain madness... and I'm truly sorry for the dedicated teachers giving their lives and soul for these schools; my mom is such a teacher (nearing her last working years now), giving her life to people with learning disabilities (or missed opportunities); her and many fellow teachers are giving what they can, but sometimes, it's not enough to convince parents.
On my side, I actually moved to a place where active outdoor life is adequate, near good quality schools (not the best - but in the >75%), and I plan my children to have a good chance in life, using neighbourhood friends, public school system, dedication, caring and be with my (future) children for anything they might need. That's where I decided to give my money, that's where my vote is going, even if I have to take the train and public transportation 3hr every single work day.
tl/dr:
It doesn't work if you put your country before your family or your family before God or your Country before your God.
Volunteer to help your community. Help the schools. Feed the sick. Wash the feet of the poor. Who's stopping you? Do those things AFTER you take care of your family's needs. Anyone who looks out for their community BEFORE their family is dangerous to his community and his family.
God:
Whether I believe in your God or a God is not relevant; this is just the phrasing of the idiom.
This means "duty to self" to be morally correct--that is to say "maintaining myself as an instrument for good". Not as "looking out for number one"--(looking out for #1 is exactly the opposite!). It doesn't mean that I get to set myself up as a moral absolute and ignore everyone else's needs in order to satisfy my superiority. This comes first solely for the obvious practical reason that in order to do good, I must first be good or at least not particularly evil at that moment.
Family:
Once this instrument of good exists, the first I must serve is my family. This needs no further explanation.
Country:
A little thought tells me that I have a greater duty to those closer to than farther from me in this large community we call country. I cannot save the world. So I am responsible to do good where I can. I must help my neighbor before an arbitrary person on Earth (or off of it, I should be so lucky). That person has neighbors as well. In this area is of course Military Service, which also needs no explanation.
My community's schools fall under the rough grouping of Country, more specifically somewhere between "Neighbors" and "any other sophonts in the universe" or "All God's kids" if you prefer.
Way after Family.
These priorities are in that order for a simple practical reason: The results of screwing up the order suck:
History is full of examples: Good party members who rat out their family or neighbors for love of Country. A father who does things he knows are unethical in order to provide every luxury for his family. Nationalistically motivated genocide perpetrated by people who know *exactly* what "thou shalt not murder" means.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Two things Mrs. Benedikt:
1) You can damned well bet I'm going to do what's best for my children in terms of their education. If the public school system can't even begin to offer my children the best opportunity to learn then I will most definitely find an alternative. Who are you to decide that such a decision makes me a bad person? I'd imagine you're the same type of person that drove our public school system into the state that it's currently in by promoting standards set to the ability of the weakest link (see No Child Left Behind)
2) Go choke on a dick.
School reform and improvement takes time. It takes more time than the 3-4 years your kid will be in the school. Heck even if it took 1/2 the time your kid is in school, your kid would still be behind. Then rinse/repeat at the next school. Parents , in bad schools, have to decide if they are going to sacrifice their kids to the school system in hopes that the kids after them will have it better. One of the US political parties pushed for vouchers that let kids in bad school move to other schools. Motivated parents in bad schools liked it. The other party opposed vouchers because all the motivated parents would move their kids to better schools. It leaves the bad schools even worse. I understand the logic of opposition but I don't see how the anyone can look mid-poor parents in the eye and tell them that they have to keep their kids in crappy schools that may get better some day. People with money just pay and move.
Kill all leftists trying to push our kids into mind controlling craptastic public schools.
Calm like a bomb my ass.
So basically the NAZI's and the Soviets were allies, you know.. shared a common ideology
Yes the Nazis and Soviets were allies. They had a non-aggression pact. They negotiated the invasion and splitting of Polish territory and executed that plan, each taking about half the country of Poland. Eventually Hitler surprised Stalin and betrayed and invaded his Soviet ally. Basically they were allies, in name and deed, before they were enemies.
As far as ideology they were also quite similar. Citizens must obey the state, citizens must sacrifice for the state, citizens must not challenge/question the state's leadership. Unwillingness to obey/sacrifice or willingness to challenge/question leadership is treason.
...how much the Teacher's Union paid her for the article...
...if every single parent sent every single child...
if we assume the power to influence such large groups of diverse people; what other, more efective, statements could we make in this fashion?
1) if every single voter refused to vote for a politician that lied...
2) if every single american got a sedan instead of an suv...
3) if every single nazi, had actually been a teddy bear...
who cares what someone at slate said and then paid /. to post
there are people out there who would rather send their kids to a good school and live their lives rather than spend their spare time trying to make a crap public school better. The activist mindset where people expect other people to take on their own cause(s) is the height of arrogance. So public school suck. Fine. That doesn't mean we all have to send our kids there just for the sake of motivating us to try to improve it; there are people whose paying jobs it is to make those schools better.
Studied in England.
In a small prep school: quite good, but awful mathematics teacher (shame as that was what I liked).
In a £30k/year (current) moderately well-known private school: meh.
Final year in a state school: maths teacher really on the ball.
tl;dr No type of school will guarantee you anything, except maybe nicer meals and smaller class sizes. Good and bad teachers are everywhere.
I am sending my little girl to a German private school and I do not give a fuck if you like it or not. Quit reading slate.com.
self evidently false by weight of evidence. perhaps with one or two exceptions, if you send your kids to public school when you could afford private school you just don't care very much about your kids' education.
The American right wing is just pro-corporate and pro ruling class. They exist to support and expand the power of the 1%. Everything else is just window dressing for the rubes.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Not considering sending your kid to a private school is not "doing everything in your power."
So the plan is to have no accountability at all? There has to be some objective measure of performance. If the tests don't measure what is important for the kinds to know then change the tests.
... that I don't send my child to the local collectivist indoctrirnation camp.
This doesn't even pass the giggle test.
When it comes to educating my child the way that I want, this is pretty much the top of the list of freedoms that I will fight to preserve.
One of the benefits of capitalism is competition. Allowing the state to have an uncontested monopoly on education strikes me as a "Bad" idea.
We have a broken system... how do we fix it? Oh I know, let's use it more!! GENIUS!
and replaced solely with private schools, and also doing away with taxes to fund schools.
let people pick where they will send their kid to - or let them home school which is what we do.
we can send you to school. but we can't make you think.
and I don't feel guilty about it. I pay property taxes that fund the local public schools. If the public schools could provide the same education and the same opportunities for social connections that his private school does I'd send him to the public school. The public schools are too hung up on rewarding mediocrity to bother with educating kids.
When I was in high school if you were a dummy, you were told in no uncertain terms that you were a dope by teachers, administrators, parents, and classmates. Kids got expelled for causing problems. Dopes got F's and repeated classes or even entire years, and some quit. What is the greater tragedy, denying the differences between peoples' intellectual abilities and bringing people with strong minds down or letting those with less powerful minds dig ditches or fight in foreign wars?
Our local school is Roberto Clemente High School in Chicago's Humbolt Park. 75% drop out rate (the local Catholic school has a 95% college acceptance rate). The few gaduates perform at Jr. High levels. The halls are ruled by violent street gangs. Teachers DO NOT GIVE A SHIT. Teacher's union concerned with protecting incompetent teachers, and sexual predators rather than trying to improve the schools. This is a poor neighborhood, where parents each work 2 or more jobs to send their kids to the local Catholic schools - even those who are not Catholic. I realize this is not the fantasy presented in the article, where private schools are for the rich, and sending your kids to public schools won't damage your kids too much - look at the author - a free lance writer without a steady job, writing click bait articles for online "magazines", arguing that in her Stalinist world, all parents should be willing to sacrifice their kids for the good of the revolution.
The schools are not failing for lack of money - the private schools spend far less with dramatically better results. The schools are failing because they recruit and retain sub-standard teachers, most without degrees in their subject matter, and useless graduate classes in "education:. Get rid of the unions, administrators, and teachers and I'd happily send my children to public schools. We.ve aslready built a functioning school and we'd be happy to rebuild the public schools after you clear out the deadwood.
The public schools where I live are some of the worst in the country and they haven't gotten any better in the decade since I graduated from high school. If I have any alternative, I would never send my child to public school. Home schooling, private schooling, anything is better.
Parents who send their kids to private school pay property taxes for services they do not use. If all the private school students went to public schools, the schools would be more overcrowded, with even fewer resources for the larger student population.
I was with you until your last sentence and then you showed your true colors.
So you lost your argument by showing that you are nothing more then a prat.
The woman making the claims has lost all claims to credibility
by having more than two children.
Why does crap like this get published ?
I'll send my kid to whatever school I judge best, thanks. Short-sighted? Not my problem -- just being honest.
It was ruined long ago back when ketchup was declared a vegetable, to cut school catering costs and when some kind of pidgin English called "ebonics" was suggested because it would be cheaper than teaching children English.
The results of that include such things as "naturopaths" and other confidence tricksters being considered more trustworthy than scientists and anti-vaccine weirdos being considered more trustworthy than doctors. It's a poor outcome for society in general instead of just for individual children. It's going to get far worse before it gets better due to the anti-intellectual attacks being used to justify denial of changes in climate - we're creating a pack of luddites.
So the question is not how to stop the damage but instead how to reconstruct and get it so that children today are able to understand things like those 1970s TV specials for kids about the Apollo program that have resurfaced on youtube - the sort of stuff that a lot of young adults can't follow today but should be able to. You can't sustain a society at a high level if you aim for the level of unskilled Walmart shelf packers at one end and unskilled party dudes that think all it takes to lead a company is shouting at the other end.
What power does anyone have to get a school to change, in any way?
They key aspect, teachers, CANNOT be modified from the outside. Or even really from the inside.
An outside agent might be able to get slightly nicer books or equipment but just because if I try REALLY hard I get to chose some of the flair on the crews uniforms, I still don't want to send my kid off on the titanic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How many of our congresspeople, both state and federal, send their children to public schools?
I've often thought, were there a law requiring public officials to send their children to public schools, the school system would suddenly and remarkably have a much higher priority.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My parents had the same attitude she does and forced me to go through public school. It was hell. I learned academics outside of school. At school I learned how horrible humanity is.
I homeschool our kids. It is far better. They're socialized in the real world, not a box filled with screaming brats who don't know how to behave like at public school. Our kids are also far advanced academically compared with public and private school kids.
This lady sounds like a liberal asshole.
Public or private, school teachers need to please their customer: the student. Don't pay teachers through the municipal, provincial/state, federal system for education. Public elementary, high-school and university teachers have forgotten that they need to please the student since they are the customer and the customer is always right. Public/Private schools alike can put on a good show for a day in each semester for the parents and for the rest of the year teacher class presentations could be mediocre when the parents aren't around.
To correct this problem, the best way is to ensure the teacher understands who's the boss: the student is. Make the students aware how much each teacher salary is. Make the students aware how much the admin staff salary is. Make them aware how much their parents' salaries are. Ask them if they think they are getting their monies worth.
The students have every right to make the changes necessary to get the most bang for buck. They can organize and hire alternative sources to get their pragmatic education. If the teachers are under-performing/not helping you to understand the curriculum, not protecting you against bullying, then just don't pay them or simply fire the teacher or take the same course elsewhere with another teacher. That is the student's right since he/she is paying for it. The students themselves should directly pay the teacher bi-weekly in order for the teacher to understand who is paying his/her salary. It's not some abstract government boss that is paying his salary; it's the student. That money can get transferred to another teacher anytime the student wants; this is as it should be. The current problem is that the parent is doing all the paying right now; this is a problem because the student has no control his teacher. If the student at least had monetary power over his teacher, the threat of taking his revenue elsewhere would provide sufficient motivation for the teacher to perform his duties as the student perceives and not as some rule or regulation stipulates in some abstract manual hidden away that only adminstrators hold the keys to. The administrators should be the students since they are paying for the courses and curriculum. They should be the ones deciding what they want to take and when. Not some abstract school board which isn't in touch with the times teaching their classes as if it's still the 1960's.
Students are the ones paying for the school to run. Make them aware that of their capabilities to make that change in the system. Don't let the school admin tell the students how it's going to run. The students are the customer and the customer is always right because they are the ones paying for the system in the first place. Nothing in fact is public. Everything is paid for in every system. The students should be the administration in fact. If enough students assemble, the change will take place. Don't let teachers unions scare the students. It's not in the teacher unions best interests to dispute with student unions because they will lose big time because all the money is truly in the students pockets and they can find their education elsewhere and the internet is starting to look much more efficient to be quite honest. There are many good wanna-be teachers out there that know much about their specialty that would be happy to share their knowledge given enough monetary motivation as a means to survive and they will offer a better bang for the buck.
Certification is not the be-all and end all. Experience is. Find those with experience to teach you stuff you want to know.
All very good, but very simplistic and ultimately unworkable. The worst criminals have families too, and it's usually far better for those families and everyone else for them to "rat them out" to the country.
As American society becomes more culturally, linguistically, religiously, etc. diverse, public schools are one of the few things holding it together. The U.S. is the great "melting pot" that takes people from various backgrounds and melds them into a somewhat coherent society with certain shared values. The free-to-enroll public school is one of the things that made that possible, teaching the majority of young people a common national history, a shared understanding of science, and so on.
But as education becomes increasingly factionalized, with Catholic schools teaching that contraception is evil, Fundamentalist Protestant schools teaching that evolution is a lie, charter schools endorsing the cult of the Market (which is their reason for being), home schools teaching who-the-hell-knows-what, and each one editing history to support their individual agenda, that commonality is being lost. Families who once insisted (in the face of racially-integrated bussing) that neighborhood schools were essential to the healthy social development of children are now driving their kids miles to the education outlet whose curriculum and student body matches their preconceptions (and their racial, religious, and economic standards). When you look at survey or poll results and wonder "how can these people believe that?", or looked at the legislators elected by people of other districts, the answer is that it reflects whatever they were taught to believe, at whatever school they attended.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I assume she only goes to the county hospital, too. Otherwise, wouldn't she be evil for ruining that institution?
To generate page views, of course.
Well, if one kook says it's bad then it must be bad. It'll be harder to indoctrinate kids if they don't go to public schools and their liberal state-controlled lessons, but they've managed to contaminate and alter textbooks enough so it's hard to avoid their idealistic progressive teachings.
There is one major flaw with her logic. People who send their kids to private schools still pay taxes that support the public schools. By not sending their child to the public school, there is actually more revenue per student enrolled in the public school, unless the state legislature does something like reappropriate it elsewhere (which would make them evil, but again, they are politicians).
So, if people pay for the public schools but don't cause an increase in the variable cost of running the public schools because their kids are in a private school, that is evil how?
If your local school stinks and you send your child there, Benedikt explains, 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.
Unless you're sleeping with or are a school board member, you have no power to make a public school better.
I went to a public primary school, but private high school. I grew up in a small country town and while the high school wasn't bad, the opportunities I wanted, such as music and languages, were not available and would not become available for only one or two students. So it depends on your situation - choose the school that will provide the opportunities your children want.
Just because Obama sends his daughters to a private school does NOT mean he's evil. Maybe he just wants them to get a decent education.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
There are successful public schools and there are poorly performing public schools. There are successful private schools and poorly performing private schools. On the surface, it would appear to be funding, and while a basica amount of funding is necessary, the real difference is parental involvement/interest.
If parents view school as the place where the kids are dropped off/cared for during the day, kind of like extended day care, those schools will have poor records. It doesn't matter whether those schools are public or private. OTOH, if parents value a good education and are engaged in the education process and take an interest in what their children study/learn, those schools tend to be much more successful.
The problem is, it's not upto individual parents to set that standard, but the community as a whole. In many college towns, particularly where the local university is one of the major employers, there tend to be good public schools. Why? Because people who work in academia tend to value education and it is reflected in the public school system.
OTOH, if the community doesn't value education or views education as a method to indoctrinate students in social norms or to act as surrogate parents, well, that is what you will get, but the educational component will lack.
Now, private schools, while they exist in the larger community, have their own micro-community and usually that micro-community values education more highly, why else would they pay so much for it if they didn't? In the end a community gets the exact quality of education that the community values. To be fair, many people in the community and the public school system do value education, but in many states, there is a state board of education that sets programs and requirements, further removing the local community's values from the mix.
But, it is quite simple, really. If you want successful schools, you need to first need to define what that means and then you need to get the community to value it (which is different than merely supporting it). Private schools have a huge advantage there. They have a defined and usually focused purpose and mission. People who agree with it send their kids there. People who don't look elsewhere.
The one where Ms. Benedikt said what school she was sending _her_ kid to?
Oh, yeah. I didn't. Just last year she sent her kid to private school.
Any belief that forcing public schools on everyone is seriously misguided. Nothing ever gets better when it's forced on people. The best schools in the world are in Finland, where a voucher system forces public schools to compete with private schools.
It's fascinating how heated up people get when someone criticizes the way they raise their children. The Slate author was provocative on purpose, to get people thinking. Should you patronize inner city groceries so that people with fewer transportation options can get fresher, better food? In this case, many people would say, yes, I'd like to do that, so long as I'm not inconvenienced too much. But talk about the kids and boom. Lots of angry comments. Personally, I send my kids to both, so I guess I'm evil. But I've been called that before.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
Thank you very much--this is *precisely* the example I was hoping someone would feed me. Consider that you have a duty higher than that to family.
To be a silent witness to crime is to be an accomplice to it. In your example, your family member is the "worst criminal". Not someone whose "crime" you don't find to be particularly evil--"stealing" mp3s, or driving faster than the posted maximum speed. In your example, the crime to which you would be an accomplice is "the worst"--murder, rape, genocide--whatever it is, it's that thing that you find most morally repugnant.
There are many ways you can address the issue. Turn them in to the police. Remove from them the ability to commit their crime--perhaps by having them committed under a physician's authority. Kill them and then turn yourself in to the police. It's up to you how you handle it--or fail to. And you'll be held accountable for that, too.
There is a duty higher than that to family. Your duty here is very clear. It's just not *easy*.
You have moral priorities, whether you like it or not. When you can't please everybody, who do you please? The priorities I cited are fairly well known and quite successful at producing societies populated by generally happy people. But they're by no means the only ones. I can't comment on the priorities you proposed because you didn't propose any.
It's not really *that* complicated, and that, I believe is why you take issue. You know what you need to do; you just don't want to do it. It's a lot easier to debate away your duty with complicated BS than admit the simple truth that you *have* a duty. But if you must, take solace in the abundance of books, preachers, teachers, prophets, enablers, self-help gurus, lawyers, partners-in-crime, and a panorama of religions ready to convince you that whatever you want to do is the right thing to do.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
My kids go to a private Christian school. No amount of reform or improvement in the public school system is going to produce a public Christian school.
For those who value a Christian education, there is, and can be, no public option.
> If your local school stinks and you send your child there, Benedikt explains, 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.'"
At which time, you find that your influence is exactly zero. (Speaking as a father of a special needs kid, who, after fighting with the school system for three years, finally and regretfully pulled his kid out.)
The school system don't cotton to no outside influences.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Let's say I'm a middle class earner, and a certain amount of my taxes goes to the public school system. I choose to put my kid in a private school, paying tuition for that, while also continuing to pay my taxes. There is now a prepaid seat in the public school that can be filled by another kid, or that funding could be used to improve the experience for the remaining students.
Remind me, again, how this is evil?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So many people use the old "liberal" and "conserative" labels wantonly, when they don't really correctly identify a modern division.
Statist is a word that does correctly distinguish the major division of our times. Are you primary for, or against the state supporting each and every person, to the extent that some (or all) choices are removed at the directive of the state?
The people falling on one side or the other are both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.
So instead of stopping reading, you should read more carefully when you encounter the term as it's someone who realizes there is more depth to the matter than the classic labels that would otherwise be shallowly applied.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You pay taxes either way to the school system. I'm not quite sure how the numbers work out for money-per-student vs cost-per-student but it may well be a net positive to take some of the load off while still gaining income.
That is fewer people than in my neighborhood, whose school systems supports 120 different languages in the class room.
I was with you until your last sentence and then you showed your true colors. So you lost your argument by showing that you are nothing more then a prat.
Imagine my concern.
I disagree. Public School is just BAD because the parents don't care. You shouldn't expect a handful of good caring parents to do the job of the careless majority. According to this logic, if parents did care then public education would be better so the reason it isn't is because they don't care. It's not moral to expect everyone else to handle your kid's problems. IMO this is just another attempt at encroaching on our freedoms.
Again, it's not moral to put the burden on improving school on a few parents who actually care about their child's education. Considering the number of private school students compared to public school students, there just isn't enough parents/kids in these programs to hold up the same (private school) standard of education for parents who really don't give a crap, nor is it moral to say that they should do their job for them.
For everyone saying that the bad teachers need to go (And thus be replaced by good teachers) ...someone remind me why the good teachers are interested in teaching? From what I understand the pay, benefits, and hours are all pretty crappy.
Fix that, and maybe you'll see the best and the brightest interested in teaching sometimes.
I agree 100%. I actually moved to a better town to get my kids into a better school. The local school from my former home town had a crackhead blow his brains out on the playground. The kids found him the next day inside a playground feature. Allison can eat a bag of dicks.
And hey! If you really want to have a better school experience for everyone - take 5% of the defense budget and put it into schools. It would probably be 100 times the money they're used to having.
Garbage in, garbage out. So forgive me if I don't feel like playing. I'd like my kids to wind up better than the baggy pants wearing drug addled dipshits from my previous home town.
And good luck to you. I hope you get your children into the best place they can be.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Ignorant socialists spouting tripe. Film at 11:02
The public school system is in complete chaos and even teachers don't want to send their kids there. Private school? LOL Ignorance abounds if you believe that's a better choice.
Wow.
Shut up and cheer as we brainwash your kids, stupid goyim. You're evil if you object.
Love,
an Odious Feminist Jew
But you can't, because by their very nature, public schools are a lowest-common-denominator compromise, subject to political whims, fads, and union interests. Any kind of change is going to take longer than for your kids to graduate.
And people can't even agree on what "better" means? Does that mean taking a critical view of climate change? Does it mean teaching that religion is inherently good, or being critical of religion? Does that mean turning kids into little capitalists, little socialists, little Christians, or little anarchists? And why is it even good that all kids be educated to think the same way and believe the same things?
The public school system is to schools what public toilets are to your bathroom: a choice of last resort. And we should treat them as such and roll the public school system back so that people can vote with their feet and money for the schools they actually want.
Remember Soviet citizens, you must stand in line for this scrap of mouldy bread which our Gracious Leader has got for you! Anyone who is caught using the "black market" in food is an Enemy of the People, and will undergo "correction". Buying food through private channels undermines our wonderful Soviet institution of agriculture. All faults (not that there are faults) are due to insufficient resources in the Department of Bounty.
Life is kinda funny down here the major fuckups at public schools usually end up on community service.
the High upstanding rich kids at the private catholic school also end up on community service.
This is one for Confucius if i ever saw it.
"If your local school stinks and you send your child there, Benedikt explains, 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.'"
:) As a parent, your kid is - or should be - the most important in your life, and if it so, then why the hell would you make him/her suffer during one of his/her most important period in life? School lays the foundations of what your kid will grow to be, does anyone think the quality of the school is not important? If so, then you'd better shut up and bury yourself 'cause we're not interested in your idiocy.
No. If I know the local school stinks, I will do everything in my power to avoid it, at all costs, no matter what. I think I can't put it any more clear than that
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Because you really need your kid to spend his or her critical years getting bad education and lousy social interactions at a failing dump while YOU fight to make it better.
Here in Denmark, they make sure that they distribute the distrubing elements with bad background to all schools/classes.
The teacher unions chairman officially says it is not a problem, as the purpose of the first 10 years in school is to make sure children are having a good time. Its purpose is not to educate the workforce of the future. He is a communist idiot, and since many teachers are socialists, he managed to get his current position.
Another interesting thing, is, that even though the social democratic party says the same: Strong parents should put their children in public school, they have all put their own children in private schools.
At least out royal family put their children in a public school, but the found the best neighborhood in the Copenhagen area to minimize number of disturbing elements.
For the public school to succeed, it is important that they start dividing children by skills, such that a normal school will have both elite, normal and loser classes.
I do not give a fig about the public schools succeeding - I care about the students succeeding. Private schools spend far less than public schools, and obtain signifcantly better results.
And seriously, the parents who hid their children from the Nazis were bad, because the only way to improve the concentration camps is if every Jew sent their kids to Auschwitz? You really have to be a degenerate to propose that increasing the number of victims is the way to improve flagrant institutionilized child abuse, and If every parent was forced to victimize their child by sending them to public schools, you would really hasten the end of public schools.
Why should we listen to this one woman?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's really very simple:
If a sufficient (i.e not necessarily all of them) number of children of sufficiently (i.e again not necessarily all of them) wealthy and influential parents go to public schools, then public schools will receive the attention, funding and other resources necessary to provide a good education to the students.
If too few such children attend public schools, instead being sent to private institutions, less fucks will be given to the public schools, and the consequences will be dire, sooner or later.
This is not speculation, or guesswork. This is a fact. A fact that can be observed in various parts of the world. Covering the entire spectrum.
The extreme other end of the spectrum is of course an entirely privatized school system, that everyone can afford to attend. Since every fuck is given about this system, it'll be just fine for everyone. Also, if everyone cares about it and everyone can attend, then what's the difference between it and a public system? Correct, there isn't any difference. The same money flows, just along slightly different paths.
Thus, it comes down to the amount of fucks given, and the only way to ensure a fuck is given is to provide enough incentive. That, in turn, requires people with money and influence to be involved. And thus we're back to square one. The only way to ensure a functioning school system for the vast majority, is to ensure that enough wealthy and influential people have a reason to give a fuck.
Having enough of their children attending public school suffices.
Please try to prove me wrong. I dare you.
This is absolutely ridiculous in every sense, how is this news in anyway?
Schools and hospitals had all the money they need. And the military and the NSA had to hold jumble sales.
Demolishing the public school system and the stupid arrangement of local governments or authorities at the base of it would both be excellent ideas. And the caring anbd capable people completely separating fron the rest is also a good trend.
I have no obligation to sacrifice my child's well-being so that someone else may or may not benefit. My kids will go to the school that I believe will benefit them the most. If that's private school, then they're going to private school. And if that means contributing to the decline of public school, too fucking bad for public school. It's not my responsibility to save a failing institution.
I contribute to different charities.
I'm already doing all that's in my power for public schools (and for hospitals, roads, etc), it's called "paying my taxes". Then if everything public sucks, the fault is somewhere else.
... would you stop equating every public service to communism? You're becoming quite ridiculous.
There surely are areas in which the public schools are quite adequate and safe for kids. But that simply is not true in other areas. In truth we live in an era in which kids are known to shoot school mates just to get their sneakers. Whether we are talking about seniors or kids there is a certain nagging truth that the poor are sort of dangerous. And some areas have more racial and ethnic conflicts than others. At my old high school it is really not safe for any white students now. And I do strongly suspect that these conflicts will deepen. There simply are no easy answers. We just had a student severely beaten by three other students on a school bus. The primary reason for the attack was that the victim had refused to buy drugs from the three that attacked him. They robbed him during the attack as well. And we now see a judge putting the three 15 year old attackers on probation. It makes me want to scream. Those three deserve a 30 year prison sentence. Certainly they could be put into a youth facility until they are 18 or so and then be transferred to an adult prison. Who wants a kid to be in school with students already caught in major felonious crimes? Public policy towards offenders is way too lenient in many ways. And you can bet that of those three young criminals at least one of them will continue to commit crimes. I would say putting your child in a school with that type of person is child abuse in itself.
OK, so I know I'm not supposed to read the fucking article. But for some reason I clicked. I don't know why, I just clicked, and I read it, and I'm sorry. I understand now. I understand why we must never, ever rtfa. Because it's just mindbogglingly retarded.
Seriously, though, did anyone else read that? I'm trying, I'm really trying to just type a well-reasoned response based on logic and rationality. But there's a big part of me that just wants to grab this blithering moron by the shoulders, shake her very hard, and scream loudly in her face.
OK, to briefly summarize her position, basically she says that anyone who cares enough about their own progeny to send them to private schools is a bad person because by doing so they deprive everyone else's children of what is apparently their fair share of the love and support these bad people shower upon their own kids, and are therefore impeding the development of her utopian vision of the public education system of the far future. To make up for their misdeeds, these bad people should immediately enroll their children in whatever public school exists in their area, where the children will receive a significantly worse education for generations to come (I shit you the fuck not, she actually says it's a good thing for current private schoolers to be given a shit education for generations to come, says the kid's grandchildren should expect a poor education, but it's all for the children of the distant future, which is a new tact: fuck the children, it's for the children). Her, ahem, logic for all this is that by shaming parents (she's explicit on that, she doesn't want to ban private schooling, we need a "morality adjustment" to make people look down on it) into dumping their kids into substandard schools, it will force parents to work to make public schools "better" (a term she doesn't qualify, but based on the overall piece one can assume better means everyone learns what she thinks is right. God help us all...).
Now, I don't think she could summarize her own point that articulately, because, as she mentions with an air of pride, she is poorly educated and doesn't read, and she clearly has no talent as a writer. But that is what she says. There's a lot of attempts on her part to show solidarity with people who are in genuinely horrific schools (the kind where you can fucking die) by pointing out her own hardships (apparently there was no soccer team).
OK, so as to a solid refutation, lets start with the core concept. She assumes that full participation, every parent sending their kid to the local pub school regardless of how shitty, and participating in booster clubs and bake sales and pta meetings, will, over what she estimates to be at least four or five generations, result in some miraculous, perfect public school systems for everyone. There are lots of stupid ideas here, so let's look at a few. First, whose idea of perfect? Has our dear author not noticed that the education of children is a somewhat contentious issue? That not everybody wants their children to be imbued with the same worldview as their neighbor's kids (like, for example, the notion that once upon a time there were people who sent their kids to private schools, and they were Bad People, or don't want their kids taking civics classes that teach them that everything is as it should be and America perfected government in 1776 and never looked back, or want a decent selection of language classes, or who care more about how effectively teachers use the technology at their disposal instead of just how much tech is at their disposal, or any of a million other conflicting one-or-the-other issues)? How does our dear author plan to resolve this contentious issue? If there are an endless array of opinions as to what and how to teach, how will the system eventually evolve into the perfect system that pleases everyone? Well, it won't and can't, but that's not an issue, because our dear author only wants it to teach how and what she and her chosen authority figures say it should.
my roomate's step-sister makes $80 every hour on the laptop. She has been out of a job for nine months but last month her check was $20389 just working on the laptop for a few hours. browse around here ...
WWW.Bay92.COM
If doing what's best for my kid offends the author, tough. Fix the system, don't expect parents to give their kids a bad start out of misplaced altruism.
Never accuse parents of being bad parents. Even if they are.
If all kids went to public school, the average level would be higher. However for those that can afford it, sending their kids to private school make their kid better off, but drops the average level.
I for one think this lady can STFU. I will do what's best for my kid and make sure he has the best chance at a bright future.
The only way to solve a prisoner's dilemma (beside repeated and predictable douchebaggery on the part of a single individual) is to change the rules. Hence if this lady wants people to stop sending their kids to private school, she'll have to ban private schools... and even then you'll end up having private tutors like in S. Korea.
Chicago doesn't have elected school boards. Parents have no voice as the district is run by a centralized team of managers under the control of the mayor. Some of the managers don't even live in the city!
So parents should be expected to sacrifice their child's education because the public school in the area is bad? Yeah, no parent is going to do that.
I'm almost 100% sure my children will go to public schools, because that is the norm in my country. Instead of private school, families here will move to ensure their children are in the catchment area for good schools. The consequences are obviously more or less the same as what Allison Benedikt warns against, namely "ghettofication" of schools, where the poor schools get worse for losing children of resourceful parents.
I understand her point and I would suggest that if your local public school is reasonably safe and you yourself are resourceful and educated, chances are you can ensure a decent education for your children regardless of some shortcomings in the local school. If you're working extra hard to provide the income for a private school, then that extra time at work may be better spent at home tutoring your children. To use examples from the articles, what is the point in working an extra half hour a day to ensure your children learn about Rosa Parks and read the Iliad in school, when you yourself could spend that half hour teaching them about Rosa Parks and read the Iliad with them?
In this case, it would be better for everyone if you stayed, put your children into this school and worked to improve it.
Up to a point. School age children are not old enough to decide to make major personal sacrifices in order to improve the world and I don't think it is right for me to make that decision for them. If putting them in a particular school carries a massively inflated risk of ruining their life and education then I'm failing them as a parent. If the school is actually dangerous, contains large amounts of drugs, etc. then the risk in staying behind to improve it is too great.
(As it turns out. TFA itself is more balanced and uses the word "bad" instead of the more loaded "evil", which Slashdot just had to throw in there).
That's why I'm a governor at my kids' school. And always use the NHS not private medicine. And vote in all elections where I'm eligible.
Things can improve with determination. Almost certainly nothing to do with my tenure, but the school's reputation is on the up and we have waiting lists for almost the first time ever.
Gated communities of any sort are likely to be a mistake IMHO, and I work amongst some of the smartest and richest people on the planet in my day job.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Isn't capitalism about doing whatever you want with your money? And more money means more means to do whatever you want.
If you don't like that then I guess the USA isn't the place for you. Either change the USA through democratic means, or move away or shut up about it.
The said, I can state that in the two education systems I known of, lower mediocrity is target. If you do not fit the bill then you're unfortunate and you wind up having fights with teachers and principals. Yep, too dumb, too smart, too technical inclined are all reasons for you not to fit in the system. If you are in that position and you can afford it then go for the private school. If you can't afford it then be glad some will and, of those, some may understand where you're coming from.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Benedict is full of shit, because if it was the case the schools wouldn't be in bad shape to start with.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I must be Satan himself . . . homeschooling here. 4 to 1 teacher to student ratio, Classes are 4 hours per day, summers too :P Wouldn't trust an elementary school as far as I could throw it, having been to one myself.
She's correct about one thing. She clearly didn't get a good education herself. If she had she would understand the basics of social inertia. The fact is that you very often can't change failing systems efficiently. Sometimes the best and quickest way to fix them, is to let them totally fail then go in an pick up the pieces. What her limited education has positioned her to misunderstand is that for each parent that spends 8 years trying to fix, let's say their child's grammar school, there is an entire union trying to retain the stays quo, and huge political power supporting the unions, because in turn they are supported by the unions. So for now I'll continue to support private as well as public schools. Perhaps the young lady should read up on the theories of competition and how it consistently results in stronger Eco systems since clearly that is one of the topics she never learned in her public school. I would also recommend she supplement her failed education with some of Ann Rand's books.
Let me guess, she doesn't have kids.
Private schools are about choice. I want the freedom to send my kids to private schools, public schools or even homeschool. Why is it considered bad if I choose not to support something I believe to be bad for my kids? This reminds me of those people who push me to buy "American Made" cars - just to support a company that refuses to change for the better. The freedom of choice - choosing what's econ
For most of us in the US, a significant portion of the local public school budget comes from property taxes. I was asking a realtor in DE how they deal with public schools with such a low property tax basis. The answer wasn't surprising... The majority of the populace sends their children to private schools for their elementary education but still go to the public high schools. They feel the major advantage is that the private schools compete (and therefor excel) at educating and that citizens do not pay continuously high taxes after all their children have left the school system. They still feel that their public elementary schools give a decent education because they are smaller and more manageable (thus less costly). I don't know whether this is the prevailing feeling in DE, but it seemed appropriate for this thread.
Society does not exist for one particular individual. And almost all individuals would fail/die without the society to sustain them.
The problem with our society is that we have allowed the corruption to get too bad and it is not functioning well anymore. All the money that should be used to regenerate the tools of society is being siphoned away for the benefit of a subset of the society.
Give us a Top 10 List of Great Finnish Accomplishments. Of particular interest would be those that can be attributed to the superior education system.
Scientific discoveries?
Inventions?
Medical breakthroughs?
Philosophers?
Finland was mostly agricultural until pretty recently. How about some great or even vaguely meaningful contribution to agriculture?
Anything! (except skiing)
It is unfortunately a competitive environment out there and everybody tries to provide themselves with an edge.. As long as it's the case, nobody can blame parents for sending their kids to private school, if they can.
But at the end of the day, your abilities and your drive gets you where you want to go and that has nothing to do with the type of school you attended.
As far as I'm concerned, while, certainly children are not all equal and some do tend to have more academic inclinations, it is also the parents duties to inspire their kids to better themselves and to apply themselves in anything they do. Including homework.
This self stated, poorly educated woman, it would appear needs the education she failed to get before making public statements.
Here is a surprise for you little missey....
Most people dont believe in nor agree with the "Star Trekesque" social utopia you appear to envision. Its pure fiction.
We send our kids to public school because we have to, not because we want to. If we can afford to do better for our kids we do. Your argument is based upon the premise that only the people that can afford to send their kids to private school would make a difference. Your a self rightous ass. The rest of us who cannot afford to send our kids to private school but would if we could, are doing everything humanly possible to get our kids the best education possible, and that is clearly not working.
A few more parents wouldn't make a bit of difference when put up against teacher unions and the politics of the public school system.
You're also missing the big picture in a way that is so fundamental it surprises me that you can articulate a coherent thought at all. I send my kid to school so he will effective "complete" in the years to come. I dont care if your kid can compete. In fact I'm glad your a moron. This increases the chances you'll raise a moron and my kid will have one fewer person to compete against.
Sure we can argue about the benefits to society as a whole and international competition and the like but we all know thats nonscience. International labor is kicking are butt because its cheap, not because some third world country is giving their kids a better education.
In the end what we do have control over is my kid getting a better education than your kid, so my kid will be your kids boss and not the other way around.
My problems with the public school system wasn't even addressed by this women. I don't like the fact that kids aren't doing serious math (precalc or calc 1) until they are about 16 or 17, if they are lucky, which is ridiculous. I don't like that the history classes of the public school study power structures and relationships, thereby giving children the idea that the best way to be remembered is to be a power hungry ego maniac, and it is ok for states and people to be awful to each other for the sake of nationalism or an idea. I don't like that the history of science and mathematics isn't even addressed in history classes. I don't like the reading lists for most English classes (at least in my state of Ohio) because kids are taught that writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne are the archetype authors, which is a joke. I don't like how civics is taught to our kids, because it gives them an idealistic and false idea of how the government works. I never heard the word lobbyist once as a kid. Theses are just my biggest gripes off the top of my head, and everything this lady addressed wasn't even a problem for me.
Fair enough, but personally I'd merge what you've put for "God" and a lot (not all) of "Country" because a lot of morality is doing the best thing for society and a well run country at least tries to match up with this. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the way you phrase it because the list would fit in very well in Iran and even far less enlightened places, and it makes me think of honour killings and other horrors where family is considered far more important than individuals or society. I do get your points though even though they've been misused by others plenty of times.
I was delighted to escape my public school and attend an excellent private boarding school.
Good riddance to a Hellmouth and the bottom-feeder shitbags who infested it. It was a well-funded Hellmouth, BTW.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This "exam" was written to evaluate teachers, not students. And yes, I agree that the majority of contemporary college graduates, excluding English or Education majors (with a minor in English), would have trouble with this exam.
I think if you can send your child to a private school or home school them and they get a better education then you are doing what is best for your child. Despite what the article says I think that public education has almost become a lost cause in some places. It is highly politicized and agenda driven. Your child does not come out of the system educated as much as they become indoctrinated. That is in the public colleges as well, I have seen that first hand. There are some excellent educators who work in the public schools and they do make a difference. Even if everyone put their children in public schools it would not really improve things...even over time. Not the ways the schools are run now. They keep demanding more money from the taxpayer and turn out even more ill prepared students each year. The parents play a large role in the individual success of the student. The teachers can only do so much with 40 students in one period. The educator does not have the time to work with students who are struggling. As much as the public says blame the teacher when the student is unsuccessful I argue that the system is currently set up so that your child has more potential to fail than succeed. If the child is not a self starter or a self learned the parent needs to ensure the child stays on track and studies. The teacher does not have the time or resources to do it. Distractions like video games and sports need to go away until the child can prove that he or she can study on their own and keep up with the program. Parents seem just as susceptible to the social pressures that their children are dealing with and sometimes make the wrong choices that allow their kids to be "cool" in the eyes of their peers all the while put them in the position to fail academically because the time is not being put into study. The generation coming up now seems to be raised by big kids instead of solid adults from what I have observed. That is not true for everyone but it certainly seems to be a lot of them. In closing if you choose to educate your child through private school or home schooling you are doing them a favor if you can afford it. It is not your responsibility to help educate your neighbors kids with your hard earned tax money or supposedly make their education better because you put your kids in public school as well. Do what is right for your children and let those responsible for others take care of themselves.
The detrimental effect of Private schools on the public education system is mainly an artefact of how schools are rated. Let's say you have a public school with relatively good test scores. A private school opens nearby and 20% of the best students switch schools. The result is that the average test scores at the public school take a big drop. The district looks bad; the administration looks bad; and the teachers look bad. But, are the students that remained at the public school receiving any different education than they were before all of the better students left? Has any individual student's test score dropped? It's kind of unfortunate for the better students that couldn't afford to move to the private school, but their education is no worse than it was the proceeding year.
In the USSR, North Korea, and East Germany, the ruling elite did not depend on public transportation, public housing, or food stamps that the rest of the population depended on. If the ruling elite were all forced to live in the same conditions as the peasants, then you could bet your rear end that conditions would have improved.
The split is very clear for high schools and universities, though we might much higher ratio of public schools than HK.
However, nowadays the choice of schools has absolutely nothing to do with future career, because there are no more good jobs for graduates at all. Even the PhDs from our best university are applying for garbage-collection jobs.
If you send your kids to school, you are a bad person. Modern day schooling system was imported from the Prussian system which was specifically designed as a collectivist indoctrination system to make workers, not thinkers, and not producers.
Home education is where it's at. In this day and age, is the only way to give your kids the best. If you have to downsize to make it happen it's worth it.
I knew a neocon; he was a high party official. Get some beers in him and he'd speak his mind. The neocons in the USA have a plan to destroy public school:
They want to ADD to the BS overhead of paperwork, metrics, rules, and COST. They also want to undermine it's effectiveness too; but indirect because the American people love public schools and nobody wants to be seen kicking a puppy.
Why? Simple. Make Americans hate their schools; only then can you get them to side with you to destroy them. Basically the same tactic they use on Government-- purposely break it without drawing attention to yourself and then campaign against yourself.
When I asked, "Wouldn't that hurt the country?" the reply was - it would only be a temporary setback; with fully private schools (in our image) the USA would quickly rise to the top again (because we are better than everybody else, we are destined to rule the world - god is on OUR side! hey, that is their belief.)
Humans ANIMALS like to believe they are above their biological urges, but in reality they are not.
I may not beat you down for your food (because that weakens the tribe) but I'll steal food from your children so mine gets more... In other words, I'll help my child survive and not yours; other than the minimum to maintain group cohesion.
Fighting human nature and biologically rooted tradition is NOT an easy task.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Private schools pay teachers less, with significantly better results.
The benefits & hours for public school teachers are EXCELLENT. Full pension after 20 years, free health insurance, pay raises based on tenure and college credits (any credits, in any subject), a teacher's union that will keep you from being fired for any reason.
Article's author lives in a bubble of fantasy of utopian communism. The reality is that parents who care enough are going to choose the best option for their kids if they can.
Some public schools are just shit, and a lifetime of effort cannot fix them.
My fucks given? None.
The public school system is not a failing institution. It is in fact a "Failed" institution. Thank god some people have the option to go to private schools. If you want to fix schools it's very easy. If you haven't yet, and you want to see the real problem with public schools, watch waiting for superman. It's a real eye opener.
Change a public school? How? You have a firmly entrenched teacher's union that is not going to let you replace poor/bad teachers with good ones. They are not going to reward teachers who are better. They are not going to punish/fire bad ones. The only time they will agree to a contract change is if it gives them more money and/or power. This woman either works for a union, has lost touch with reality, or has never tried to change a public school. Most of the non exclusive private schools have long line of people waiting for an opening to get their kids in for a reason. They are better and operate on less money per student than public schools and there are many that are not expensive to attend. They also turn out motivated kids who learn!
I started in public school on the west coast, but spent most of my school years in the Caribbean, where there was an entirely different culture vibe. At the time it was known that the public school system was not that great an environment for a smart white boy. Even the two church-run schools that I went to didn't work out. As a definite minority in a time when the anti-white sentiment in the islands was in full swing, my classmates escalated to throwing rocks at me. Going to the one private school on the island was a matter of safety, not just education. It gave me the freedom to learn, explore my interests, and give me an idea of what the future could hold for me. While the education was top notch, the real benefit was being ABLE to concentrate on learning, rather than how many fights I might have to deal with any given day.
"Why One Woman Says Sending Your Kid To Private School Is Evil"?
Be she went to a public school and she doesn't know any better?
You can put effort into improving the school system while at the same time sending your kid elsewhere. People manage to volunteer, do social events, and such there is no reason why you couldn't do that for the public school you are so concerned about. That doesn't mean you have to punish your kids with a poor education while things get improved.
I can see two ways where sending your kid to private school could help, both kind of contradicting each other: you still pay your taxes so there is more money to go along for less students in the system. Smaller class sizes, more money for extra curriculars etc. The flip side if your community doesn't send your tax dollars to a school you don't send your kid too then the market can work and the public schools will have to try to improve to get your dollars back or go out of business and more and more kids get private or home schooling vs public.
moniker, she's all for an ideal that is currently unattainable, and offers nothing that remotely resembles a solution.
As others posters here have noted, changing the local systems is all but impossible. The apathy the majority of parents of school-age children have and the lack of support from them aside, the system, which got the way it is, thanks in part to the simple minded ideals Allison Benedikt is all for, have locked-out any chance of changing the simply awful public education system from within.
The lives destroyed by public education are innumerable, and mostly ignored by most of the people who were victims of that system. The few that recognize it and refuse to subject their children to it are now supposedly "evil" - the kind of language you'd expect from the religious extremists, I might point out.
I can count the good teachers I had in public school on one hand. I can count the effective ones that worked within that system in a single finger, and she was not a teacher, she was a LIBRARIAN.
If you are financially trapped into sending your kids to public school and upset about it - you SHOULD be ! And you should recognize the lack of commitment and apathy and participation of the other parents that feel the same way as THE SINGLE most contributing problem in reforming it.
Sending your children to an awful public school IS child abuse, and your kids may never forgive you for it; even if they turn out too damaged by the experience and stupid to even be able to articulate WHY !
Kids need a safe environment to grow up in. Making them responsible for the state of our school system is really not cool. The school system should be providing for kids not the other way around. Kids should not have to raise themselves. The values of life as well as education should be found in schools.
Just a reference to the book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty by economist A. O. Hirschman which discusses the issue of people choosing to exit a system rather than stay in it and fix it. See this blog post for a discussion of this book.
Many parents don't give a shit what happens at a public school. Private schools are changable without ten year disputes. Public schools have been ruined for years and are fucking up childrens mind. School does this in some ways just by making children think "inside the box" but public schools are like sending your kid to learn from people who hate him or her and in most cases know not nearly as much as people in other parts of there life as a teacher for public schools does not care about the "bad" kids but only the good ones. If you send your child to private schools because your a rich snob, it matters not as the parents of those kids don't change anything but fuck it up more.
This is slashdot. Would you prefer your kids got an off the shelf generic computer/education, a high end boutique computer/education or a DIY computer/education? I think most of us would take option 3, but option 2 is still better than the first. Now start poking holes in the weak analogy!
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
I, myself, only feed my child what the poorest kids in the world eat. How else will I stay motivated? My child may not have chosen to do this, but wtf, he's only an object in my self-motivational strategy, right? Tomorrow, I plan to shoot at him until all the worlds violence stops as well. I'm only thinking of the children. Well, all except the one I'm in charge of.
I sent my kids to a terrible private school, am I evil?
You find me a single published example of a teacher who is a pedophile who can't be fired in an American public school. Find me one.
Sure, a teacher gets accused and isn't fired right away -- he or she is placed on administrative leave and not allowed near a kid until more information comes out, perhaps even until the DA figures out what to do. Maybe even a trial. Sometimes the evidence is really compelling and the teacher is fired right away (or resigns).
Again, find me a single published example of a teacher who is a pedophile, the school system knows it, and isn't able to fire him.
You know, the nonsensical bashing or praising of public schools around here [along with nuclear power and a dozen other things] is foolish nonsense, but no big deal. Claiming that it is "hard" to fire a pedophile? Wrong, dangerous, extremely insensitive... just plain asinine. So put up or shut up, wouldja?
Elitism of all sorts is everpresent and it threatens the long slide back to oligarchy and exploitative institutions. It is susally most obvious in times of economic stagnation and decline. Market and elitist forces begin to take over and price and group descrimination begins to emerge which excludes groups of people or takes away resources that everyone should have access to.
The idea that education should be universal is relatively new, especially for high schools and higher education, and the problems of sustaining it are well known and much of the cause for Private Schools. But the fact that class and wealth can be used to separate people and deny many resources that would give them access to the benefits of society is why one could argue that private schools are evil; because they create elitism and the return to oligarchy and elitism. Not all elites, but most, fit on the right side of the political spectrum. Most Conservatives are first elitiist of one form or other. Most are wealth elites, but some are religious or race elites, but elitist nonetheless. They believe that they are better than most everybody else. Sometimes they wish to erect barriers to others entering their elite, but most often they think that they are better by birth or virtue and because of that will remain in their elite. This is what is evil.
If you want evidence of the toxic nature of a private school system, look no further than the UK.
They will NEVER git rid of their noxious class system until the "public" (i.e. private) schools are abolished.
I have been saying this for 40 years.
In the English-speaking world it's probably the only way to stay main gang. In any other world she is probably right.
In other words the bits that neither the competent countries nor Belgium wanted.
Did it end in a bilateral surrender.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Public education is a morally ahborrent idea and should be abolished.
People who can't afford private school tuition have no business whatsoever reproducing.
As it is, I can't think of anyone who would, if they were informed of it, willingly hire a graduate of a pu8blic school. People who send their kids to public school are thieves, criminals and scum. Their children are garbage and need to learn that they are always going to be garbage. If they can't live with that knowledge, there's always suicide.
Social security tax now runs at 12.4%. That is NOT a "small social security amount", it's a HUGE one-eighth of wages, and a much larger portion of disposable income. The economic boom that would result if SS were terminated is beyond what most would imagine, and would easily mop up the people needing very quickly to find a job.
An immediate cutoff is not a good idea, because of the obvious injustice of not paying back what was stolen. But the system should be phased out.
Knowing that you have to provide for your own retirement would have a number of bonuses, one of which would be that people would treat their children better, knowing that they may have to rely on their children late in life.
More money available individually means more money donated to charity. That's another source of goods for those who don't provide for their old age.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Allison gets a flunking score for just about any subject I can imagine, but especially for common sense.
My mother who was 40 years a public school teacher sent all her children to private schools. She did it for objective reasons. Now my brother who is also a public school teacher (and who went to private schools), thinks that not going to public schools is an ideological sin. My brother is an idiot, of course and my mother is within her rights and sanity to decide what she did.
This kind of ideological idiocy is basically what this article is saying also: it's a matter of religious faith and creed to attend public schools without regard to objective quality. Sorry that's stupid bullshit.
This is akin to liberals who would rather you be killed by a mugger than use a gun to defend yourself because you might kill or injure the thief. Basically again ideological fetishism that is THE PROBLEM, not the solution
At least she's not my mum.
One thing I can tell from your post is that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Pedophile teachers are fired immediately upon conclusive evidence that they have violated the basic conditions of their employment, which I assure you forbid that kind of behavior just about everywhere in the United States. I can speak from my administrative experience in a large NC public school district. Been there and done that, bucko.
You say 'collectivist' like its a term as familiar and concrete as say 'nazi'...
Only people who already agree with you share the same heavy emotional and psychological satisfaction from scapegoating 'collectivists'
So, let's hear it...what is a 'collectivist'?
Troll answers will get ignored...let's see a real, consistently applicable definition...one that has some grounding in the actual meaning of the word and use in academia would help immensely...
So how do you define 'collectivist'?
Thank you Dave Raggett
Teaching is a field like any other. Stupid stuff only becomes stupid when proven stupid through research. However high stakes that is for little Jonny.
Trouble is everyone has an opinion as almost everyone either went to school or has kids in school.
Most of the best research on motivating groups of teenagers to think independently is coming out of Australia atm. See Halliday et al. Mixed ability groups with a variety of targets matched to each students various ability and type of learning stule is looking good at the moment.
Until teachers are better educated in current pedagogy, and until they are paid to spend a fuck ton of time creating targeted lessons for up to 120 kids a day - it seems people will still spout the same old shit.
gosgog:
Yep Teacher Unions & Politicians (always politicians, but remember who voted them in!). They are a major problem, but seems to me that the Parents, particularly in Public schools are a lot to blame, because when the school comes down on a badly behaved kid, the Parents, in a lot of cases, are screaming at the Teachers, half the time defending the kids bad behavior, so it gets to make things extra tuff, for teacher disciplines.
Parents who send their kids to Private schools, for the most part go along with the schools systems & will backup the teachers' disciplinary systems.
So for the most of the time the kid in Private school gets a better education because they have to pay attention!
...what school do Allison Benedikt's kids attend (or did attend)? Anyone willing to dig up some dirty laundry?
from evil private medical school to become Dr. Thank You Very Much
Thanks for telling me up front that you don't know what you're talking about so I got to save time by not reading the rest.
Dude, this is par for the course for slate. They post a link-whoring title and write a controversial and completely uninformed puff piece designed to generate floods of angry comments and even bigger floods of ad impressions and clicks.
I remember when the Internet made an effort not the feed the trolls, but those days are long gone. Trolling the Internet is Slate's bread and butter.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Every evil genius knows that you need a bit of flair and drama to be a real Evil Mastermind. Any thug can pop someone in the head. You want to be a thug? Heck we don't even hire out thugs, we get minions like any respectable arch villain.
When it came to students that went through the town's educational system making it through college and graduating the town had a 25% success rate.
So I sent my kids to Parochial School.. My oldest graduated from college, my two younger sons are still attending.
I believe I did the right thing.
Your local school stinks and you do send your child there? I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.
Too bad there isn't much 'power' for parents. Your child has a really crappy teacher that has no idea how to teach? Tough. The teacher's union won't dare let that teacher be fired.
Hell, in our county a school tried to trim back teaching staff by not bringing back new teachers that had less than two years of seniority. Perfectly legal and completely within the school's rights. THEIR UNION STILL RAISED HOLY HELL AND FOUGHT TO GET THEIR JOBS BACK!
Until parents and administrators have some say over who gets the right to teach our children, this ladies 'manifesto' is a bunch of crap.
In 1913 The Federal Reserve Act was also passed that guaranteed that people who saved money and placed it in safe investments would still lose real purchasing power because of inflation.
Under a gold standard there was exceptional growth in the 1800s despite temporary central banking efforts which destablized the economy.
Under a gold standard you could lend money to the bank safely at 4%-5%, then get additional 2% purchasing power per year through deflation.
If every student attended public school nothing would change. Public schools are controlled by the Department of Education which is not publicly elected and isn't accountable to the public. Where is any historical evidence that this organization, without oversight or accountability, has ever done what is in the public's best interest for education? It has reduced math and science until the United States is no longer in the top 5 countries but replaced them with sex education. Are there statistics on if we are in the top 5 for knowing how to use condoms?
Case in point - since nothing would change for the Department of Education if every student were forced to enroll in public school, why hasn't the Department of Education already succeeded in creating a near perfect educational system?
Does "the US does sometimes run schools like those great European examples...", Finland, Hong Kong, Japan and the Netherlands? Two of those countries are in Asia, not Europe. They speak four national languages, each one in a different group, Uralic, Chinese, Altaic, & Germanic, respectively. All four countries have mostly a single ethnic group. There is no way we can draw conclusions about their schools and apply them to the USA.
The parents, not the school system, decided that their incentives weren't good enough. They earned X dollars via the "booster clubs", and lost Y dollar to the "system". So, these "booster" parents let their schools fail, because it's not fair that other schools get some of the money.
Suppose you brought a dozen doughnuts to work and I had to share them with 8 co-workers (to be "fair"). You got to eat 4 doughnuts, gave away 8, and made everyone your friend. Would rather get NO doughnuts just to screw over your co-workers?
Stalin and Mao were _not_ communists. They were fascists that happened to use communist rhetoric in their speeches and posters.
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Ummmno. Work happens. People with morals and work ethic (admittedly getting scarce) look for jobs when they don't have enough money to meet their needs. Before Social Security, did the nation have geriatric gangs running around committing crimes? No. Your entire premise is incorrect.
Why the hell should I care if public schools are rotting? I should care about giving my kids the best education and social nurturing possible. I can't fix what's horribly broken on a national level. And I'm certainly not going to screw away my time and my kids' well-being so that some other people can feel better about their broken system. Doesn't make sense. If this article presents a valid argument, then by simple logic it's equally valid to argue that people who militate against private schooling are horrible because they are preventing a better system of education from developing to its potential. FYI, my kids attend a very private school at home, and we are constantly told how intelligent and well behaved they are. And they are. I couldn't give that to them if I sent them to a public school, period. I love my kids too much to sacrifice them for someone's sick experiment.
Conservatives want to pass their values and culture and mythology on to their kids. But, for many of them, public schools are an obstacle to that. The key problem in the conservative mind with public schools is that the melting pot has given way to a multiculturalism that creates a climate of fear regarding ones own culture - exactly the opposite of what people want.
This isn't just public schools, and it isn't about religion, its everything conservative these days - lower taxes are just a form of saying, "I disagree with the public direction, so I want no public at all." They are allowed to say that, and when the liberals call them selfish for it, the end result will be a hastening to this trend of withdrawal. Why participate in something that is detrimental to you, and you don't believe is good for the public overall?
The ironic thing is that, even though liberals talk up a good game about the commons, you'll find they are withdrawing from the public as well. Of course, its long been known that rich people send their kids to private schools regardless of their political stripes, but you'll see it in their spheres.
This is my sig.
There's a pretty large body of psychology that shows those 'participation' awards are a good thing. Teachers didn't start doing that for the hell of it, but the reasons have largely been buried. Basically, psychologists found that it took a lot of work to give people a positive self image, especially lower income people. The kind this stuff is most commonly targeted to.
Now, in and of itself you're saying: so what, who needs a positive self image? And you'd be right if you ignore the next bit of findings: people can't do things that they don't don't believe they can do. It sounds simple, but in researching it psychologists found it wasn't just that people failed, but that they actively sabotaged themselves. They would consistently do things that reinforced their negative self image of themselves, and that the only way to stop them was to force a positive self image onto them through trickery. Hence the 'participation' awards.
All of this is a complex thought that goes against common sense, so it's easy to attack and undermine it.
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Creating a human being causes lots of inevitable suffering for this person. And what is evil if not causing suffering for personal gains? (And how many altruistic (and at the same time "not stupid" and "not racist") reasons are there for having children?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism