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#381
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"abacus" wrote in message om... Banty wrote in message ... In article , Nathan A. Barclay says... I hope you write your book. You're quite the poster child for the anti-democratic undercurrents and motivations of the movement for vouchers. The desire to segregate in public life. The desire to convert the religion of others. I really think your wrong about his motivations and judging him according to your memories and your own stereotypes. Personally, while I'm not thrilled with the idea of segregation in public life, I'm not so certain it's the evil you think it is either. My recollection is that Malcolm X was a big proponent of segregation. There have also been some very successful schools set up specifically for black male adolescents, so it's not just white supremacists. It's just that they give the concept a bad reputation. If, indeed, everybody involved prefers to be segregated, I'm not so sure the government is justified in preventing it. To be crystal clear about it, I strongly oppose deliberate racial separation or segregation. However, I also recognize that there are religious, social, cultural, and economic factors that correlate with race and that can quite legitimately influence people's preferences. That may change over time (and I very definitely hope it does with economic factors). But as long as there are differences in what families need and want that correlate with race, trying to demand a perfect racial balance while ignoring those differences is tyrannical. If this sounds a bit like arguments segregationists have used in the past, all I can do is ask people to judge my words, not their stereotypes that they associate with the words, and give me the benefit of the doubt in believing that I am sincere. We will never reach Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of judging people by the content of their character instead of by the color of their skin as long as we demand that people sublimate their religious, social, cultural, and economic desires to an expectation that every organization have the "right" racial balance. And I might add that in principle, if small groups of black people or white people or people of some other race (Native Americans, for example?) want to go off and segregate themselves, I'm not convinced that there is a strong enough public interest to justify interfering with that desire. The reason segregation was so terrible was largely a matter of scale: it did not involve a small group going off to "do its own thing" without really interfering with others, but rather was on such a huge scale that it shut black people out of society's mainstream. Racism, especially on a subliminal level, is still too strong for us to let down our guard against it. But I can dream of a day - probably not in my lifetime, unfortunately - when the best way to deal with racism might be to let the handful of kooks who want to practice it go off and do their own thing and stay out of everyone else's way. And while Mr. Barclay may desire to spread the word of his religion to those willing to listen, I don't get the impression he is out to force others to listen. I suspect he just thinks that parents who want their child educated in an environment supportive of their religion (i.e. start the day with a prayer, bible verses posted on the wall, celebrate religious holidays, etc.) should not be forced to choose between either not doing so or having to pay the price of foregoing all tax-support for their child's education. At least, that's my opinion. Exactly. |
#382
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Banty" wrote in message ... In article , abacus says... I really think your wrong about his motivations and judging him according to your memories and your own stereotypes. I'm judging him by his posts. No, you're judging me by more than just my posts. You're judging me by similarities you perceive between what I write and things you've heard from segregationists. You've admitted as much yourself. That is, in fact, stereotyping. One of the more lasting legacies of destruction left by segregationists is a poisoning of the envornment that causes some people, apparently including yourself, to automatically assume that people who use certain types of arguments are really segregationists in disguise. That seriously undermines our ability as a society to have rational, intelligent, discussions regarding racial matters. And while Mr. Barclay may desire to spread the word of his religion to those willing to listen, I don't get the impression he is out to force others to listen. No, just to give them a hobson's choice between a purported failed public school, and his prosyltizing school. Not just those two. As many options as people are willing to make available, with families free to choose. (And I want a voucher amount that is high enough to help promote a relatively wide range of options.) Of course you're also forgetting that you would be just as free to donate to kinds of schools you like as I would to kinds I like. And I'm certainly not inclined to write off the public schools as not worth trying to improve. I'm all for the public schools' making the level of quality private schools have to reach to draw students away from them as high as they can make it. |
#383
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Circe" wrote in message news:HxCEc.9586$Qj6.1647@fed1read05... Nathan A. Barclay wrote: As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no possible threat to freedom. How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being, by definition, involuntary on my part? Are you honestly concerned that you'll want to send your children to religious schools where they won't be allowed to attend, or is your desire really to force other people to send their children to the type of school you favor so their childen and yours will be together on YOUR terms? |
#384
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Banty" wrote in message ... And, very significantly, when it comes to something resource-intensive like education, it often seems the one that's not so voluntary seems to be the one with much greater resources. If the voucher amount is 80% of what government schools receive for educating the same students (and my 80% figure is actually higher than what most voucher advocates aim for), private donations would have to make up the other 20% before the private schools could have even equal resources much less greater resources. Also note that with the same pattern donations, the same basic phenomenon would exist if government were not involved at all. In fact, it would very likely be stronger because voluntary donations would be the only money available to help the poor instead of just being a relatively small supplement to tax dollars. Thus, it is not a case of me wanting to use government power to create an advantage, but rather a case of you wanting to use government power to eliminate an opportunity. |
#385
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Circe" wrote in message news:eCCEc.9613$Qj6.825@fed1read05... It isn't analogous at all, though. The Constitution doesn't prohibit the government from putting a bus stop closer to your house; it *does* prohibit the government from providing religious instruction. The Constitution does prohibit government from earmarking money specifically for religious education. It does not, however, prohibit government from earmarking money for education and leaving the choice of whether religious content will be included in that education up to the individual. That distinction has been in place for decades with regard to financial aid for college students, and the Cleveland voucher case applied the same distinction at the K-12 level. |
#386
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:51:51 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote: And don't most wealthy white families already send their children to different schools from where most of the poor minority children attend even within the current public school system? In many cases, yes. In the case of some good public schools, no, because the programs are so good that the wealthy white families have chosen to keep their children in these schools even though there are many minority and poor children attending with them. -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#387
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message ... Nobody said his house, how about to his church up a two mile private road on his property!? This is how far they want us to go out of our way to pay them back their taxes. Asinine. On the contrary, the route we want is actually less expensive to government than if all children attended government schools. What you want is analogous to deliberately routing the bus system in a way specifically designed to keep it from getting "too close" to churches. |
#388
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"toto" wrote in message ... Frankly, the problem is that teaching Creationism as science is a crock and will close off entrance into biology as the cutting edge of that science is more and more involved with evolution. How much effort has been made to develop biology curricula that (1) do a good job teaching about things like genetics, mutations, and natural selection without trying to tie them in to the idea that life as we know it evolved through those processes, --------------- None, because that's as stupid an idea as trying to create a new chemistry without atomic theory. and (2) look at similarities between organisms without trying to explain them through common ancestry? And what, if any, parts of "the cutting edge" of biology would such a curriculum not adequately prepare children for? ------------------- You don't grasp genetics, natural selection, and mutation at all if you don't see they mean EVOLUTION. The very details that so-called "creation science"(a non-science) thinks are indicative of "problems" in evolutionary theory proves they aren't even aware that these things like punctuated equilibrium, and the Cambian explosion due to the random invention of sex, and special drift forming new species in a niche space have ALL been FULLY reproduced now in genetic programming simulations, and that as such, evolution is a PROVEN theory, in fact, one of the MOST proven of ALL theories in Science which explain things BOTH remote either in time or space, AND local. And it has even been used to create new adapted microbial life forms which are used in industry as cellular factories for enzymes and proteins, and forms a body of tools to manipulate viruses that have enabled creation of the entire spectrum of new anti-viral medications. Steve |
#389
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:34:38 -0500, "Donna Metler"
wrote: And the costs for starting up a school are immense. Which is why charter schools generally require corporate or charitable start-up money. Only fairly rich organizations can do it. IE-big, established churches. Well, not exactly, depending on how small a school you start, but the amount to *keep* a school running is immense and such schools are often operating on the donations of the founder or others. For example, take Westside Prep founded by Marva Collins. It's a very successful school, but it wouldn't have survived without it's founders willingness to put her lecture money into the school and it was finally rescued by Prince with large donations of funds. http://www.startribune.com/viewers/s...hp?story=40693 -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#390
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Circe" wrote in message news:eCCEc.9613$Qj6.825@fed1read05...
abacus wrote: Banty wrote in message ... One goes to a public school to get an education. Just like one rides a pubic bus to get transportation. One is not required to avail oneself of the public education, just as one can buy oneself a car and never never let a Different Kind of Person inside it if one wishes. But not on the public dime. The problem, at least as I see it and continuing with your analogy here, would be like a sizeable (but minority) group of people complaining that the bus doesn't provide transportation to where they want to go. They then wish to either have the public transportation system - which they help fund through their tax dollars - either accomodate their needs by adding their destination to the route or providing vouchers to help defray the costs of their going where they need to go. That wouldn't seem an unreasonable request to me. Since insisting that public schools provide religion in their child's education would be unconstitutional (analogous to adding that destination to the bus route), the voucher solution seems more appropriate for the school system. It isn't analogous at all, though. Ma'am, it wasn't my analogy originally, but rather Ms. Banty's. It's been used many times before with arguments about vouchers. How applicable it is is rather hotly debated at times. The Constitution doesn't prohibit the government from putting a bus stop closer to your house; it *does* prohibit the government from providing religious instruction. And whether that religious instruction is given in a public school or a private one is immaterial or whether it is done at the behest of or against the will of the recipient is irrelevant--the government cannot and should not pay for religious education. Ma'am, I won't argue that the government should not pay for religious education. I agree with you on that point. But denying equal funding for education simply because the education is done in a religious setting strikes me as the equivalent of refusing to run put a bus stop in front of a church just because people go there to attend religious services. Where people go and why they go there is not a matter of governmental concern, government's only concern should be whether or not there are sufficient people who want to go there to a bus stop. |
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