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DEL.ICIO.USSchool vouchers would grant parents a choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ready cure is at hand for the anguish expressed by those who see last week’s 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court further restricting the use of race as a factor in determining how schools should be mixed.
Liberals won’t like it. The gods of “diversity” will be agog. And the grand strategists who see it as their mission to use public schools to expose children to an idealized multicultural world will fall into near-fatal fantods. But, yes, there is an answer.
It is vouchers. School vouchers. Allow parents to choose. Give them choice, alternatives to school administrators who have attempted now for half a century or more to brew some elusive concoction, using black and white students, to precisely integrate schools, presumably to help minority students overcome the disadvantage of poor schools and neighborhoods.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in a case arising from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., pointed out that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Seattle used race as a factor in a high school assignment plan. The Louisville case was filed by a parent whose child was denied a transfer to a kindergarten class closer to their home on the basis of race.
The original suit that gave rise to the decades-long efforts by federal judges to micromanage schools came in Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 decision addressing government-sponsored segregation in Little Rock, Ark. The problem, however, is that achieving any local board’s desired balance involves race-based remedies.
One likely outcome now is that administrators and local boards, convinced that it’s their moral obligation to expose children to “diversity,” will simply devise more subtle methods of employing race-based school assignments. While it is important for children and adults to respect people of different nationalities, races, religions and cultures, it’s not the primary business of the schools. The job of educators is to prepare children academically so that they are able to think critically and to be prepared to support themselves and their families as adults.
Schools should, of course, reflect the broad community where children live. But when those communities change, schools should be permitted to change.
If the schools are lousy, parents from the community shouldn’t be held prisoner. They should be able to take their children — and the taxpayer money — to another school, public, private or parochial.
Parents then can examine the classroom and the school, including its racial mix, and decide whether it’s achieving the results they want for their children.
Some will segregate, but that’s no different than now where constantly changing housing patterns affect the composition of schools. They may segregate black. They may segregate white. Or Hispanic. Or male. Or by religion. Or any other way that satisfies parents. Parents who believe a grade-school diversity experience is a priority, who further believe their child lacks opportunity to associate with a diverse array of other children, may choose a school on that basis.
With vouchers, children rich or poor need not be denied any of the experiences social planners strive for in creating and maintaining the perfect race-based mix in the classroom. Far too much time and energy has been devoted to the effort.
This is a tired, old debate that has no end. In about 40 school districts nationwide, with about 2.5 million students, school officials have now expanded their social engineering to employ “socio-economic status” to make certain that children of one income level are exposed to another, reports The Wall Street Journal. Income-based social engineering emerged as race-based efforts came under attack.
Give parents vouchers. Let them choose the setting they want for their children. Let parents, not strangers whose agendas are beyond challenge, be the social engineers.
Permalink | Comments (53) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Comments
By Southern Democrat
June 30, 2007 3:03 PM | Link to this
An incredibly sensible solution that I wholeheartedly endorse. As a former educator, I think that teachers would benefit from a more engaged constituency as well.
By Analchord
June 30, 2007 3:18 PM | Link to this
It’s happened. The circular logic bumper sticker for the ages.
Look up John Roberts in the dictionary and you get a picture of a fractal.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race”….(that’s already a redundancy, there’s only one criteria for discrimination: white and not-white), “is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”, (are you dizzy yet? this actually qualifies as a tongue twister more challenging that Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Peppers).
This could be the most dangerous pronouncement since Dred Scott, (and making as much sense).
By Francesco Sinibaldi
June 30, 2007 3:31 PM | Link to this
Sleep, little darling.
In the dead of night, while a sound disappears forgetting an answer and a beautiful care, sleep little darling; your eyes appear in the air reading aloud a delicate story, a moving profile returns in the dark, and when a line fades away describing a soul and a sullen desire, remember, alone, the light of a sunrise…
Francesco Sinibaldi
By Howard
June 30, 2007 3:57 PM | Link to this
Jim…good column, as usual. Isn’t always amazing when the hypocritical left-wingers and Democrats in this country don’t get their way…via judicial decisions…they whine and cry and stomp their feet and cry “foul!” But when a screwed up judge or judges sees something their way…then all is right with the world! I guarantee you and anyone else that if Al Gore had been in George W. Bush’s position in 2000 and the courts would have ruled in his favor?? Been the greatest thing in the world, according to the warped minds that inhabit liberalism in the USA.
By No Adult Supervision At The AJC?
June 30, 2007 4:28 PM | Link to this
Geez, what a vile, hateful Vent section we had today:
I recently saw a car with a bumper sticker that said, “Honk If You Love Jesus. So I honked. All four people in the car showed me their middle finger. Have they changed the meaning of that gesture to “Hallelujah, Brother”?
1, does anybody really believe this happened and is not just an excuse to hate on Jesus? 2, can you imagine our brave AJC warriors publishing this vent had it been a car full of Muslims?Yeah, right.
3, I always thought that the Federal Anti Discrimination Statutes said something about race and religion, doesn’t it seem to you like the liberals only respect these laws when it suits them?Know what I mean?
If Cheney is not in the executive branch, he should not be getting protection from the Secret Service.
Ah, a person afflicted with Cheney Derangement Syndrome is finding the Secret Service to be counter productive to the deepest desires.
What a lovely subject to be discussing in a “unbiased” family “news” paper.
Are people who send in vents about illegal immigrants really that racist or does it just appear that way?
Um, duh?
Must be a left wing scholar.
When I was young, I failed miserably as a liar. Every time I lied, I got nailed. Today’s Republicans have developed lying to a high art form. I cannot tell them how much I admire their skill. Of course, I would not vote for one of them because I now have scruples.
You got to be kidding me, right?
First of all, prove it. Just because it’s not perverted enough for you does not make it a lie.
Secondly, Bill Clinton?
Duh.
By Pimp Coward - Amerikkka’s Wanker I June 30, 2007 9:40 AM Hey, maybe the FBI will think your post is funny, maybe not. We’ll see, Curly.
The F.B.I?
Hahaha.
It wasn’t me anyway, you paranoid little tosser, I would never wish harm on a commercial airliner, not with all the innocent people on it.
Remember suckhole, you are the one that belongs to the political party that hopes and “prays” for dead civilians, it’s your only hope of getting into the White House.
Now if you had said you were flying a single seat Cesna, that would be a different story.
P.S. on London: The Brits were withdrawing from Iraq. Lot of good that did them.
By Markus
June 30, 2007 4:52 PM | Link to this
I’ll give a bl@wjob and $100 to anyone who can identify the other ID I’m using today.
By Sailor
June 30, 2007 5:27 PM | Link to this
Everyone’s been asking after my gal pal Andi/e.
We’ve been playing war games all week. I drop my pants and s/he tries to blow me away.
And tries. And tries. And tries.
Damn she’s good.
By Pope rednecks - Amerikkka's Al Qaeda I
June 30, 2007 5:38 PM | Link to this
Well, POS Andi/e is back - nyuck nyuck nyuck - Curly of the 3 Stooges - where are your moronic sidekicks today - Bi Moe Danish and Larry RW?
The chickenhawk warblogger lives.
Too bad.
By Analchord
June 30, 2007 5:47 PM | Link to this
The premise of John Robert’s argument IS his conclusion.
By @@
June 30, 2007 6:10 PM | Link to this
Social engineering is a forced issue Jim, and freedom-loving Americans don’t take kindly to anything forced upon them by the government OR special-interest groups.
Thank goodness that we now have a Supreme Court who is ready to rule based on common sense and the “intent” of the law rather than a court who desires to turn us all into robots of the left think “tanked”.
We are now past 1964, 1974, 1984, 1994, and 2004.
When you have many African Americans who have overcome the obstacles and successfully achieved a higher standard of living, the old argument of discrimination just doesn’t apply anymore. It’s time for EVERYONE to follow suit and move onward and upward.
The opportunities are there for the taking. Grab ‘em.
By Garbage In Garbage Out
July 1, 2007 8:23 AM | Link to this
The biggest problem with Georgia schools is Georgia kids and their parents. Little rednecks growing up with no other goal than to become big rednecks.
Vouchers mean that ignorant redneck parents will have the ability to choose better schools? Most Georgia parents have no idea what a good education is, wouldn’t have a clue. Some moron with a bible will tell them to send their kids to his school, most Georgia illiterates will say “duh, OK.”
Georgia always had inferior schools, since its founding. Georgia schools sucked long before the federal government had anything to do with them. That’s the baseline condition of education in Georgia and most of the south.
Georgians are superstitious stupid simple people that hate gummint (but like those foodstamps and gummint jobs), think that anyone with a high school diploma is an elitist snob, and are suspicious of any idea that ain’t in their King James bible.
Spending money to educate people like that is always a losing proposition. Vouchers will just allow private schools to scam the gummint, perhaps just spread the graft and corruption around a bit more.
Spending money to educate Georgians is like throwing it into the sea. Bye bye!
By Ericimo
July 1, 2007 9:19 AM | Link to this
I always find it ironic that socialist nations have a very capitalist approach to schools while the opposite is true (and has been for 70+ years here in the US) in capitalist nations who use socialist tactics to have schools that are “fair.” All it has done is produce lousy primary and secondary education here and great schools abroad such as in Europe and China. Competition is the key which is why US universities are some of the finest in the world; they compete to get students with higher demand and more money for the better schools. Let parents decide where to send their children and let the money follow the students. Stop pouring more money into failing schools. The worst schools, usually in urban areas, in the US actually spend the most money per student…much more so than better schools in suburbs and even more money than most private schools. Underfunding is not the problem; the system of trying to make all public schools equal is broken as it leads to mass mediocrity and overfunding of schools that should be closed so that money can be given for more successfully runned schools to expand and accept more students. No Child Left Behind was a step toward this idea by making it easier for parents to choose where to send their kids. However it is flawed in that it uses standardized tests to determine funding…the schools are just teaching the test in place of what is important. If the money follows the students, and parents choose the schools, then the best schools who do a better job choosing teachers and have a better system of education will get more money and thus be able to handle more students while the worst schools will close. The way we used to do it produces inferior education, the way we do it now causes terrible schools to just teach the test to get more funding, the way we should do it is how the many countries who rank higher than the US in primary and secondary education do it: by making the schools compete for students and money. Competition breeds excellence, “fairness” breeds mediocrity.
By Lee
July 1, 2007 9:21 AM | Link to this
Well now, isn’t that special. It ONLY took the Supreme Court 50+ years to figure out that it wasn’t the black schools that were inferior, maybe the students inside had something to do with it.
Along with forced bussing to achieve the multicultural utopia most Marxists worship, we also had to endure an expanded welfare state, which enabled the non-producers and low class citizenry to overpopulate, as well as traitorous immigration bills, which allowed tens of MILLIONS of third world trash to flood our neighborhoods.
Overlooked is the fact that this case was brought about by a white mother who tried to enroll her daughter into three separate high schools only to be denied, saying that they needed more black students to increase their DIVERSITY. It took our court system SEVEN years to decide, “Hey, this ain’t right.”
Justice delayed is justice denied.
All this ruling means is that the federalist’s finally realized that they’ve screwed the education system up so bad, it really doesn’t matter where junior attends school, he’s screwed anywhere he goes.
This ruling is too little, too late. The damage has been done.
By Ann Taylor Boutwell
July 1, 2007 9:30 AM | Link to this
1971: New York Times article for March 14. “The Life and Death of Atlanta’s Hip Strip.” James you mention the WALL on the corner of Peachtree and 10th Street where the communion of castaways takes place. You mention the mural of Jesus and a chorus of surrealistic disciples.
Just confirming that the WALL is the side of the Margaret Mitchell’s Visitors Center. Doing a publication. Love your work.
Ann Taylor Boutwell Atlanta INtown A Look Back 404-881-9424
Thanks so much,
Ann
By Redneck Convert
July 1, 2007 9:45 AM | Link to this
Now you’re talking, Wooten. Just give me the money and let me send little Sonny Zell George to any school I want to. Far away from Those People and librul teachers and such. I want him to grow up to be just like me. Maybe even get his own beer truck route one day and a double wide some day.
Anyway, nothing good comes from sending kids to these integrated schools. I recall poor Homer Forren up Dahlonega way. He let one of his boys go live with a uncle down in Atlanta and go to one of those integrated schools. Well, the years passed and after a while he got a message that his boy wanted to bring the girl he was going to marry up to see him. Homer got all dressed up in his best overalls and waited. In comes his grown-up boy and a girl blacker than DebbieDoRight. Poor Homer grabbed his chest and done a Fred Sanford and had to be taken off to the hospitle. He was never the same. It’s what comes of letting your kid grow up believing that Those People are just as good as you.
I want Sonny Zell George to learn some basics in school. Like
· Don’t cheat unless there is real money in it. · Keep your hands off of my money. · Hang out with your own kind and stay away from Those People. · Never vote for a librul. · Try to convert all people to good Christians. If they won’t convert, kill them.
Anyway, I don’t hold with a lot of schooling. You can do good without it. Just look at Van. He don’t spell or write good and he don’t know nothing about history and such, but he Thinks Right. Or Sister Dusty. She don’t know a thing outside her own little world but she Thinks Right. Or even if you go to school a lot you can refuse to be brainwashed and still think like a redneck. Like Wooten and jbmlaw. Anyway, I never made it out of the 5th grade and it never hurt me none.
Thanks to the new Supreme Court of My President, we are finally getting back to the way things were back in the 40s. It won’t be long till Those People go to ratty schools again and us good white people send our kids to good ones. As God intended.
By time to lynch virulently racist leftists
July 1, 2007 9:59 AM | Link to this
inbred rednekkk’s vile sick robotic anti-black racism is as predicktable as this leftist dogturd’s anti-southern hate and bigotry. the ONLY thing to do with witless evil human scum like inbred rednekkk is get animal control to take it to the pound and have it put down!!
funny how the cowardly hypocritical leftist vermin on here NEVER ever complain about inbred’s KKKlan like racism. the ONLY thing that sort of makes sense in inbred’s nazi like rant is killing truly evil imbeciles - but in this case its leftist racist hate pigs that need to be killed/exterminated!!
By Analchord
July 1, 2007 10:10 AM | Link to this
The Basis of the Races - The Devil is in the Decals
In the most poorly reasoned decision since Dredd Scott, (from which Lincoln himself drew the mojo to Jimmy Carter our divided house), Judge Robert’s bumper-sticker-Goebeling of logic serves as the legal precedent for the institutionalized and congenital disenfranchisement of non-whites.
Robert’s brief, itself a scattered, dusty cough of evil, can be translated, “If it weren’t for non-whites, there’d BE no non-whites.”
The logic is so smoothly circular that one is tempted to take Robert’s pile pillow and ring toss it onto the horns of the dilemma Americans now face: Do we stand for this blatant prying apart of our society into the unbussed and unblessed chained rabble versus the elite and gated sprawl?
Humanity dont like being demoted. Humanity get mad at tainted legalese. Humanity want apology from Judge Roberts and resignation.
Homes 4 Humanity. Schools 4 Humanity. Hospitals 4 Humanity.
Socio-political revolution is upon us, only it’s the royalty doing the revolting. Can Kings be of and for themselves, (simply being BY themselves)?
By time to lynch virulently racist leftists
July 1, 2007 10:16 AM | Link to this
@ analarsehole 10.10am
STFU
By getalife
July 1, 2007 10:43 AM | Link to this
Not much more to say after Redneck Convert’s post.
The case coming up on Gitmo will tell the story if the SC will follow the Constitution.
Wingnut schools will produce hatred of others like the Islam schools.
This will have generations of kids killing each other forever.
A wingnut and Islam, wet dream if you will.
Geez.
By getalife
July 1, 2007 10:50 AM | Link to this
“Romney: Dog ‘enjoyed’ riding on car roof”
Willard enjoys torture and he will do the same to Americans and say we enjoy it.
Like Edward’s hair cut, Willard’s dog torture will stick in this campaign.
Geez.
By time to lynch virulently racist leftists
July 1, 2007 10:52 AM | Link to this
@ maggotbrain
STFU
race baiting hate pig far left illegal sponging human scum like you must be immediately forcibly deported.
By Bumper Sticker
July 1, 2007 10:53 AM | Link to this
…the new Supreme Court of My President.
Too funny!!
And here’s the “new” oath:
“I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. Unless as directed or superseded by George W. Bush. So help me God.”
By getalife
July 1, 2007 11:01 AM | Link to this
More bs propaganda from Iraq
Our media is pathetic, long live the blogs.
Geez.
By Analchord
July 1, 2007 11:28 AM | Link to this
Hey, why dont we give vouchers to Sunnis in Baghdad?
No, even better, lets give vouchers to Hamas, that’ll fix things!
Vouchers indeed.
By getalife
July 1, 2007 11:28 AM | Link to this
With the recent cyclone and flooding, a slow government response, riots in Pakistan, it will get much worse.
Geez.
By @@
July 1, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this
Will you stop saying, “Geez”, moron?
By getalife
July 1, 2007 11:46 AM | Link to this
@@,
How about ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ?
Geez.
By Curious Observer
July 1, 2007 12:41 PM | Link to this
Why not vouchers? That way, the privileged can get help paying for the tuition of their children in private schools, while they vote down any measures intended to help public schools. They can ensure that their children are exposed to only one viewpoint (their own)and to only white children of their own economic and social class. And when the under-funded public schools fail even worse than they do at present, the failure can be used as justification for cutting funding even further.
Sounds like a Southern winner to me.
Sadly, Redneck Convert’s rant hits all too close to home. It mirrors what the majority of Southerners and Georgians are already thinking but are too embarrassed to vocalize.
By Buy Danish
July 1, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this
How about FFFFFFFF?
You stink, pee wee.
Go ahead, type “Geez” one more time and see what happens….
By jm
July 1, 2007 1:11 PM | Link to this
comparing how colleges work with how primary and secondary schools work is comparing apples and oranges.
Colleges can choose who they wish to accept, while most public and primary schools are based on geography and have to take the people there.
Also, up until a certain age, children are required to be “schooled”, that is not the case for college.
It is perfectly acceptable (and in some cases preferable) to send a child to a college out of state or to have that child board at the college. How willing are parents to do the same for primary and secondary schools.
Currently, school systems have a built in means of transporting children to schools. If parents are allowed to choose where there children go, will the school system be required to provide the transportation infrastructure?
Finally, those who think introducing “vouchers” will reduce costs are deluding themselves. A teacher in a classroom costs pretty much the same whether there are 25 students there or 5. However, if you pull that tax dollars that those 20 missing students took with them, the shortfall will need to be made up somewhere else.
By getalife
July 1, 2007 1:16 PM | Link to this
Geez.
Geez.
Geez.
GFY!
Bwa.
By Dennis
July 1, 2007 1:29 PM | Link to this
Mr. Wooten writes, “If the schools are lousy, parents from the community shouldn’t be held prisoner. They should be able to take their children — and the taxpayer money — to another school, public, private or parochial.”
Then those schools would be lousey.
Mr. Wooten states, “Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in a case arising from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., pointed out that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Yeah. And the way to stop having lousy schools is to stop having lousy schools.
You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
By Dennis
July 1, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this
By Curious Observer July 1, 2007 12:41 PM “Why not vouchers? That way, the privileged can get help paying for the tuition of their children in private schools, while they vote down any measures intended to help public schools. They can ensure that their children are exposed to only one viewpoint…of their own economic and social class. And when the under-funded public schools fail even worse than they do at present, the failure can be used as justification for cutting funding even further.”
Straight arrow!!!
You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
By sinneD
July 1, 2007 1:41 PM | Link to this
Then those schools would be lousey.
Those schools would be motivated to improve or have teachers laid off.
Get rid of teachers unions.
Property owners would continue to pay for public schools through their property taxes.
You don’t have to be smart to be a Dennis.
By time to lynch virulently racist leftists
July 1, 2007 2:01 PM | Link to this
As ever the despicable racist hypocrisy of the should have been aborted leftist vermin on here is enormously amusing. They screech like lobotomised moral fascist pigs at legitimate, reasonable, factual criticism of illegal non-English speaking leeches and the black racial spoils and criminal/thuggish hippety hop crowd. Yet their own bigotry against blacks - such as inbred rednekkk’s almost daily racist filth, seemingly puked up by its psychotic retarded alter ego curious peeping tom - and the unremitting lemming like parroted pandering gobsh!te from the worthless likes of peeping tom, maggot brain, Mrs Oedipus NAMBLA, crackpipe, aborted foreskin et al is always silently ignored by the hordes of quivering swinish dissembling leftist filth on here!! This is why leftists need to be ‘liquidated’ - using the nazi like far leftist palestinian language of the nazi like palestinian covenant!!
would dennisthedishonestdissemblingdickhead desist (from) dumping demented dogsqueeze on here
By getalife
July 1, 2007 2:08 PM | Link to this
“The people that work on bias and prejudice
in this country are the people on the left.
They’re the ones that form opinions of people
based on their skin color…” — Rush, explaining why there are no nationally elected blacks in the Republican Party
Geez.
By @@
July 1, 2007 2:47 PM | Link to this
Getalife:
You can use “Geez” all you want.
Your 11:46 should have been addressed to THE OTHER @@, a/k/a/ PoliFore.
PoliFore who is truly a bore
Looking for everyone
to relinquish HIS floor.
I don’t think PoliFore was ever taught the concept of turn taking as a child.
But then PoliFore refuses to grow up. A modern day Peter Pan in his virtual reality.
Snoooooooooze!
By Andy
July 1, 2007 2:59 PM | Link to this
Aw, gee whiz, I was only foolin’
I didnt mean nuthin, honest, golly gee, you clowns take yourselves WAY too seriously
Go ahead and type Geez, I dont care, really, and you @@ go ahead and blog your witicisms and clever phraseology, it’s funny!
and buy danish can say whatever she wants to she’s got a right.
Cant take a joke! But I promise I will never do it again. I swear!
By getalife
July 1, 2007 3:33 PM | Link to this
PF wanking?
Bwa.
I told them to put up the Constitution
Geez.
By No Adult Supervision At The AJC?
July 1, 2007 4:07 PM | Link to this
By Garbage July 1, 2007 8:23 AM Some moron with a bible will tell them to send their kids to his school, most Georgia illiterates will say “duh, OK.”
I’ll let Wooten speak:
If the schools are lousy, parents from the community shouldn’t be held prisoner. They should be able to take their children — and the taxpayer money — to another school, public, private or parochial.
There is a reason why Georgia public schools are the lowest scoring in the nation and it has nothing to do with education.
If an education is all you got in school maybe it would be different.
But public schools are politically correct indoctrination centers, democrat party mind control camps, that teach the “religion” of liberalism, silly notions and falsehoods given as truths, with America being the world’s force of evil.
The same America that fights for the world’s freedom and gives billions upon billions to the poor.
Who wants their kid to grow up and be naďve?
Besides which, I know a group of home schooled seniors that, to a student, just scored 90% percent or better graded against the whole country in the SAT.
It’s like all the proof I need.
Georgians are superstitious stupid simple people that hate gummint (but like those foodstamps and gummint jobs), think that anyone with a high school diploma is an elitist snob, and are suspicious of any idea that ain’t in their King James bible.
This is what is known as believing what your TV tells you, the contrived version of Christianity that the perverts in Hollywood and ITP Atlanta want you to believe.
How else will they sell their mind pollution if everyone turns to Christ?
They have to fight good with all of their strength, to smear good people so that they feel better about their own failings.
How many of you brainwashed think there were sermons this morning about how to lynch black people?
My church, in the real world, sent 20 people today to Kenya to build a schoolhouse.
It’s like all the proof I need.
By Analchord
July 1, 2007 4:45 PM | Link to this
“The way to stop dissin’ homies is to stop dissin’ homies, dawg”.
Thank you, Judge Crow.
By raisedanidiot
July 1, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this
Good job, no brain wooten…here’s a news flash…life is diverse! A real education prepares children for life in the real world (not the made-up one conservatives live in). Like it or not, America is the great melting pot…and god love us, hopefully always will be. These ultra-conservatives who support vouchers just want to seperate themselves further and grow more little wing-nuts who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford a wing-nut education. A real education includes learning how to think for oneself, learning how to get along with others that might be different culturally, socio-economically, RELIGIOUSLY, or racially. Getalife….I think this is a good spot for a big…GEEEEZ! ;)
By Sailor
July 1, 2007 5:10 PM | Link to this
My gal pal Andi/e and her buddies are building a big bathhouse in Tijuana - big enough for her donkey, too!
Ole!
By Andy
July 1, 2007 5:35 PM | Link to this
The donkey will be very popular!
By getalife
July 1, 2007 5:58 PM | Link to this
raisedanidiot,
I think these wingnuts should schooled at Gitmo.
It is a dangerous cult that send death threats, anthrax, mail bombs and other bombs.
Geez.
By @@
July 1, 2007 6:16 PM | Link to this
and you @@ go ahead and blog your witicisms and clever phraseology, it’s funny!
Now you see PoliFore, ^^^ that’s where you get confused. Being a liberal, of course YOU have come to believe that “permission’ is necessary before making a move. If I didn’t have better things to do, I’d be on here every weekend blogging just like you, AND without your permission.
Can’t take a joke?
Everytime I see your posts PoliFore I can’t stop laughing at what a joke you are.
But I promise I will never do it again. I swear!
Sure you will PoliFore, namejacking is how you deal with your otherwise boring life.
Have fun assuming the identity of others.
By Mid-South Philosopher
July 2, 2007 8:08 AM | Link to this
I am getting in on this discussion very late, but for whatever it is worth, if we are going the route of vouchers in Georgia, then we need to end public schools as we know them. In a five year program of privatization, we need to transfer ownership of all public school facilities to school councils, already in existence. County school systems and boards of education should be abolished. Every parent should receive a voucher (currently about $5,000) of Georgia taxpayer monies for each of their spawn. Then they should negotiate with the schools that are available for the full span of educational services…but… they should NOT have the septic tanks (according to the educational elitists), which are now the public schools, to fall back on.
Come on, now, Kathy…, let’s really lead the nation in school reform!
By Anonymous
July 2, 2007 10:22 AM | Link to this
I was wondering where Wooten’s weekly screed against the evils of public education was! Turns out he snuck it in over the weekend this time.
Yes, Wooten, I wholeheartedly agree. Doing anything for the public good is bad. Treating all citizens equally is bad. Having any aspect of our society—such as one that determines our entire future—driven by anything but dollars is un-American. Poor kids deserve a worse education than rich ones. Yes, yes, it all makes sense now.
In right-wing fantasy land, that is.
By Ben
July 2, 2007 12:39 PM | Link to this
To opponents of this decision: We have tried your way for 50 years. And it hasn’t fixed ANYTHING. We pump more and more money into our schools, and they get worse and worse. Ge a clue and realize your way isn’t helping anyone. Let’s try something new. Vouchers are just step one. The solution is a completely free market educational system.
I’m sure we can all agree that a free market system would benefit the rich and middle class, right? Well I say to you the lot of the “poor,” which includes hispanics and white people and whomever else is stuck at a bad school, not just black people (that is such a racist conceit, that only black people suffer from bad schools), cannot get worse. Public schools in low income areas have hit rock bottom, so let’s give something else a s**.
I envision an education system that is not geared towards getting everyone in to college, but instead embraces the idea that different people want and need different kinds of education. We used to support a vocational track, for instance, now it’s rare and discouraged. A free market system will open up the kinds of opportunities we just don’t have now. And history has shown again and again that free market systems trump government programs in every instance. Except when the government gets in the way with over-regulation, which is what messed up health care.
By Ben
July 2, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
Why are so many people willing to condemn poor people to more years of bad education under the current system? Why are you so against changing something that obviously isn’t working? I always thought liberals were the ones that support change, but really they seem to want society to stratify into the class/race system we currently have. Not changing the educational system won’t help anyone but entrenched interests like teacher’s unions. But for some reason you people seem to want poor people in bad schools to stay being poor people in bad schools. I don’t get it.
By Anonymous
July 2, 2007 2:07 PM | Link to this
Dismantling public education isn’t “fixing” it, Ben. Making it easier for more successful families to bail out won’t help it, either.
By Greg
July 2, 2007 4:18 PM | Link to this
School vouchers were touted by some race segregationists as the “solution” to the Brown decision in 1954. However, some hardline segregationists were afraid that some parents might actually enroll their children in “mixed” schools. The mere possibility of integration was quite unacceptable to racists.
Figures that a “common senxe” (Usually means common bigotries and common misconceptions) conservative would quickly revive a once explicitly racist “solution.”
However, as religious schools back then were often Catholic…the segregationists, often Protestant, agreed that vouchers couldn’t be used for sectarian schools. Now that extremist Protestants now have their own sectarian schools and home schooling programs, that, at least, has change. It’s a miracle…vouchers for sectarian schools are now Constitutional to common sense conservatives.
By MrLiberty
July 5, 2007 9:48 AM | Link to this
First let’s look at how schools are funded. THEFT !. It doesn’t matter how many kids you put in school, it only matters how much your house costs and how oppressive your county school taxes are. This is a system with no moral basis of operation whatsoever. The only thing that keeps it palatable for everyone is that the government comes to the door with the guns to steal the money rather than making parents go door to door stealing instead. Yes, that is the system you put your kids in. Don’t deny it. It is no less immoral because the government does it. You are no less immoral because the government steals for you..
Vouchers would just mean that this same immoral system would now allow parents to spend those stolen dollars at other schools. Christian schools would now participate in the immoral theft program as would those of other religions. Secular private schools would as well. The mass amount of money would be too much to resist.
The current opposition arguments foretell the next part of the problem. This money will not come without strings. The Fed currently only contributes 6% of each state’s budget for education, but they contribute well over 90% of the regulations. This will be no different with vouchers. All that is better about private schools will disappear in a sea of burdensome regulations, curriculum requirements, racial quotas, and the like. Likely even homeschoolers will feel the pressure to both accept the stolen monies and adopt the regulations. At that point there will be no hope whatsoever left for this country. The government will have won, and so called conservatives like Mr. Wooten will have provided them with the murder weapon that killed the opposition.
Here’s a thought. Why doesn’t everyone with a kid PAY THEIR OWN WAY FOR A CHANGE!!!
Keep your school tax, pick a nice school out of the tens of thousands of new ones that will crop up once it is announced that the public schools will have to compete on a equal footing without the aid of the immoral tax system, and pay for it yourself. Don’t like the school in a few months - pull your kid and your money out. They will learn eventually (unlike the government schools). Have a second kid? Find another school or stick him in the same school.
Cant seem to afford your 3rd or 4th kids? Too bad. Maybe its time to homeschool them. Can’t manage that? Better look into one of the charity schools. Too beneath you? It wasn’t too beneath you to have the government steal for you so your kids could go to school before. At least the charity is run on volunteerism rather then theft.
Reject the voucher idea. In the long run we will all be worse off for it. Embrace the market. Its what we need to solve this education crisis.