Posted on 06/17/2008 6:08:42 PM PDT by wintertime
WASHINGTON – Voters are demonstrating widespread dissatisfaction with public schools in a series of surveys.
In the latest scientifically representative poll conducted by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice among Idaho voters, only 12 percent of parents said they would choose government school for their children if other options were available.
The results were similar in other states, including Illinois, Nevada and Tennessee. The Indiana-based Friedman Foundation is using the surveys to gauge American attitudes toward school choice.
In addition, the Idaho survey revealed only 4 percent of parents between the ages of 36 and 55 would use public schools over alternatives such as private or charter schools.
"What is significant is that this age group is the primary consumer of public education," said Bryan Fischer, executive director of Idaho Values Alliance, a public policy research group based in Boise. "These are the people that have their children in the education pipeline. This says the more parents use the Idaho public school system, the less satisfied they are with it, and the more they want to be provided with genuine choice in education," he told the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.
Approximately 6,900 students are on charter school waiting lists this year, according to the Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies at Boise State University. To accommodate these students, existing charter schools would need to expand their total capacity immediately by 70 percent, or many new schools would have to be authorized.
According to the Center for Education Reform, there are currently 30 charter schools serving almost 10,000 students in Idaho – a mere 4 percent of the overall public school population.
Despite widespread demand for more education options, many states offer few choices to dissatisfied citizenry, according to the study.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Parents want their children OUT of the government schools! The only thing missing is the leadership to make this happen.
Should read: “Polls Show Parents Don’t Want their Children Brainwashed with Socialist Ideology”
Count me as one of those who wants to be able to send my son to a different school. Imo the administrators at my son’s school are idiots.
Then take their children OUT of the government schools! The only thing missing is they want someone else to pay for it.
Government schools were created with liberalism in mind. Only they call it "progressivism." Read up on John Dewey (the father of modern public schooling), you'll be amazed.
Blacks are right in line with this survey yet they wonder why voting for ‘Rats never brings any change. Crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Stupid is watching someone do the same things over and over and then trying it yourself and expecting a different outcome.
Jefferson and Ben Franklin advocated public education. Just not run by the Feds.
I’m convinced that the folks in CO who are “pushing” for education alternative are actually undercover Big Education folks.
They only bring vouchers or other alternatives to the election box on off election years when the influence of Big Education is the strongest. Then the issue is soundly defeated, and so Big Ed can safely claim tha no one wants it.
It’s never brought to the ballot box when the conservative influence is the largest.
Is this the same guy that started the Dewey Decimal System?
Nope--what they want is not to have to pay TWICE. Once in taxes to support what their kid would get if in public schools, and the second time in fees to go to the alternative schools. I.e., what the public wants is VOUCHERS.
I think it’s the same guy.
If that VOUCHER exceeds the amount of state and local taxes a person might pay then that is a government subsidy. That's what you're looking for.
That remains to be seen . All the polls show Obama ahead,and he just said last weekend that he is against charter schools ,there is a disconnect somewhere .
Unless the American people get their Brains in gear or we get a Candidate that can articlate a coherent message such as OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST, period he will win .
I for one just cannot understand with this guys history his total incompetence and radical views on all the major issues he can even be in this race.
The stupidity of the American people knows no bounds . Is the Main Stream media that powerful to pull the wool over so many eyes
Our republican leaders read this and say: “Alright! This must mean we need to raise funding even more to the government schools! We now have a plan to win in December!”
"I" am not looking for anything, as my wife and I have no children (Mother Nature non-cooperative).
And I suspect that the people dis-satisfied with public schools would be quite happy with a voucher equivalent to what they pay in taxes to support the public school system. To have to both pay taxes to support public schools AND fees to attend alternative schools is simply unfair.
I suggest in future you refrain from attempts at mind-reading.
Why? I pay taxes to support parks, but don't use them. I pay taxes to support prisons, but don't know anyone in them. I pay taxes to support the library, but don't have a library card. But I do reap the benefits of all of them through an improved community that leads to higher property values. So I pay them. Willingly. My decision not to use those facilities are mine alone and I don't expect anyone to give me a rebate for choosing not to use them.
You suggest a voucher equivilent to the amount of a person's tax money that goes to education? Let's look at that. Kansas funds it's schools differently than other states, almost all funding comes from the state itself and that comes from the income tax. So an average family with two kids in high school might pay about $2000 a year in state income taxes. The latest budget devotes about 50% for education, so maybe $1000 of that couple's taxes go to schools. That includes universities, so for the sake of arguement let's say that the couple receives a rebate of about $950. Tuition for two at the local Catholic high school will run over $10,000 per year. Your rebate will pay less than 10% of that. But somehow I don't think that you're going to be happy with that. You're going to want more. You're going to want the government to pay it all. And that's a government subsidy.
Re-read the first sentence of my last post. "I" don't want ANYTHING as regards education funding. My passage through the education system is well over and done, and has been for forty years.
Are you somehow tied into the "ed biz" that you are so dead-set in favor of "public schools"? Perhaps you believe that the real function of education is to propagandize and deliver a docile peon???
"But I do reap the benefits of all of them through an improved community that leads to higher property values."
The problem with your analogy is that parks, prisons, and libraries "mostly" fulfill their purpose. The public dis-education system most emphatically does not. To quote Jerry Pournelle---"if the current system of public education had been implemented on the US by a foreign power, it would be considered an act of war".
"....so for the sake of arguement let's say that the couple receives a rebate of about $950. Tuition for two at the local Catholic high school will run over $10,000 per year.
And so what?? This is a question of basic fairness. If a family is undertaking the responsibility of educating their children outside the "state education system", be that by home-schooling, or by sending their kids to private school, then they shouldn't have to pay that portion of their taxes that would normally go to fund the state system.
Maybe the parents are waiting for someone else to do it for them, rather than taking the initiative and acting on their own behalf, or sacrificing a little bit to make it happen.
You can't tell me that of the 96% of parents who supposedly want an alternative, the majority can't find a private school, or homeschool?
For most products and services, you can take the basic, low-cost model, or you can upgrade for a price. Sounds to me like these parents want the upgrade, but want someone else to cover the cost.
The question about public schools and choice was read like this (and I'm paraphrasing) Would you rather have you kids in A: Charter School B: Private School C: Home School or D: Public School. It was not a straight up yes/no question about the quality of local schools.
But for all of those calling for the shut down of public schools and for the beginning of small, private schools, I ask - what are you waiting for? Go ahead and set it up in your own house - register with the state as a private school and get going. Put out flyers in your neighborhood stores advertising for kids and get going. You have my 100% backing and support. If anyone needs advice as to reading techniques, I'm a freepmail away. If anyone needs advice about science, or math, I'm betting there are dozens of Freepers willing to help out.
If you see a problem then go after it, and use your experience as an impetus for others to follow. Show the rest of your community how it's done - light a fire and save your local children! You have all summer to plan - go get busy!
I'd be glad to give science advice. :-)
Being a home school parent, I can attest that many of the parents I know, would choose something better for their children than the current Public education system, yet they are doing absolutely nothing, nor will they do anything more than grumble about how poorly the system is.
If these same families were serious about their role as parents, they wouldn't wait for some political Messiah to show them the way.
They'd get pro active, and pay for better via private schooling, or they could do as we have and home school. In either case, they are going to have to take on the task of paying out of their own pockets, and spend more of their time on their children.
Being serious about your children takes sacrifice, and many people aren't interested in sacrificing anything; and especially when they believe that it's the government's responsibility to educate and rear their children.
You've hit the nail, squarely on the head!
And here's the cost; just how much is your child's future worth to you?
leadership? the only leaderhip missing is the parent making the tough but worthy decision to take the child(ren) out of government school...
if only they realized that it can be VERY WORTH IT to pay twice... those first 18 years of a child's life go by rather quickly... too precious to hope and pray for vouchers...
Women in the U.S. have on average 2.1 children.
My husband and I fully educated 3 children for the K-12 education without a dime from the government. Since we have **more** than paid our fair share, how about a complete and total rebate on every penny in school taxes we have ever paid in our lifetime!
This includes:
* All the hidden taxes that are buried in the cost of every product and service we use. ( Businesses pass their school taxes on to the customer in the form of higher taxes.)
* All state and local taxes.
* All local bond issues.
* All federal taxes.
So...If a person or business chooses to sponsor a child or children ( either his own, a grand child, or someone unknown) then they never again will pay a dime in any school taxes.
Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. If you never set foot in a park should your share of the tax money spent on them be refunded? If your house never catches fire then should your share of the tax money spent on the fire department be refunded? States are required by their constitution to fund a public school system. They are not required to subsidize a private one. You are free to take advantage of the public schools or not, the choice is yours. But don't expect a subsidy if you decide to go private.
Yep. Free government education is right out of the Communist Manifesto.
Only now, to paraphrase Rev what's-his-name, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Why shouldn't parents be given vouchers for the amount of state money going "per pupil" to public schools (actually, I'd make that "of all funds per pupil, to pull in the Federal aid, as well)? Let the parents then decide where that should be spent. What, exactly, is wrong with this?
My own state of Kansas spends, on average, about $7,000 per pupil on education. That includes colleges and universities. Education takes up half the state's budget, so unless an average tax payer is paying $14,000 in state income taxes per kid then giving them $7000 for each student would mean that they are receiving a government handout to finance their choice of private school. I don't think much of government handouts. That's whats wrong.
Now, if my state wants to make private school tuition deductable from their state income taxes then I can agree with that. It'll reduce the amount those who choose private schools pay to support public schools and give them some relief on their private school tuition. But I just can't see subsidizing their private schools by paying their tuition for them.
Thomas Jefferson was a big proponent of free public education - he said that without educated citizens, our form of government could not last.
I'm pinging SoftballMom because a few days ago she had a nice selection of Jefferson quotes about education (I don't know if she saved it or not).
In my state, schools are largely funded from property taxes, which also fund other local government operations. My husband and I pay a good bit more than "average" in property taxes, but even so, it would take us more than 2 years to pay the cost per student for ONE student out of the school taxes we pay.
If equivalent circumstances exist where you live, you and your husband would have had to pay taxes for at least 72 years to pay for the public education of your 3 children - perhaps more if your home had a lower tax basis.
Most people aren't actually "paying" for their childrens' education in the public school, at least not on a year-to-year basis.
If you never set foot in a park should your share of the tax money spent on them be refunded? (Non-Sequitur)
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Educating three children without a dime of government assistance is not accepting a subsidy.
By the way, we just returned from visiting a federal park. The cost for picnicking was $5. A campsite was $13. Only a limited number of people are permitted to camp on a specific site. If a double-size site is required the cost is $26. The cost for hiking a trail was $5. On some of the more popular trails the cost is higher. I believe a fishing license is about $80 a year ( not sure on this.) There are boat launching fees and licenses, and a very hefty fee for a license to “run” the river, etc. These fees reduce the taxes ( possibly eliminating the taxes) for those who do not use the parks.
So....Please remember these federal park fees.
As you drive down the freeway please note all the brand new expensive cars and trucks on the road. Please glance up at the mini-mansions on the hill. Everyone of these people could pay for all or some of their child's education by merely downsizing their lifestyle a little bit. Perhaps parents who can afford to pay something for their child's education should be handed a tuition bill at the government school front door, just as they are handed a bill at the gate of their federal ( and possibly state and local park.) This would reduce the taxes for all those who do not use the government schools.
The goal here is to educate every child in America.
If parents, a business, grandparents, or others choose to educate children privately then the amount the government would have spent should be subtracted from their lifetime school taxes. It is possible that they would still be paying school taxes, but, not as much over a lifetime.
By educating our 3 children on our own, my husband and I did save the taxpayers approximately $13,000 to $20,000 per year, per child, for 36 “school-child years”. ( That means we saved, you, Non-Sequitur, a ton of money.)
Please remember that even the poorest of the poor in the U.S. pay school taxes. School taxes are hidden in their rents and in the inflated price of every product and service they use. The poor pay, and pay, and pay, throughout their **entire** lifetimes. Even little children pay school taxes when they buy an item with their puny little earnings or allowances. If the poor manage to educate their own children without using the government schools, then they too should be given a rebate of $13,000 to $20,000 per year, per child for every year their child is not being institutionalized in a government school. That is what they are saving the government and the taxpayers.
It could be that businesses and individuals would be more than willing to contribute to a private voucher charity ( a tax credit) in order to win a lifetime reprieve from school taxes. In those states with tax credits, they have proved to be very popular with the parents, businesses, and individuals who contribute to them. The waiting lists are sadly very, very long. The Idaho survey revealed only 4 percent of parents between the ages of 36 and 55 would use government schools if they could be given the choice of not having to pay, and pay, and pay, school taxes.
Expecting the government to pay your private school tuition is.
If parents, a business, grandparents, or others choose to educate children privately then the amount the government would have spent should be subtracted from their lifetime school taxes. It is possible that they would still be paying school taxes, but, not as much over a lifetime. Possible, but not probable.
By educating our 3 children on our own, my husband and I did save the taxpayers approximately $13,000 to $20,000 per year, per child, for 36 “school-child years”. ( That means we saved, you, Non-Sequitur, a ton of money.)
If you care to look at it that way. Then on behalf of the taxpayers I thank you. But I fail to see why the taxpayers should pay you $13,000 to $20,000 per child per school year to subsidize your kid's private school? Especially when you didn't pay anywhere near $13,000 to $20,000 per child in taxes.
My complaint is that those who say the government should give vouchers equal to what the state pays the school district for each child ignores the fact that such an amount would far exceed what the parent pays in taxes. And when you get to that point then you are giving a government handout so the parent can do what they are unwilling to do for themselves.
Gee! How about a rebate on that savings to your county, state, and federal governments?
For each child a citizen chooses to subsidize for their education ( even if they are not their own) give them the same savings that the government would realize.
As I pointed out, there are approximate 2.1 children born to every woman in this country. If each adult sponsored 1. 5 children then they have certainly pulled their civic load. Give these people a $10,000 to $20,000 rebate on school taxes for every child year they sponsor in a given year. Or, once they have sponsored 13 years of educating 1.5 children, give them a complete reprieve from all further school taxes.
So therefore, could we assume that the limit to what the state pays the school district for each child should not exceed what the parents of the gum't schooled child pays in taxes? Would you then drop your complaint?
You've already stated that your children attended community colleges and state universities, which is where part of the taxes you're complaining about go.
As you drive down the freeway please note all the brand new expensive cars and trucks on the road. Please glance up at the mini-mansions on the hill. Everyone of these people could pay for all or some of their child's education by merely downsizing their lifestyle a little bit.
A bit of wealth-envy here? You don't know which of those people are already paying to send their children to private schools or homeschooling them, and you don't know how many don't even have children. You also don't know how much they are paying in property taxes to subsidize the schools.
By educating our 3 children on our own, my husband and I did save the taxpayers approximately $13,000 to $20,000 per year, per child, for 36 “school-child years”.
You're overstating the amount most school systems spend per child by a factor of 2 to 3.
It could be that businesses and individuals would be more than willing to contribute to a private voucher charity ( a tax credit) in order to win a lifetime reprieve from school taxes.
As I've shown above, most people have to pay school taxes for a lifetime just to cover their own childrens' educations.
How do you figure that? The average cost per student in my state is just over $8500 per year, and that averages in the high-cost special needs students. Most people don't pay that much in school taxes though, and as you point out, most families have more than one child.
If each adult sponsored 1. 5 children then they have certainly pulled their civic load.
How many children are you currently sponsoring? Or are you waiting for a tax credit before practicing what you preach?
If the average woman in the U.S. gives birth to 2.1 children, then once a citizen has privately paid for 1.5 to 2 children ( his own or others), hey!, that should be enough! He has pulled his load. He has paid his fair share in seeing that the next generation is educated.
Since so many of the school taxes are hidden in the cost of rents, products, and services used, then this “reprieve” from school taxes would need to be in the form of a rebate.
Double that. $8,500 is likely merely the operating costs that each school receives.
If your state is like mine, (and it likely is) teachers pensions and retirement health costs are considered general “retired state employee” costs and not calculated as a school expense. Also, our schools use many county services that are not counted in the budget. These include police services, lawn care, attorney retainers, and many repairs, an **all** school bond issues. For instance, our $50 MILLION dollar new high school is **not** included in the official school child cost.
I have already “sponsored” 3 children. ( or 1.5 for my husband and me). We also assist our now grown children with the homeschooling expenses of their children. ( 9 grandchildren...soon to be 10).
If each woman in the U.S gives birth to 2.1 children, then once any adult ( parent or not) fully sponsors 1.5 to 2 children then they should be given $10,000 to $20,000 in a rebate for each year of sponsorship, or given a permanent reprieve from all school taxes.
Here's something else for you to worry about: If you die before retirement age, your survivors won't get a rebate on the social security and medicare taxes you've paid, either.
How does some socialism that nobody really minds, perhaps for practical reasons, justify a socialism that costs far, far, more, and on top of it isn't even educating the children?
I would like to see the Jefferson quotes on this subject.
BTW, I'm not trying to start an argument over this, but here is the quote straight out of Marx's Communist Manifesto:
"Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production..."
This is a personal insult! You are saying that I don't care about the children of our nation, or its future!
It is impossible for you to read the intentions of my heart. Do you possess a crytal ball that allows you to do this?
Amelia, I do not notify the moderator when a poster is insulting in a personal way. I believe it is much better for these posts to stand for **all** to read. It says so much more about the poster than it does me!
If post #41 disappears, it will be due to you or someone else asking that it be removed.
Wintertime.
No, it isn't. It's an accurate summation of the gist of your posts.
Sure, I've copied the following quotes from SoftballMominVA's post here. I'll also note that Jefferson died about a quarter century before the first version of Marx was published...but both were opposed to the monarchial and aristocratic forms of government in Europe that gave little power to the "common man", so it's possible that they both had similar ideas on some issues.
"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:207
"The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526
"The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1810. ME 12:417
"The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:322
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384
"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.
"No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1821. ME 19:408
"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Madison Version FE 4:480
"[I have] a conviction that science is important to the preservation of our republican government, and that it is also essential to its protection against foreign power." --Thomas Jefferson to -----, 1821. ME 15:340
"There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the sub-division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1814. ME 14:84
"The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight." --Thomas Jefferson: On the Book Duty, 1821.
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789. ME 7:253
"In the constitution of Spain as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me:... that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:491
"And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people. This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. (Forrest version) ME 6:392
"It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that, too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1786. ME 19:24
"A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818. FE 10:102
"It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1814. ME 19:213
"The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1814. ME 19:213
"By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:206
"Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. MW 1:54
"I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education given to the higher degrees of genius and to all degrees of it, so much as may enable them to read and understand what is going on in the world and to keep their part of it going on right; for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence." --Thomas Jefferson to Mann Page, 1795. ME 9:30
"If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818. FE 10:99
"Nor must we omit to mention among the benefits of education the incalculable advantage of training up able counselors to administer the affairs of our country in all its departments, legislative, executive and judiciary, and to bear their proper share in the councils of our national government: nothing more than education advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation." --Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818
"Laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance. But the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating at their own expense those of their children whom nature has fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public,it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expense of all, than that the happiness of all should be confined to the weak or wicked." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:527
This is a personal insult! ( wintertime)
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Your posts stands for all to see. It says far more about you than it does about me.
I will not be reporting it to moderator.
Don't equivocate.
There is no problem extant today that isn't the result of, or has been exacerbated by, some liberal policy.
Isn't that how most people are on just about every issue? It's easier to curse the dark than light a candle, my granny used to say.
Look at yourself - I presume you looked around at alternatives and decided that home schooling your children was in their best interests. Instead of sending them to the local school, and then complaining about how bad it was, you made life changes to take care of your kids and their needs. I admire that. In my case, I saw a glaring weakness in the way children were taught to read, and I realized I didn't have the answers. So I embarked on an expensive 3 year journey for my masters from UVA. It was worth every penny and every long night.
I think it's very easy for some to sit in on judgment about what the rest of us should do, and how it should be done, and about how important small neighborhood based schools are - and do just that, sit. If anyone reading this thinks that the future of America will change by the instituting of small schools based on common beliefs, then I would challenge you to divest some of your income, cut back on a beach, ski, or overseas vacation and do what needs to be done.
I did just that, Hillarys nightmare did just that, and I can list dozens of folks that followed their beliefs even when it was hard.
If you see a need, fill it, don't tell others to carry the water for you while you go lay on the beach.
That is one of the truest statements I've ever read. But let me ask you this -- why do liberals see it exactly opposite? They tinker and tinker and things get worse, so then they just screw it up some more.
I've never met a true liberal that I didn't consider just a bit naive and uhm... dumb.
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