Countertrey wrote:Deadskins wrote:HEROHAMO wrote:Remember the Vouchers issue? Bush actually proposed giving familys Vouchers to choose a private school if you wanted. Why did the liberals oppose that? Boggles my mind.
The reason people oppose vouchers is that they take money away from the public school system which is desperately underfunded as it is. Vouchers do not cover the full cost of a private education, so that is still out of reach of the poorest citizens, and when you take more money out of the public school system, that leaves them at an even bigger disadvantage. The problem that I see is one of priorities (where the money is spent). It is to the public's advantage to have a well educated populace.
so.... from the Lib perspective
Competition between private and public sector in health insurance is good...
Competition between private and public sector in education is bad...
I see.
I would dispute that public education is "desperately underfunded".
I would contend that public education is the victim of that (you've heard it before) good old federal intrusion into a state prerogative where it has no business, thanks, once again, to the perversion of the Commerce Clause.
Repeated and onerous unfunded federal mandates requiring burdensome and inefficient proceedures and practices, intrusive documentation mandates, unecessary staffing mandates, and on and on, in the hideous pursuit of one size fits all education. It is not a coincidence that, as the USDOE increases it's intrusion into local schools, the system gets worse.
The US Government does 2 things well... fight wars, and collect taxes (except from the Secretary of Treasury and Charley Rangel). It should strive to keep it's nose out of everything else, including education.
If, indeed, you believe, as do I, that it is in the public's interest to have a well educated populace, why would we not provide vouchers, to enable those inner city kids to actually go to effective schools, rather than the disasters often run by the cities?
The reason is, this is not about providing quality education, but is about pandering to the NEA.
You're understanding of what is going on in public schools is limited. You logic is impeccable.
As an operative for the NEA and advocate for teacher's unions, I can tell you that we have no swat. Right now, we are losing badly and are almost helpless to raise teachers' salaries even to the level where they can afford
to live in the cities where they work. If vouchers are granted, our most qualified teachers would defect to the private sector and we would be stripped of our best and unable to compete. The best students would then defect if they could afford it. Since most good students come from affluent families, most of our good students would effect, causing the remaining good teachers who are not good enough to teach in the private sector to flee into the private sector in other capacities, such as graduate schools where they can inmprove their education to the point they can be competive in private sector teaching or directly into other occupations.
This defection rate was causing a 1 year turnover rate of around 50 percent in public schools the last time. Stated another way (for clarity), each year public schools were losing 50% of their faculty per year and rountinely using unqualified teachers (by special permissions) rountinely.
For only one of many special positions as example: a teacher who is hired as a coach because he is qualifed as P.E. teacher can teach Health Ed., which enables him to teach Sex Ed., usually Driver Ed. and any subject related to his college minor rather than major. That's how I started as a teacher in public schools. I was hired as a Junior Varsity basketball coach because I played college football, and was allowed to teach courses in the following because I had a literature degree in English: Advanced Composition, Drama, Playwriting, Journalism, P.E. and all related courses,
and Speech-- none of which I knew the slightest thing about.
I was also instantly installed as the head of the drama department and had to direct two productions (without the faintest idea of how to do it, not even knowing how or if I had to secure rights to plays to produce them). I was also installed a faculty advisor to the debate club, and assigned to assit as track coach and football coach.) I also had to teach children of migrant workers who slept through class because no one was feeding them, including the school, The students, by the way, had no books, because (Against state law), they were denied the use of books they could not afford to buy.
I was better off that many of the colleagues, however. The Spanish teacher was obviously mentally ill and didn't understand his students were mocking him and immitating his robotic movements and a number of my other colleagues had no college degress at all and taught by special permissions with agreements thay would someday obtain them.
I was not teaching in the deep south, not teaching in a small school, not teaching in a northern ghetto, not teaching in a racist community, not teaching in a depressed city or country, and not teaching white people. Less than five miles from where I taught a new high school was packed with mostly white students and exceptional teachers with adequate salaries causing almost no turnover. The privately school yearly rated one of the state's best and my old school is yearly rated one of the state's worse and a few years ago hit near bottom in the United States.
Did it take racism to accomplish this. No, any black or white student in my old school and apply to the new private school and be fairly treated if they can raise the money. Your vouchers assure that. No doubt. But what my old students can't do is pass the entrance exams-- which is natural. They haven't been educated.
You reason that a city would care enough about this to keep this from happening. Correct. They do care. What they can't afford to do is to spend enough money to keep up with private schools as the quality difference stays the same or increases between private and public schools. The voucher system would inevitably accelerate the quality difference between private and public schools, not spark competion, but eventually kill off public schools as places of education at all. The voucher system, if widely used, would cause public schools to become holding tanks for young criminals, subnormal minds, guards (instead of teachers), the mentally ill, children afflicted with retardation, and others given up on by their parents and communities.
That is the real reason liberals don't want the voucher system.
I'm not trying to win a debate here with stats and numbers well rehearsed and offers of proof. I am not trying to support the NEA. The NEA is so fangless and worthless that I don't even bother to contribute to it. Now will I even sit with any teacher's unit people for the free doughnts and coffee.
I have an aversion to self-defeated over coffee and doughnuts who congratulate each other for caring and refuse to do anything else.
They are project stallers who find everything impossible and try nothing. I hate them much more than you do because I know them. Any meaningful influence you think they have by means of their dream committees or relationships with true liberals is purely in their imaginations and the imaginations of those who oppose them.
I'm not writing, however, to prove the above because I have no idea how to prove the above. It is pure, honest, assertion.
I am writing to you to reveal a true liberal's position, unreaarched, which I believe I share with most true liberals. To the extent that you believe it, accept it. If you do not believe it, don't. I can't prove it and don't how to ever begin to prove such a thing. So, please choose to factor it in or not, to make such deductions as you will.
