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Private Schools Are Indefensible
The Atlantic ^ | 3/11/2021 | Caitlin Flanagan

Posted on 03/19/2021 4:30:15 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom

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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I’ve found that my “give-a-shit” meter is at an all-time low. I could care less what these rich people do to get their kids ahead. In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably better for our country to have striving A-types wanting to be doctors (maybe not lawyers), but otherwise high-speed contributing professionals - how is this bad?

Yeah every now and then some uber-rich family sneaks their mouth-breather dumb son into Harvard. Who cares.

I don’t care that dumb athletes that can dubk a basketball get into Duke either. I just don’t see the harm. Maybe a couple of deserving kids that wanted to go to Duke have to go to Tulane or Notre Dame instead. Cry me a river.

My family is not wealthy, but definitely successful mostly through hard work. Public school HS graduates have gone on to Harvard, M.I.T., Anapolis, Johns Hopkins, Holy Cross, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Boston College...to name a few.

All coming from parents that made at most $150K a year combined. So certainly not poor or disadvantaged in any way.

I went the military route. Free college then 24 years as an officer. Nope, didn’t get rich, but no complaints. I have 3 sons that are on their way to college soon. I’m sure all will do fine. But I won’t lose any sleep if they can’t get into Harvard or Stanford. Nor will I care if some of their friends do. What I WON’T do is pay $50K for them to go to High School.

But some people do. Good on them. I guess I just don’t get this author’s point. Weird misplaced jealousy and liberal sickness. You may as well complain that rich people pay $5K per ticket to sit courtside at an NBA game. Good for them. I think that’s a colossal waste of money, but it’s THEIR money, not mine.


21 posted on 03/19/2021 5:47:15 AM PDT by strider44
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

GUM

Gosudarstvenii Universalnii Magazin

Ahh, the glories and virtue of bread lines, that’s what Bernie loves.


22 posted on 03/19/2021 5:54:22 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism. )
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Harvard is a private school. Shut it down! SUNY Binghamton uber alles.

ML/NJ


23 posted on 03/19/2021 6:12:51 AM PDT by ml/nj (DITCH MITCH !)
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To: DoodleBob

Folks should read more of Flanagan’s work.

I suspect they’d agree with a lot of what they read.


24 posted on 03/19/2021 6:20:31 AM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
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To: null and void

>>I know! Let’s ban all private schools in America.

Corporatists and that anti-Catholic Klansman who sat on the Supreme Court always felt that way.


25 posted on 03/19/2021 6:31:19 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Lean on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

The stupid author condemns an entire industry - private schools - ignoring that the vast majority of private schools have very little in common with the elite Manhattan private schools she criticizes.


26 posted on 03/19/2021 6:33:42 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

If The Atlantic stops publishing, would anyone notice? The monkeys hitting typewriters might be unemployed, but they can go and write fiction... 😀


27 posted on 03/19/2021 6:34:20 AM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Rest In PEACE, Rush H. Limbaugh III. You are missed already...)
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To: DoodleBob
"If you read the article (!) you'll find its pretty much spot-on"

Perhaps if the claims made were only about Dalton. But the claim that private schools are indefensible implies that all private schools act like Dalton. That has not been substantiated, because it is not true. Thus the claim is NOT "spot on."

28 posted on 03/19/2021 6:36:43 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Private schools have now SERVED THEIR PURPOSE (hence this opening shot), which was to give Americans alternatives to the public schools, while the public schools got to work brainwashing the 90% of parents who send their kids to those schools. The parents who know what was going on were left with alternatives, so that they didn’t get involved with keeping this crap out of the schools - the Left needed those kids to stay out of the public schools, and enough of them did just that.

But, as the Democrats consolidate their lock on the country, it’s time for private schools to end, as they’re no longer needed. Home schooling, by the way, will simply be outlawed at the federal level, and that will be once they get control of the courts, later this year. Parents will then have NO CHOICE in schooling.

Just another ‘benefit’ of handing complete control of the country to the Democrats.


29 posted on 03/19/2021 6:37:18 AM PDT by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I always find it ironic when public school teachers send their own children to private schools. I think it should be mandatory that their children attend public schools. It might change their mindset.


30 posted on 03/19/2021 7:35:43 AM PDT by ThisLittleLightofMine
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To: Carl Vehse; metmom; mewzilla; Oshkalaboomboom
Did you read the article? Ms Flanagan provides ample evidence, citations, public posts, research, anectodes, first-hand accounts that back her thesis: Elite schools breed entitlement, entrench inequality—and then pretend to be engines of social change.

She's not railing against private Catholic schools, or even $10,000/yr private schools. She's going after the big dogs - to wit (emphasis in bold):

The numbers are even more astonishing when you consider that they’re not distributed evenly across the country’s more than 1,600 independent schools but are concentrated in the most exclusive ones—and these are our focus here. In the past five years, Dalton has sent about a third of its graduates to the Ivy League. Ditto the Spence School. Harvard-Westlake, in Los Angeles, sent 45 kids to Harvard alone. Noble and Greenough School, in Massachusetts, did even better: 50 kids went on to Harvard.

Ms Flanagan taught at one of these places then sent her kids to one of these places...she know them inside and out. She's a bit of a thorn in the side of feminists and leftist alike. She probably wouldn't be popular on FR but I'd sooner have her at my barbecue than McConnell, Willlard, or Cheney.

I agree her subtext is a bit class-based ...

In a just society, there wouldn’t be a need for these expensive schools, or for private wealth to subsidize something as fundamental as an education. We wouldn’t give rich kids and a tiny number of lottery winners an outstanding education while so many poor kids attend failing schools. In a just society, an education wouldn’t be a luxury item.

We have become a country with vanishingly few paths out of poverty, or even out of the working class. We’ve allowed the majority of our public schools to founder, while expensive private schools play an outsize role in determining who gets to claim a coveted spot in the winners’ circle. Many schools for the richest American kids have gates and security guards; the message is you are precious to us. Many schools for the poorest kids have metal detectors and police officers; the message is you are a threat to us.

...but at its core, her article's main thrust is, anti-elitist. FR has oodles of such posts and articles online.

And for what it's worth, I believe she IS spot-on. It's part of the reason people homeschool - the public schools are indoctrination centers and private schools are...well...indoctrination centers. The big diff between the two, is the latter hope their virtue-signaling stop the former from harvesting their organs first. HSers will watch from afar surrounded by food, water, books, and ordnance.

I for one do not welcome our insect overlords. This is a great article IMHO.

31 posted on 03/19/2021 8:42:51 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

my thought exactly. Likely all the ones that have kids. This idiot is probably 23 with no kids, or lesbian, or both.


32 posted on 03/19/2021 2:55:45 PM PDT by allwrong57
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To: DoodleBob
Dalton has sent about a third of its graduates to the Ivy League. Ditto the Spence School. Harvard-Westlake, in Los Angeles, sent 45 kids to Harvard alone. Noble and Greenough School, in Massachusetts, did even better: 50 kids went on to Harvard.

So?

Many schools for the richest American kids have gates and security guards; the message is you are precious to us. Many schools for the poorest kids have metal detectors and police officers; the message is you are a threat to us.

Distinction without difference.

We wouldn't give rich kids and a tiny number of lottery winners an outstanding education while so many poor kids attend failing schools.

Who is this WE dimwit?

Nothing is GIVEN to these kids, their parents pay for it.

Plus they also pay an exorbitant amount for the poor kids to be educated by teachers who do not give a crap as long as they get paid.

You puppy cuddle the female all you like. I will keep the bitch at arms length. She is incapable of rational thought

33 posted on 03/19/2021 4:09:12 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (May their path be strewn with Legos, may they step on them with bare feet until they repent. )
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
Hmmm...so this is irrational?

But what makes these schools truly ludicrous is their recent insistence that they are engines of equity and even “inclusivity.” A $50,000-a-year school can’t be anything but a very expensive consumer product for the rich. If these schools really care about equity, all they need to do is get a chain and a padlock and close up shop.

Enjoy Willard.

34 posted on 03/19/2021 8:00:02 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: DoodleBob
Hmmm...so this is irrational

Yeah, it is.

Sorry, Ben.

You see, taking away from one person or even a group does not give to another. It just takes away from one.

And since the parents are wealthy their kids will be just fine as far as education goes even if the school vanished right into the ether.

I am not a post modernist as is the author but a realist.

35 posted on 03/19/2021 8:07:56 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (May their path be strewn with Legos, may they step on them with bare feet until they repent. )
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

The quote I posted says zero about redistribution of wealth, Paul.


36 posted on 03/19/2021 8:11:03 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Public schools are indefensible.


37 posted on 03/19/2021 8:19:15 PM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Have!)
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To: DoodleBob
The quote I posted says zero about redistribution of wealth, Paul.

Who said it did, Queenie?

She suggests close the school under the delusion that would give Equality.

It would not of course.

38 posted on 03/19/2021 10:41:45 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (May their path be strewn with Legos, may they step on them with bare feet until they repent. )
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Thanks for your comments.


39 posted on 03/19/2021 11:01:42 PM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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