Posted on 12/18/2014 10:19:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Redstate catches an unguarded moment with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper at a lunch earlier this week where he speaks extemporaneously and gives us a peek into what he believes the proper role of government to be. You might be surprised at just how little responsibility he feels you should take for yourself.
Government should do what people individually can’t do, or can’t do well themselves. You know, educating our young people, [emphasis added] making sure our roads are designed and built properly, making sure our communities are safe…that our economic system is robust, but at the same time fair…that every person has a fair shot at creating their own quality of life…we protect for the longterm our environment and Colorado’s natural splendor…I mean, that’s pretty much the basic…when I look at the core list…I’m sure you would all have something you would add…but that’s where it’s gets the problem.
It’s a revealing conflation of the responsibilities we generally assign to the government and those best left to the individual. Some of the other, more mundane items on the Governor’s list are details of daily life in our society which few say are beyond the province of government at some level. Fewer still would probably care to take up these roles themselves. I don’t generally hear anyone complaining about government workers fixing the potholes in the street and bemoaning the fact that they don’t just leave the job for private citizens to handle on a volunteer basis. Law enforcement is a bit trickier proposition, but we have designed a system where those wearing the badge are under the direction of the people we elect to executive positions. How the government ensures that “our economic system is robust” is a debate for another day.
But educating our youth is probably the most volatile and dangerous assignment one could ever hand over to the government in its entirety. Our public school systems may look like a branch of the government because they are paid for by tax dollars, but this is a quite unique and far more complicated scenario. School taxes are, in large part, a very local matter. The state and federal governments stick their beaks into the pool quite handily through subsidies and attempts at regulating curriculum, but the day to day operations should have always remained rooted in parents and homeowners in each district voting on school budgets, attending school board meetings and – most importantly – supervising the education their children are receiving and helping them to succeed. I understand that the sad reality is far different, with too many modern parents treating public schools as little more than free babysitting services, but that doesn’t mean it has to work that way for everyone.
Hickenlooper’s comments are revealing if only for the mindset which leads to such comments. It seems that he believes that parents have neither the capability nor the authority to educate their children or take a direct hand in seeing that it is done properly. Harsh reality may make a point in his favor on the former, but we should still strive to ensure they retain the latter, at least for the parents who care enough to do so.
Colorado is rapidly discovering that elections have consequences. But, then again, who set out the previous two elections on purity issues?
Who’s going to educate the Government first?
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Government is doing that now and look what is and has happened to a once ‘great’ America.
What nerve to say that to you!
Had I not been permitted to rescue my youngest son from herd school with a period of homeschooling, his life would have turned out completely different. And not in a good way.
Elitists think they are the smartest kid on the block when really they are inexperienced, stupid... No cussing.
His thinking is very sad. These kids are not learning that it is up to them to make good choices and to study to attain this goal or that.
“Education is a shared responsibility, where we should expect to pick up the slack and correct errors in government schools, while the government picks up the slack and fills in gaps in what we do with our children.”
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I couldn’t disagree more with your statement. Educating and training a child is the parent’s responsibility. The Prussian model of education was not the original method of education used in the United States, you would be well served to investigate the history of public education in the US. If parents have to “pick up the slack” and correct errors from a government education then what is the point of sending them there?
If we concede that the education of one’s own children is something that an “individual can’t do, or can’t do well” then all individuals will lose the right to choose a better way to educate their children by homeschooling.
Absolutely. Like most commie-pinkos, the longer I knew her (she was my boss), the more the mask slipped off. She actually bragged about having “one of her favorite books,” published in the 1920s - on eugenics. The more I talked with her over the years, it became more and more evident that her view of the world was ghastly and fascistic. ... And the very things they accuse conservatives of being, without fail. I told her that with people like her in charge the world would be far from a better place - that it would be a place of unspeakable darkness and evil. One time, after I made a remark about “Governor Moonbeam” (After Brown took over in California) she exploded at me, literally spitting out with visceral hatred, about the F-ing Jews and their F-ing and their F-ing banks and F-ing PROFITS. (Meanwhile she drove a nice BMW, of course, and lived in a nice house). It was a stunning and revealing admission from the horse’s mouth what these people really are like.
I bet you would be surprisingly resourceful if government schooling disappeared tomorrow.
How many parents can effectively teach calculus, statistics, Spanish, French, or German at the AP level? A whole lot of kids get a better education on the technical side because of good public schools.
When it comes to political bias, many teachers are terrible, and it’s the parent’s job to fix that if school teachers cross that line. But the good teachers (and there are many of them) do a better job that I could do in several areas - even parts of history, and I love history.
Great post and Article too-Thanks
AWESOME Post and Esp. American Thinker Article!!
But you’re right...ever read “ The Sheep Look Up “?
Only when the masses scream to the heavens “ WHY didn’t ANYONE warn us!?!”
That’s why God made Freepers!
If you have shopped for homeschool curriculum you would know there are many choices for advanced study that do not require the parent to be an expert in order to facilitate the student’s learning. As one with a degree in Biology I know what is required with the more technical degrees and it’s not impossible to homeschool at the high school level. My dad is a retired Chemistry/Physics teacher and was skeptical until he saw what is available.
My high school age boys are friends with kids who go to public school. Whenever a conversation about school work comes up the public school kids are shocked at what my kids do. All have said that their school is so much easier. Our curriculum doesn’t have to aim for average as I am not teaching to the middle like school teachers have to. My husband is a teacher and would never send his children to school as the literature choices and conversations are greatly dumbed down from what is in our home. I know that I was not reading Henty or Ballantyne as a middle school student. I certainly wasn’t reading Jane Austin while in second grade as my daughter did. My literature class read Red Earth White Earth my junior year. It was eye opening to me and not due to the rich prose. I was exposed to ideas that I would not want to read about now, they were depressing and graphic.
Also, AP classes are high school teachers teaching classes that give college credit. One doesn’t need an AP class while homeschooling because you can just take the college class as a PSEO student, either at the local college or online.
If a parent doesn’t have the education required to teach high school level classes after graduating from high school, then our educational system is failing. Why would anyone place their child in it?
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