Yes! Free public school is a right.
92%
No! It's just fine that Republicans turn public education over to profit-making private schools for their millionaire buddies.
8%
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Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
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Fully and completely educating our young, our leaders for the future, our foundation, have every RIGHT to be honestly and with complete truth of history, be educated. Reinventing history to control and enslave the majority of our population is only for the super rich to have POWER and complete control over the majority. Their world view is selfish, narcissistic, anti-american and satanic. They are the so called ANTICHRIST.
Where I teach, charter schools are springing up all over the place. They are located mostly empty industrial parks and abandonded wallymart buildings. They have a few students. It is as if they are waiting for AYP to fire the teachers, close the schools pass out small vouchers and let the parents wander around finding schools that will take the vouchers.
Of course the more wealthy will get the better schools because they can supplement the vouchers. The others will probably bring their kids to the the same schools only now called charter schools and hope the schools are much better.
Keep in mind that these vouchers are limited. Once the charter or for profit schools take the money and spend it, it is gone. Maybe the kid got a better educaiton maybe not. If they did get a good educaiton it was worth it. If not, the money is spent. The voucher is now gone so where do they go now.
Better luck next school year with a new voucher.
Charter schools and for-profit schools are a huge part of the problem, because they are not accountable to the public whose funds they are after. Public money must stay in the public schools.
Privatization is simply a scheme (that should be criminal) to funnel taxpayer money to rich people.. Since the voucher system hurts the public schools, because it bleeds money away, therefore it dovetails nicely with the religious right bloc that wants to force their prayer into all schools (and freedom of religion rules was stopping them in public schools).. A perfect example is in Chicago where the crooked politicians sold the parking rights to a private company.. Now it costs much more to park, and the city doesnt get any profit from it (a lose-lose.. unless you consider the 1 - 3 people getting rich because of this.. out of maybe 6 million people in the area)..
The dummer we are the better for them. Texas is already changing our history in public school books, just think what the private schools will do. And the poor, who will not be able to afford school, will have FOX news to enlighten them!
I have a problem with vouchers because they are actually tax breaks for the rich who can send their children to a private school with or without vouchers.
Not only is public school a right, but we have a duty to make it the best it can be. We've been derilict in that duty for some time now. We as a nation are only as strong (competitive) as our weakest link. If our schools are left to deteriorate, then what does that say about our nation? What does that leave for the future?
I heartily agree.
It should be pointed out to the religious right that schools who accept vouchers will have to comply with the STATE's curriculum. One of the reasons for starting a religious school is to prevent this. For example, here in Ocean County NJ, there is one ethnic group who's religion oriented schools do not even allow boys and girls to ride the same school buses. A school in the KC area teaches creation "science" rather than Darwin. Another school teaches no sex education, at all. Still another teaches a black power agenda. These can all be forced to change if the government decides to interfere, much the way the government mandates motorcycle helmet laws by witholding highway funding to those who reject helmet laws.
Having once taught at a private, religious school, I saw how student selection was carried out. The student's records were examined by the enrollment committee. The student was interviewed, then the parents were interviewed. Anyone not meeting the criteria was rejected. This is what will happen in voucher schools. The schools with the best test scores will be chosen by parents who only know how to judge by test results. Those "best" schools will pick and choose students who do not exhibit LD/BD problems and who have good test scores. Other students' parents will take whatever they can get, and the cycle of poor student parents will be passed on to poor student children, perpetuating the permanent underclass that we have know. The unskilled labor pool will continue to be vast and cheap, but those who feed off of them will send their kids to Groton.