Can't argue with that.
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.
Ping to the ARTH list; you all might have a different reaction.
The election of Barack Obama is a pretty good indication of how effective the public school system has become in their brainwashing efforts. As an unknown writer from the Czech Republic recently pointed out:
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.
” I’m going to email those to Anoreth: she’s re-educating her entire ship’s crew as they putter about the Western Pacific. It’s very frustrating for her (but a good preparation to be a mother someday ;-). “ Renders a whole new meaning to “ infantry”
;-)
Parents get a share of the public funding of education to spend as they see fit. This sets up competition among private/public schools to provide the best education. Parents decide where to send their kids, and competition increases the efficiency and quality of the product, as it does in free market situations.
and free lunches, breakfasts, gym uniforms, spirit day t-shirts . . .
Great article - the Founders never contemplated a professional force. This needs to be read by everyone:
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/the-right-to-be-left-alone/
If you were going to have a really vital operation done, and were told that 30% (to use this fellow’s generous odds) of the medical team that would be working on you was unqualified and worse, personally opposed to making you well, would you take the operation?
Yet this man thinks that 30% of teachers being unfit or hostile toward parental values is acceptable.
Why should I fight those odds when I can educate my kids myself?
The first step is to end compulsory attendance. Followed by an end to any involvement in education above the state level.
My wife and I homeschool our children, but I know too many people who are absolute believers in public schools to make it possible to get rid of them. And when run strictly at the community level and when attendance is voluntary, public schools can succeed.
That being said, there is no reason why education could not be run privately and for profit.
Josh
False: Governments are instituted to secure the unalienable rights of the citizens. Taking my money to purchase babysitting your little b****rd IS NOT protecting my unalienable rights. I have the right to the money I earn, its not yours to spend as you please.
My kids grandmother had to move out of state, why? She could no longer afford the skyrocketing property taxes (2/3 of which go straight to the school district). Most of the families in town are far wealthier than she is, but they keep voting to take her money because they can, and they are too cheap and immoral to pay their own way. They are NOT conservatives, they are erstwhile slave masters empowered by the virus of progressivism.
Your 30% is probably inverted.
I’d say there are less than 30% of teachers, and even less of the NEA teachers, that are in favor of parental authority and values. They believe it is their duty to indoctrinate the kids into their value system.
There is an active campaign for liberals, who demographically have much smaller families than conservatives, to get into fields that will indoctrinate the children of conservatives. Basically, “let them support the little crum crunchers, while we raise them as liberals”.
Can't argue with that.
I got a really nice car; not only didn't the government make it, I didn't design it either.
I love my children, I love liberty - I homeschool!
Wrong. I most certainly do.
Breeding my own private army since 1989 ...
Because the four Lonsberry children turned out conservative despite public education, he concludes that the educrats are not doing a good job of brainwashing. *groan*
So much else I dispute here, but the usual suspects will be along shortly to deal with it. I'm busy homeschooling. (Yes, even in summertime.)
And doing a fine job of it too!
Actually, some of us do want to abolish public education. As my tagline says, education is too important to leave in the hands of government bureaucrats. That's not the same as abolishing education, just getting it out of the hands of the government. If you want to empower parents and improve the quality of education and remove the power from those who see public schools as an opportunity to propagandize our children. If we went to a voucher system and allowed all parents to select the school they wished their children to attend then parents would select successful schools and the failing schools would lose business.
So if you want quality education that is focused on education and not propaganda, why wouldn't you want to abolish public schools?
The author bashes people who think this but without providing any reasons...there is a word for that, it's called ad hominem.
And Christians have no business putting their children in public schools. You’re being derelict in your God given responsibility if you do.
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