I think what they are doing in Arizona is a good start. I homeschooled my student who is an Aerospace engineer now. What I could have done with an additional $15k each year!
A great idea...if all parents were deeply engaged in their children's education. They're not. That's how so much of this CRT, anti-white poison got into the system. It also doesn't address the sausage factory of groupthink that is the so-called elite university, the place where SJW orcs are manufactured and let loose to assault Western Civilization.
I am with DeSantis on this one. He clearly sees the destruction to society these leftist ideas are creating and is pushing back as vigorously and as quickly as he can. Generations of kids have been taught to hate their country and we are already late to the fight. Sometimes the best, and only, way to end an aggression is a blunt punch to the nose. We can get to work on implementing the ideal after the correction.
Practically all of our problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the family. Sen Moynihan's conclusion about the black family in the 60s were correct, I believe. A strong family is the core of a strong society and allows for human flourishing. There's not a lot of human flourishing going on the West nowadays. (Dismounts from soapbox.)
Excellent article, school choice is the answer. If you can afford it, take your children out and choose your school and then vote in candidates that are for school choice to help the other children who can't afford it, have a choice too! Also, examine these private schools closely and make sure you are getting what you want. Some private schools are worse than the public schools. And to good teachers, you leave too, we will meet again at the good schools. Teachers and parents must unite.
We kept our kids out of the system completely. I don’t want state money; it will always come with strings. Just make the school funding a voluntary line item in taxes, at least local ones, and allow us to opt out. We lived on one trade income. We found communities for our kids and ourselves (I’m mom and I drove that-it involves a lot of frog-kissing.) We took *responsibility.* Your children are the most important job you’ll ever have and you *can* eff it up. If you outsource it, how much can you really complain? You had a different priority. For some people, that truly is food on the table, and I get that. But, be honest, for how many is it *really* food on the table, rather than “the manner to which I have grown accustomed.”
Eliminate “compulsory.” End that immediately. Allow people to do whatever they want, whether it’s community coops or small-scale group tutoring or paying people you know and trust to take your kids so you can work.
But *don’t take their money.* They *will* tell you what you have to teach, what competence is, and what qualifies as an education.
BREAKING: Arizona Department of Education is now reporting that parents "may receive an error message" when applying for the new school choice program "due to high volume."
“On February 1st, 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and demanded to be served. In 2014, four black students sit down at a lunch counter where they’re welcome and can’t read the menu.
Sweden has tried vouchers since the mid-nineties. It is an unmitigated disaster, far worse than the old fully state-run top-down system (for lots for reasons than just the vouchers, truth be told). A race to who can inflate the grades the most, meaning we at the university level discovered (15 years ago) that we suddenly had barely literate students aged 20+ who could barely read newspapers, much less actual textbooks - and yet, the private schools they had attended had awarded them top grades... because who puts their child in a school where the students get low grades? That must be a bad school. Moronic. And don't get me started on what the voucher system did to the correlation of grades vis-a-vis actual math skill/knowledge. Of course, perhaps you can study us to see where we went wrong using vouchers. Then we could point to you and fix our system too.
As to answer your question regardless of the current unfortunate trend in the US (far as I can tell), what we teachers should teach is easily described:
Knowledge and skills. That's it. To do that we need to have a disciplined school environment. And toachive that parents must raise children to comply with a few very simple demands: sit in your seat. Raise your hand when you wish to speak. Keep time. Do your homework. Study so that you can pass the tests and exams.
Anything surplus to this has no place in the school. Want to be christian, moslem, communist, black, jew, martian? Leave it on the peg in the hallway, in my class you are my student, because that's the only interest I have in you.
So when the subject is history of politics, I will teach about communism but I will not teach communism. And you can replace communism with whatever -ism you want: when I come to work, my personal opinions and preferences stay in my locker.
Same principle as in armed forces: no homos, women, men, arabs, plutonians - only soldiers together. Anything else is surpus to the mission.
time to end compulsory public education, full stop. it's a babysitting service. any reasonably intelligent child can take care of himself or herself, or that can be left to older siblings if necessary.
imagine the kind of talent that schools would attract if the insane levels of bureaucracy an educator needs to jump through were eliminated. imagine how many people would sign up for economics 101 with gato - and how inexpensive that would be
Here are a few small things to consider while we wait for the tsunami of change to occur:
In my early 20’s, I taught school. My first rude awakening was that I HAD to join a teachers union. At the time, the unions were all over the news with some issue I had not the bandwidth nor discernment to concern myself with. I didn’t think I liked their arguments but wasn’t certain. I didn’t want to join until I knew more about it so I tried to “hand-wave” them off. Several mentors strongly cautioned that if I didn’t join, and say I lost my temper and knocked over a kid’s desk, if a pencil went flying and blinded a kid or something, even though I had not actually thrown said pencil, it would not matter if the kid had been knocking out windows and slashing others with the glass, I would be sued and worse. So I paid my $75 to get my million dollar coverage. For that reason alone, I was now a member of a union currently making moves in the news that I myself wasn’t sure I condoned. Do the math for every teacher, every year, then consider that, like me, many teachers do not have the same ideals as the teacher’s unions. We’re just stuck needing insurance.
Another lesson wherein my hands were tied by stupid bureaucracy: They handed out massive catalogs of teacher supply stuff, telling me to check the boxes of what I’d need—- everything from staplers to projectors. I was like a kid with a JCPenny catalog and no budget. PLUS, the goods were dirt cheap in comparison to Walmart. (Thanks, Feds!) I went sort of hog wild — with a dash of, “but I don’t want to be greedy”, and got construction paper in every color, fun math tools like plastic pie pieces to help teach fractions, you get the idea. I turned in my wish list. They returned it to me saying I had to spend more. (?!) I went back and REALLY went hog wild, forget seeming greediness. They returned it to me again, saying spend more! This happened 3x before I finally asked exactly how much more and WHY, if I honestly didn’t think I needed anything else? The office said (wait for it…) if we didn’t collectively spend more than we’d spent last year, we would not be allocated as much the following year and whatever we were allocated may not be enough. WHAT? I was only 24 and I knew that wasn’t a good rationale for the entire country’s worth of teachers to overspend! I suggested they give my spare $ to special ed or art or … Turns out those depts. already get far more money than the rest. A secretary who had been around for 40 years actually looked at me and said, “Just order extra construction paper and math toys and give them to your nieces for Christmas.” 😳 Yes, they basically MADE me spend $600 more than I needed. Again, do that math for all federally funded schools.
Allocating needs to be refined, at the very least.
By the way, I homeschooled all 3 of my kids because I wanted them to have our ideals and because I could accomplish more than most schools accomplish per day, in half the time, leaving the rest of the day to read good lit, to create or to pursue others interests.
The parent is responsible for the education of the child - not the State. The government should have no role in education AT ALL. Only an irresponsible parent would sign over to government the right to determine what and by whom their child is taught.
We know the government cannot run ANYTHING. The USPS was trying to learn customer service from McDonalds. Common sense dictates that public education should be eliminated. But we have a Congress corrupted by teachers' unions. So we are stuck with the status quo. As always, the root cause is corruption. When corruption is protected by the First Amendment (when creatively interpreted), as free speech, we are doomed.
I think what they are doing in Arizona is a good start. I homeschooled my student who is an Aerospace engineer now. What I could have done with an additional $15k each year!
A great idea...if all parents were deeply engaged in their children's education. They're not. That's how so much of this CRT, anti-white poison got into the system. It also doesn't address the sausage factory of groupthink that is the so-called elite university, the place where SJW orcs are manufactured and let loose to assault Western Civilization.
I am with DeSantis on this one. He clearly sees the destruction to society these leftist ideas are creating and is pushing back as vigorously and as quickly as he can. Generations of kids have been taught to hate their country and we are already late to the fight. Sometimes the best, and only, way to end an aggression is a blunt punch to the nose. We can get to work on implementing the ideal after the correction.
Practically all of our problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the family. Sen Moynihan's conclusion about the black family in the 60s were correct, I believe. A strong family is the core of a strong society and allows for human flourishing. There's not a lot of human flourishing going on the West nowadays. (Dismounts from soapbox.)
Excellent article, school choice is the answer. If you can afford it, take your children out and choose your school and then vote in candidates that are for school choice to help the other children who can't afford it, have a choice too! Also, examine these private schools closely and make sure you are getting what you want. Some private schools are worse than the public schools. And to good teachers, you leave too, we will meet again at the good schools. Teachers and parents must unite.
Brilliant. Simple. Makes perfect sense.
This is why you (and me) will never get elected for public office
You still owe me a phone call :)
We kept our kids out of the system completely. I don’t want state money; it will always come with strings. Just make the school funding a voluntary line item in taxes, at least local ones, and allow us to opt out. We lived on one trade income. We found communities for our kids and ourselves (I’m mom and I drove that-it involves a lot of frog-kissing.) We took *responsibility.* Your children are the most important job you’ll ever have and you *can* eff it up. If you outsource it, how much can you really complain? You had a different priority. For some people, that truly is food on the table, and I get that. But, be honest, for how many is it *really* food on the table, rather than “the manner to which I have grown accustomed.”
Eliminate “compulsory.” End that immediately. Allow people to do whatever they want, whether it’s community coops or small-scale group tutoring or paying people you know and trust to take your kids so you can work.
But *don’t take their money.* They *will* tell you what you have to teach, what competence is, and what qualifies as an education.
"...struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read..."
This is it right here and all of our teeth collectively should've fallen out reading it.
Arizona Holds The School Choice Crown, But Can It Keep It? https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/19/arizona-holds-the-school-choice-crown-but-can-it-keep-it/
BREAKING: Arizona Department of Education is now reporting that parents "may receive an error message" when applying for the new school choice program "due to high volume."
https://twitter.com/deangeliscorey/status/1560734192933081089?s=21&t=W90I4_kZOPD27COBR-2ZoA
A random dump from old notes. Note the first and last ones ones;
Obama Cancels DC Voucher Schools: http://www.humanevents.com/2010/10/12/obamas-hypocrisy-on-school-choice/
Hypocrite Obama Criticizes Sending Children to Private School While Sending His Girls to Private School: http://eaglerising.com/18462/obama-criticizes-sending-kids-to-private-school-while-sending-his-own-kids-to-private-school/
DC Mayor Breaks With Obama Over Vouchers: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/27/dc-mayor-breaks-with-obama-to-support-gop-backed-school-choice-bill/
North Carolina Gets OK for Vouchers from Judge: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/23/huge-win-for-school-vouchers-in-north-carolina/
Arne Duncan, Head of Education, Daughters Attend Non Common Core Schools Though He Preaches it For Others: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/10/arne-duncan-loves-common-core-for-your-kids-but-not-his/
Nevada Introduces Country’s Biggest Ever Choice Program: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/03/nevada-enacts-countrys-biggest-ever-school-choice-program/
DC Rep, Holmes Norton Warns House, Don’t Mess With DC Local Laws: http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/07/dc-rep-warns-house-gop-dont-mess-with-local-laws/
Spending doubles on education but kids doing worse than in 1972: http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/20/despite-outrageous-school-spending-students-actually-dumber-than-in-1972/
Educational Outcomes: How Did This Happen in America? http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/27/school-choice-education-is-liberation/
“On February 1st, 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and demanded to be served. In 2014, four black students sit down at a lunch counter where they’re welcome and can’t read the menu.
“How did this happen in America?”
Teachers Don’t Know How Much is Being Spent Per Pupil: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/18/teachers-dont-know-how-much-is-spent-on-schools-but-want-more/
New Ed Czar http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/03/african-american-education-czar-to-reduce-resegregation/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
New Hampshire Fights Vouchers http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/12/the-battle-against-school-choice-in-new
Obama 1995 Collectivism Guarantees Equality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjzPirAp0vM#action=share
Sweden has tried vouchers since the mid-nineties. It is an unmitigated disaster, far worse than the old fully state-run top-down system (for lots for reasons than just the vouchers, truth be told). A race to who can inflate the grades the most, meaning we at the university level discovered (15 years ago) that we suddenly had barely literate students aged 20+ who could barely read newspapers, much less actual textbooks - and yet, the private schools they had attended had awarded them top grades... because who puts their child in a school where the students get low grades? That must be a bad school. Moronic. And don't get me started on what the voucher system did to the correlation of grades vis-a-vis actual math skill/knowledge. Of course, perhaps you can study us to see where we went wrong using vouchers. Then we could point to you and fix our system too.
As to answer your question regardless of the current unfortunate trend in the US (far as I can tell), what we teachers should teach is easily described:
Knowledge and skills. That's it. To do that we need to have a disciplined school environment. And toachive that parents must raise children to comply with a few very simple demands: sit in your seat. Raise your hand when you wish to speak. Keep time. Do your homework. Study so that you can pass the tests and exams.
Anything surplus to this has no place in the school. Want to be christian, moslem, communist, black, jew, martian? Leave it on the peg in the hallway, in my class you are my student, because that's the only interest I have in you.
So when the subject is history of politics, I will teach about communism but I will not teach communism. And you can replace communism with whatever -ism you want: when I come to work, my personal opinions and preferences stay in my locker.
Same principle as in armed forces: no homos, women, men, arabs, plutonians - only soldiers together. Anything else is surpus to the mission.
time to end compulsory public education, full stop. it's a babysitting service. any reasonably intelligent child can take care of himself or herself, or that can be left to older siblings if necessary.
imagine the kind of talent that schools would attract if the insane levels of bureaucracy an educator needs to jump through were eliminated. imagine how many people would sign up for economics 101 with gato - and how inexpensive that would be
Here are a few small things to consider while we wait for the tsunami of change to occur:
In my early 20’s, I taught school. My first rude awakening was that I HAD to join a teachers union. At the time, the unions were all over the news with some issue I had not the bandwidth nor discernment to concern myself with. I didn’t think I liked their arguments but wasn’t certain. I didn’t want to join until I knew more about it so I tried to “hand-wave” them off. Several mentors strongly cautioned that if I didn’t join, and say I lost my temper and knocked over a kid’s desk, if a pencil went flying and blinded a kid or something, even though I had not actually thrown said pencil, it would not matter if the kid had been knocking out windows and slashing others with the glass, I would be sued and worse. So I paid my $75 to get my million dollar coverage. For that reason alone, I was now a member of a union currently making moves in the news that I myself wasn’t sure I condoned. Do the math for every teacher, every year, then consider that, like me, many teachers do not have the same ideals as the teacher’s unions. We’re just stuck needing insurance.
Another lesson wherein my hands were tied by stupid bureaucracy: They handed out massive catalogs of teacher supply stuff, telling me to check the boxes of what I’d need—- everything from staplers to projectors. I was like a kid with a JCPenny catalog and no budget. PLUS, the goods were dirt cheap in comparison to Walmart. (Thanks, Feds!) I went sort of hog wild — with a dash of, “but I don’t want to be greedy”, and got construction paper in every color, fun math tools like plastic pie pieces to help teach fractions, you get the idea. I turned in my wish list. They returned it to me saying I had to spend more. (?!) I went back and REALLY went hog wild, forget seeming greediness. They returned it to me again, saying spend more! This happened 3x before I finally asked exactly how much more and WHY, if I honestly didn’t think I needed anything else? The office said (wait for it…) if we didn’t collectively spend more than we’d spent last year, we would not be allocated as much the following year and whatever we were allocated may not be enough. WHAT? I was only 24 and I knew that wasn’t a good rationale for the entire country’s worth of teachers to overspend! I suggested they give my spare $ to special ed or art or … Turns out those depts. already get far more money than the rest. A secretary who had been around for 40 years actually looked at me and said, “Just order extra construction paper and math toys and give them to your nieces for Christmas.” 😳 Yes, they basically MADE me spend $600 more than I needed. Again, do that math for all federally funded schools.
Allocating needs to be refined, at the very least.
By the way, I homeschooled all 3 of my kids because I wanted them to have our ideals and because I could accomplish more than most schools accomplish per day, in half the time, leaving the rest of the day to read good lit, to create or to pursue others interests.
I suggest you close comments on this article so everyone will comment in the second half and the discussion will remain coherent and integrated.
Pubic schools exist to fund teachers, perverts and the Democratic Party
Pubic schools exist solely to prop up the power of teachers, perverts and the Democratic Party
The parent is responsible for the education of the child - not the State. The government should have no role in education AT ALL. Only an irresponsible parent would sign over to government the right to determine what and by whom their child is taught.
We know the government cannot run ANYTHING. The USPS was trying to learn customer service from McDonalds. Common sense dictates that public education should be eliminated. But we have a Congress corrupted by teachers' unions. So we are stuck with the status quo. As always, the root cause is corruption. When corruption is protected by the First Amendment (when creatively interpreted), as free speech, we are doomed.
YES! GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF SCHOOLS!
In 40 years, the Department of Education hasn't educated a single student.