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YOUR CHILD'S FIRST LESSON IN SOCIALISM
BoortzNuze ^ | 2-5-04 | Neal Boortz

Posted on 02/05/2004 10:56:40 AM PST by FlyLow

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To: Politicalmom
The schools are under a lot of pressure under No Child Left Behind. At this point, they really don't care if they usurp parental authority. Attendance rates have to go up, drop-out rates have to go down, and kids have to do well on their "high-stakes" tests or the school gets taken over by the feds and school officials get replaced. The kids have to pull the fat from the fire to make school officials look good and property values don't plummet. It's a lot to ask kids to do, and I'm beginning to think a lot of them and their parents are beginning to resent it mightily, especially when students are drilled excessively on how to take the tests. They're becoming bored and disinterested in learning because no real learning is taking place.
I foresee a lot more parents becoming interested in homeschooling and private schools in the future, however.

101 posted on 02/05/2004 3:50:06 PM PST by ladylib
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To: plastic_positive
no offense, but I've spent a lot of time in Public Schools and I have never seen a teacher demand that all school supplies become everyone's property. If this is really the case, I'd appreciate it if anyone on this board could post the name of the school and the year it happened. please, let's get some details and not just this overly emotional blather. If this is the best arguement anyone on this board can make against public schools, it's not wonder we can't win the fight to save our children's educations.

No offense, but I counted numerous spelling errors, punctuation errors, capitalization errors, syntax errors, and grammatical errors in your post.

Therefore, your credibility is 100%. You have, indeed, "spent a lot of time in Public Schools" [sic].

102 posted on 02/05/2004 4:53:32 PM PST by handk (That's why I'm cheesy... I'm cheesy like macaroni... (Lionel Ritchie))
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To: 3Lean
Surely the school could get a much better price if they bought a truckload of Kleenex and soap.

Or skipped kleenex and just used that rolled emory paper they pass off for butt-wipe!

103 posted on 02/05/2004 5:12:23 PM PST by Axenolith (<tag>)
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To: CalKat
Prop 13 didn't hamstring the schools, there was a later proposition that devotes nearly half of the entire state budget to education. Then there was the lottery (Yea RIGHT) which was promised to schools but now goes to general.

A heck of a lot of those 15 million dollar houses are owned by people who had the misfortune of buying that house a LOT lower and without prop 13 would be held hostage by soaring realestate. I personally know of one aquaintance's parents who paid 68,000 for a house in 1968, listed it for 1.2 million in ~1998\99 and got 2.4 million for it in a bidding war. I'm sure they would have been forced out long before that without prop 13...

104 posted on 02/05/2004 5:20:16 PM PST by Axenolith (<tag>)
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To: CalKat
P.S. - Without prop 13 my property taxes would have gone from ~$2500\year in 1996 (on a condominium purchased then) to over $8000\year now. A state run by politicians as stupid and corrupt as here hardly deserve that kind of money to play with...
105 posted on 02/05/2004 5:23:16 PM PST by Axenolith (<tag>)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts
When my wife was in school out here in CA she was initially a straight A and straight laced student. Some enterprising social engineers figured that if they put her in the screw up class she'd "rub off on them". Care to guess what happened? It took her a LONG time to overcome all of the negative outcomes of that little experiment, and it didn't help that her parents didn't do squat about it...
106 posted on 02/05/2004 5:29:07 PM PST by Axenolith (<tag>)
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To: longtermmemmory
Where does sharing end and communism begin?

With coercion: compulsory attendance.

107 posted on 02/05/2004 7:47:23 PM PST by secretagent
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To: FlyLow
Boortz points to only one way the government indoctrination centers teach our children how to be good little socialists.

Let's explore others, shall we?

How about, when the teacher gets the class prepared to observe one of the holidays (that aren't really celebrated as "holidays" any more, but we'll skip that for now) which are scattered through the school year. Say, Hallowe'en.

"Now class, we live in a democracy, which means the majority rules. We're going to vote on whether to decorate the room with witches and goblins or skeletons and jack-o-lanterns. Everyone in favor of witches, raise your hand . ."

Does this oft-repeated voting exercise explain Americans' willingness to put almost everything to a vote? Including things that should by rights be none of the government's business, such as deciding how a person can use his property?

It all begins in kindergarten.

Then, we have the lunch room. There wasn't a school cafeteria where I went, but these days it's mandatory -- because something like a federal school lunch program (and a breakfast program in some areas) requires every school to have one.

And who gets a deeply-discounted, nearly free, lunch?

That would be the children of parents whose income falls below a federal threshold, qualifying them for a cheap lunch, sometimes breakfast too.

Everybody else pays full price.

Is this socialism, or merely welfarism? Who cares, the kids learn it.

Once students get into high school, the socialist nature of the schools is even more apparent. Student "activity fees" go into a common pot, divvied up for the common good by elected commissars (the "student council"). Anyone who's ever served will conclude the game is rigged in favor of the school administration which, through its "faculty advisors," makes sure the students' money goes to the most deserving undertakings, at least in their own estimation: sports, usually, and other activities typically enjoyed by a minority of the student body.

But it isn't until students graduate and get out in the work force that they finally learn the most socialist aspect of the government schools.

That's when they first notice that it costs a lot of money to run these operations -- money collected by force from parents, singles, young people trying to earn a living, old people hoping to have enough to retire on, even dead people (estate taxes) who may have died without ever having any children for the public schools to "educate."

Neil Boortz is in favor of vouchers, I believe, as a way to give public schools some competition, give parents a "choice," and (never stated this way, but it's true) desemboweling the teachers' unions.

Well, I'm sorry. As long as schools are financed by taxes, they will continue to be socialist, no matter who runs them. With vouchers, some schools will be better than others, just as some are better today.

But the taxpayers won't be getting their money's worth, especially those who don't have children. And the next generation of kids in schools, whether public or private, will continue to be indoctrinated that "education" is a public good, therefore we must all pay for it.

And pay, and pay . .

108 posted on 02/05/2004 10:59:23 PM PST by logician2u
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To: mrfixit514
That is quite a statement you make considering even parents who opt out of public school still get the same stipend taken out of their incomes as people using them.
If you really believed it was that simple, then I'm betting you are all for vouchers(at least to those actually paying taxes) to give people a break so that they may actually utilize CHOICE in education.
109 posted on 02/06/2004 6:37:11 AM PST by cupcakes
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To: cupcakes; netmilsmom; All
I find it amazing that the pricey tuition you surely must pay to send your child to Christian school can't cover supplies, and despite the money that is poured into public schools, kids' parents have to buy basic things - they're given a list? Astounding.

I don't EVER remember being told what supplies to get when I was in school. Sure, we bought our own, and they stayed our own, and in addition, classrooms had an abundance of crayons, glue, paper etc.

What do they spend all my tax dollars on anyway?
110 posted on 02/06/2004 6:41:24 AM PST by agrace
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To: Kennesaw
Here is a link to Amazon with all of Richard Maybury's books including "Whatever Happened to Penny Candy"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3DRichard%2520Maybury/102-2667409-0784104
111 posted on 02/06/2004 6:49:46 AM PST by A. Patriot
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To: mrfixit514
The people who bash education are people who complain about everything. It makes them feel better about themselves. They are usually very lonely people.

what a load of bulls**t that is. Are you bitter because you went to public school, arent educated enough for a well paying job and are now just a fix it man?

112 posted on 02/06/2004 6:57:38 AM PST by SwankyC
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To: agrace
Actually, we are fortunate with the school in our church. They don't charge members a dime to go to the school and you are expected to tithe accordingly to the church(which means you can right off tuition basically as a tithe to the church). It is a small school with only about 100 students in K-8. My daughter is only in a class of 8 children. This school really could use the help and they are working hard to ward off charging members tuition although they are in the hole. I would just rather they ask for the help instead of confiscating my child's things. I would be happy to have a community box for when kids are running low, or things break, or they are in between replacing their things, but I want to provide that seperate from my child's items. She takes great pride in caring for them and does not want HER things to end up the box. She even offered some of her allowance to buy crayons to benefit the church box.
I understand the need, but I have a feeling this is less about need and more about having a teacher right out of college who has all her "new" teaching ideas she's trying to use with the kids. Despite this, she has been really helping the kids accelerate even more in their reading and math. Her enthusiasm in helping them learn has been positive, but let's just say it is a double edge sword.
Sorry for any mispellings--gotta go run after my boy;-)
113 posted on 02/06/2004 7:07:04 AM PST by cupcakes
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To: agrace
Graft, corruption, programs that don't work, legal fees for one thing or another, etc., etc. Public schools are a honey pot if you know how to work them.

Heck, I even suggested to my brother to get in on that No Child Left Behind tutoring program where you set up a little tutoring business and collect big bucks from the federal government. Of course, tutoring programs wouldn't be necessary if kids learned in their public schools.

Stories such as the one below are a dime a dozen and typical of what goes on in the world of public education:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/education/05food.html
114 posted on 02/06/2004 7:39:19 AM PST by ladylib
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To: agrace
Of course, schools need more and more money also; however, it's like a customer in a restaurant telling the waiter the soup is awful and the waiter telling the customer to give him some more money so he can give him another bowl of soup.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/education/05school.html

Someone suggested the government give $3,000 per child to each family and let the parents decide how they want to spend it on education in a free market. Of course, corrupt people will use that money to their advantage; however, it wouldn't be any more corrupt than what goes on today and the control is in the hands of the parents.
115 posted on 02/06/2004 7:51:35 AM PST by ladylib
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To: Jotmo
interesting that I counted 8 different posts from parents saying that they had no experience with compulsory confiscation of school supplies in their children's schools. Several other posters listed the schools in which it has happened. So it seems that I asked a reasonable question.

to be clear. yes, I believe in the Jeffersonian ideal of locally controlled, decentralized public education. It is through subsidized, no additional fee, public education that the US was able to assimilate the waves of immigration that helped build this country. It is through public education that a local community can communicate its values to the next generation. This has worked for 200 years, and in many parts of this great country it still does. Certainly, in many other places the public education system is broken, and needs some serious overhauling, but if it is going to be done well, it needs to be done at the local level. If there is compulsory 'sharing' of school supplies at your local school, it is your responsibility to fix it, complain to the principal, to the school board, to the mayor. Get a copy of the school budget (public information) and figure out where they are wasting the money. There are many successful public school districts that produce well educated citizens, if your district isn't one of them, figure out what the good districts do that yours doesn't. I personally see successful, efficient public education as the responsibility of the local citizens. The system CAN work, if we actually want it to, but what I see people here say, for the most part, is that they don't want it to. Too many citizens of this great country are withdrawing from community life, choosing not to fight for their community, and that saddens me.

No, people should not be forced to attend public schools, but we all pay for them, (I pay property taxes and don't have any children in school) so I work to try and ensure that my money is spent as efficiently as possible. There are no answers that apply across the board, what might work in Michigan may not work in Georgia, which is why schools should be locally run, by the people most responsive to local constituents. If your system isn't responsive, it's a local problem, not one that can be applied to everyone.
116 posted on 02/09/2004 11:47:47 AM PST by plastic_positive
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