Posted on 01/09/2016 5:03:09 AM PST by Arthur Wildfire! March
The overall concept is simple -- true freedom for the states to revolutionize AND modernize education, but the technical change is very simple: hobble the federal government with minimal, super-majority oversight in enumerated ways [mainly or perhaps only to prevent islamo-terror recruitment and allay fears of racism].
This would require a constitutional amendment unless one resorts to the widened Commerce Clause and fight it out with the teachers' union in the courts. Either way, when people get excited enough? It's achieved.
And how excited parents will be!
Just imagine if parents could be in control of their childrens' school environment? We don't need to cram them like sardines in a gutter-mouthed environment that devolves them to animalistic behavior. Each environment would compete to RAISE standards on student behavior, religious environments being among the competitors.
And imagine parents choosing from all 50 states which teacher-pool can assist their children via web-conferencing? Supply-and-demand injected into the teacher pool, where some kid from backwoods Alaska or Nowhere Island in Hawaii might get to talk with the best teacher in all the USA [or at least be on the list for available matching]. And the teacher might be on a vacation at the time anywhere on earth with wireless internet access. It would require busting the teachers' unions, but it would make life wonderful for teachers who can really teach.
And imagine education that motivates children interactively [aka computer games] based on their interests. A single state or business could not possibly pay corporations what the nation could as a whole through a voucher system so that a software corporation could compete in a huge school market. And churches could help fund software companies to compete as well.
And imagine churches allowed to compete alongside with the states -- complete religious freedom [so long as it doesn't recruit islamo-terror or Reonquista].
And imagine students being taught controversial lessons through fair debates [no moderator, just a timer].
I might not be someone a politician or talk-radio host wants to get 'close' to. But I would care less if someone calls me a kook so long as he or she seriously considers these ideas.
Small price to pay. Let's make America greater than ever!
Potential specifics of this idea will be linked to momentarily.
To any member of the counter-media or politics — please consider the ideas on their merits and know I have little in the way of insecurity-ego issues.
I don’t care if you work me over the way the Glenn Beck team works over Jeffy. I’m a good sport. No need to closely associate yourself with me. I’m fully aware of how I could be painted as a kook.
It’s the ideas that matter.
ONCE-OR-TWICE-A-WEEK PING [normally less often than that]
‘We need something that ONE state agrees on, adopts and proves workable first. John T. Gatto has offered some interesting ideas.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto
[unquote]
My response —
More power to them if a single state can work within this insane system alone and isolated.
What I’m suggesting is certain to work light-years better than anything currently permitted.
The transition would be strictly volunatary — state-by-state and household-by-household. But no state would have the sovereignty to block a household from opting for another state’s plans.
That’s important. A family in Maine or Boston might want to try a Texas plan for example. Or the Catholics-of-Wherever Plan.
“And imagine churches allowed to compete alongside with the states — complete religious freedom [so long as it doesn’t recruit islamo-terror or Reonquista].”
Here in NJ we have a lot of Catholics and very high property taxes (primarily directed towards the public school industry) that make Catholic schools difficult to operate (my town had six when I was younger; all are now closed). When the Church hierarchy refused to fight for vouchers (focusing on “disadvantaged neighborhoods” instead of the broader debate), they basically wrote off their school systems (which are now revenue sources as rental properties).
In the other post, you mentioned the ‘glass teat’.
Got it. I’ll post a wiki-summary and respond.
[Wikipedia]
The Glass Teat: Essays of Opinion on Television (ISBN 0-515-03701-X) is a compilation of television reviews and essays written by Harlan Ellison as a regular weekly column for the Los Angeles Free Press from late 1968 into early 1970, discussing the effects of television upon society.
The title implies that TV viewers are analogous with unweaned children. Discussion of television is frequently interspersed in the essays with lengthy asides about Ellison’s personal life, experiences and opinions in general. [snip]
Response coming up.
The ‘Glass Teat’ is no longer ‘Gilligan’s Island’.
Books are now behind glass screens with the power of [Control F] word-search and ‘copy-paste’.
Children know this. They know what the future in education is. And with interactive software and search engines, their curiosity is satisfied like greased lightning.
The regimented old-school education system is a dinosaur. And the classic conglomerated classroom is not only a cesspool with little in the way of standards and personal conduct, it is also obsolete. Study halls with web-conferencing teachers who can specialize and compete — that’s the future.
Right. But even the Catholic clergy is beginning to wake up due to O-Care tyranny and inhumanity.
At the same time, a Catholic family might want to choose a Jewish cirriculum. Or a liberal cirriculum.
Also, when we empower them, we awaken them. They will seek to compete.
Organization theory says that large organizations can only perform one function well. The education system was amazing when its job was to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Then came all the social aspects, integration, socialism, sexism, identity training, de-masculinization...the list is now endless. What has suffered, of course, is reading, writing and arithmetic. The obvious answer is to get rid of the huge organization. It was needed in the nineteenth century because parents largely could not read, write or do sums.
In our increasingly complex society an educated man would need to think logically, write programs, and manage family affairs both legal and financial that would stun someone from the mid-twentieth century. Yet the education system we have can barely graduate high-schoolers with the abilities expected from a fifth grader in 1900.
Thomas Sowell impressed me when he quoted someone: ‘Being a Renniasance Man is no longer possible. No one can learn 1% of everything anymore.’
I agree that basic education would be appealing to many parents. But why must they hinder other households from using their share of education funding?
We are not getting rid of education funding — parents can’t imagine not having it during this current generation. So let’s unleash parental control, not merely with government controlled vouchers ...
... but ...
With GENUINE bold alternatives — modern modes of education. Education computer software is running rings around classic education.
The top 10% would do better.
The bottom 90% would do worse.
It’s all about money. We could educate children for a fraction of what it costs to warehouse them in the so-called education establishment. That fifteen to twenty thousand dollars per student per year pays for salaries, retirement, union dues and, of course, political patronage. This is why we don’t have vouchers widely available. Unions would lose. Politicians would los. Teachers would lose. The only winners would be students and who the heck cares about them?
‘It’s all about money. We could educate children for a fraction of what it costs to warehouse them in the so-called education establishment.’
So ... since the money is getting spent anyway, let’s bring free market concepts into the mix along with as much deregulation as possible.
let’s get those teachers competing and freed up to work-from-home or while on a lifelong vacation. The most desired teachers will get rich.
And let’s get those study halls [aka ‘classrooms’] competing.
Do you think that most hoouseholds would make worse decisions than the school system?
Not exactly.
I think the school system makes the decisions it does because of most households.
Very interesting. Thanks. BUMP!
“I think the school system makes the decisions it does because of most households.”
Even if what you say is true, those failing households should have the freedom to steer their own childrens’ course.
Then there is the equalizer — education through fair debates. For example, students required to hear Israel debate with reps from Mecca. Let children hear BOTH sides and think for themselves.
More importantly to the US — students should hear debates from representatives of the most polar-opposite supreme court justices. For example, someone reps Scalia and another who reps Ginsberg [is she still around?].
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