Posted on 06/23/2010 6:27:30 AM PDT by shortstop
I heard a guy on the radio yesterday say that public education should be abolished.
What a freak.
In the oneupsmanship of marketing to the conservative audience, some people get a little nuts. Not having a true sense of what people feel – lacking an accurate internal compass – they reach for ever more outlandish positions.
That doesn’t serve truth, it exploits and embarrasses it.
So here’s the truth.
No, conservatives don’t want to abolish public education. We want to improve it and make it more accountable to local taxpayers, parents and values.
We conservatives are overwhelmingly the product of public education. We mostly had great experiences, we remember our teachers fondly and we love the schools from which we graduated.
We conservatives are overwhelmingly parents of children in public schools. Yes, we watch carefully what our children learn, and we push back against political correctness, improper morals or any sort of indoctrination. But we are in the PTA and the sports boosters and on the school boards. We are room mothers and field-trip chaperones, and by and large we are grateful for the education our children receive.
And a fair number of us are teachers.
Are there problems with public schools?
Absolutely.
From too much federal influence to the union domination of the teaching profession, there are things in schools which give conservatives pause. We read through the textbooks with a watchful eye and we worry about the politics and examples of some teachers.
And, yes, we conservatives have an agenda for public education. We want to hobble if not kill the federal Department of Education. We want to weaken the power of state and national teachers unions. We want local school boards to be empowered and we want American schools to be what they were created to be – locally controlled and reflective of community values and priorities.
But we don’t want to get rid of public schools.
And though the private-school and home-school movements are appealing to many conservatives, and those are wonderful options parents can exercise in a free society, the overwhelming majority of conservatives choose to send their children to public schools.
Why?
Because they trust them. Because they see the strengths of the system and feel capable of compensating for the weaknesses.
They do that by being parents.
Conservatives believe that they are their children’s first and most important teachers. Values, patriotism, world view, those are taught and reinforced in the home. Even if a course, teacher or textbook stray and preach the gospel of liberalism, good parents over the dinner table can set children right.
Good parents can also make their presence known at the school and challenge things which are contrary to the American spirit and values. Teachers and principals have phones at the school, and will meet with you if you ask them to.
But more often than not, conservatives find in public-school teachers and administrators not adversaries, but regular, hard-working people who look at the world the same way they do. I have had children in public schools for 20 years. I expect to have children in public schools for at least another 15 years. I have seen good and bad teachers and administrators, but the percentages have been about 70-30. Seventy percent good and 30 percent bad.
For every three teachers who preach liberal crud in the classroom, there have been seven who have been patriotic, positive people.
I can live with those percentages.
And my children have flourished under them.
Of my four children who have thus far gone through school, they’ve all turned out to be conservatives – maybe even very conservative. So if public education is brainwashing American kids with liberalism, it’s not doing a very good job of it.
Not when parents and churches and social institutions are doing their duty.
Public education isn’t perfect, but then nothing is. Yes, the forces of liberalism in our society continually try to tighten their grip on our taxpayer-supported schools. But that’s not a one-way tug of war. Our culture, our values, our constitutional heritage are exerting influence, too – thanks in large part to the efforts of good, conservative parents and citizens.
We do need to focus conservative attention on public schools, to continue and enhance the process of oversight and improvement. But saying outlandish things – like calling for the abolition of public education – doesn’t help that cause.
It only makes us look stupid.
He doesn’t even address the question of whether child-rearing is a legitimate or desirable function for the state to assume. Government education is the template for government’s takeover of the support of the elderly, of medical care, of businesses ... usurping the functions free citizens once accomplished for themselves.
No. We are the product of good parenting.
Parents MUST intervene at all levels, remain watchful and de-program a great deal
I am a product of public schooling - thank GOD I rose above it. It did not serve me well. The decline started 40 years ago, it is not going to get better until we elect politicians that have the courage to tear it down and rebuild it.
As a Catholic schools parent, I can only say, “sounds like a plan.”
I propose that “public education” be publicly funded, and nothing beyond that - make it Constitutionally illegal for the government to control the education or to tie any strings to the funding.
Publicly funded, parent controlled.
Why not have public supermarkets?
We would all do better eating government food, right?
“So here’s the truth. No, conservatives don’t want to abolish public education. We want to improve it and make it more accountable to local taxpayers, parents and values.”
And since that accountability is not coming in any of our lifetimes, abolishing the bulk of government schooling makes a good deal of sense. How much time, money, and resources do you pour down a rathole before you decide it just isn’t working as you’d hoped?
And what about the legacy of welfare dependency that Aid To Families with Dependent Parents causes?
I’ll kindly invite this gentleman to speak for himself.
Abolish public schools? Heck yeah.
Two stupid things about “de-programming” your kids:
One, they have thousands of “seat hours” in front of teachers with an agenda to “program” into them, and you’re gonna take a couple of hours each night to counter this?
If you’re willing to commit a “couple of hours” a day to de-program them, why not spend one more hour a day and homeschool them?
GWB sold us out on public education when he cut a deal with Ted Kennedy to remove private school vouchers from the socialist No Child Left Behind federal bill, basically to get the NEA behind it. Bush then used the success to get re-elected. Don’t forget the single Mom tax credit.
Hell, we cant even get elected republicans to stop federalizing public schools let alone get rid of them (it should be a local issue anyway.)
This is a fundamental point that eludes thoughtless conservatives such as Lonsberry. He likes that middle-class welfare entitlement. The thought that the left is going to give up its cultural stronghold and $1 trillion/year cashflow that it provides is mind numbingly stupid.
Lonsberry is an idiot. Millions of conservatives want to abolish 'public' education. I'm one of them. Apparently Lonsberry doesn't even have a passing familiarity with the Constitution.
Hmmm, I must have missed the ceremony where ole Bob was crowned "Speaker for all Conservatives".
Or maybe he has a frog in his pocket when he says "we".
Two quotes sums up public education:
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
– Vladimir Lenin
Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
– Joseph Stalin
Yep, you got that right.
Abolish public education!The total capture of the public education and most large private colleges by the Left is what makes the slide to totalitarian rule inevitable. The knowledge base does not exist in the general population to fight it. There is no sense and knowledge of history thus no sense of what will or will not work or what the consequences of any action or policy must be. People accept what they are told by power seekers because they don't have the tools to evaluate claims. With two generations or total reform to proper American values it could be achieved but there is not the base of knowledge and ability remaining to carry out the reform.
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