Should private schools exist?/Should public schools exist?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

no/yes. Private schools are utter trash that usually make you wear uniforms and ties. yuck. We'd be much better off if they were just outlawed.

[Jake]

No public schools, all private schools.  Ties are an essential wardrobe item, and are much better than t-shirts.

[Nym90]

Of course both should exist. More options are almost always better; certainly this is true in education.

[Keystone Phil]

Yes/Yes.

Oh and getting rid of private schools isn't extreme, BRTD?

[Gabu]

Yes/yes.

[A18]

Yes/no

[Brandon H]

Private Schools should exist.

Public Schools should exist, but be under the control of each individual state and not the federal government.

[John Dibble]

Private Schools should exist.

Public Schools should exist, but be under the control of each individual state and not the federal government.

Pretty much my opinion, though I'd like to see the public systems with vouchers.

[dazzleman]

Yes/yes.

Haven't we already had this discussion?  Is this another one of those "I Hate Suburbs/I Hate Private Schools/I Want to Boink a Dominatrix with a Hammer & Sickle Tattoo on Her Breasts" series of polls?

BRTD - you have the maturity of a 10-year-old.  Grow up, man.  You didn't even go to private school, so what do you care?

I support public schools that are locally controlled, with a voucher system for private schools in areas where the public schools are failing.

[Keystone Phil]

Yes/yes.

Haven't we already had this discussion?  Is this another one of those "I Hate Suburbs/I Hate Private Schools/I Want to Boink a Dominatrix with a Hammer & Sickle Tattoo on Her Breasts" series of polls?

BRTD - you have the maturity of a 10-year-old.  Grow up, man.  You didn't even go to private school, so what do you care?

Haha! dazzleman, you are great!

[dazzleman]

Yes/yes.

Haven't we already had this discussion?  Is this another one of those "I Hate Suburbs/I Hate Private Schools/I Want to Boink a Dominatrix with a Hammer & Sickle Tattoo on Her Breasts" series of polls?

BRTD - you have the maturity of a 10-year-old.  Grow up, man.  You didn't even go to private school, so what do you care?

Haha! dazzleman, you are great!

Thanks, man.

[TomC]

yes/yes

no on vouchers- the academic prep schools wouldn't allow enough kids in on vouchers to make it a truly broad based govt program. Government programs shouldn't serve the few. And I can't support public funding of religious education. If communities want some kids from their neighborhoods  to attend private school, they can pool resources and offer scholarships. That would be an admirable plan, but should not mix this money in with the public budget.

I agree they should be locally controlled, with accreditation associations possibly regional rather than local, as they now are.

[Rob]

Yes/Yes. Even if you don't like private schools, as I don't, there's no reason to ban them.

[TeePee4Prez]

Yes/Yes.

[Richard]

Yes/No

[Bono]

Yes/No

And if the choice is between vouchers and the current system, the current systenm is way better. Vouchers are the wosrt thing that could be implemented.

[minionofmidas]

No with certain exceptions / Yes

[Nym90]

yes/yes

no on vouchers- the academic prep schools wouldn't allow enough kids in on vouchers to make it a truly broad based govt program. Government programs shouldn't serve the few. And I can't support public funding of religious education. If communities want some kids from their neighborhoods  to attend private school, they can pool resources and offer scholarships. That would be an admirable plan, but should not mix this money in with the public budget.

I agree they should be locally controlled, with accreditation associations possibly regional rather than local, as they now are.

Regarding vouchers, I'd be willing to support them as long as no money was taken away from the public schools in the process (as it is now, if a public school loses a student to a private school via a voucher, they lose funding, since funding is on a per pupil basis; I'd support changing this to allow the same funding for the school even after losing the student, which would be likely to help improve the public school in the process, as they'd have more money to spend per pupil). I also strongly feel that the church/state seperation needs to be maintained.

The reality of vouchers, I think, is that government money would be more efficiently spent on improving public schools rather than spent on vouchers. Private schools are very expensive, and thus any comprehensive voucher plan would be extremely costly in order to give any great number of students a quality education.

So while they sound good in theory, in actual practice I can't see them being a really good idea unless one believes that public schools are irrevocably broken beyond repair, and can never succeed under any conditions, which seems preposterous to me.

[dazzleman]

yes/yes

no on vouchers- the academic prep schools wouldn't allow enough kids in on vouchers to make it a truly broad based govt program. Government programs shouldn't serve the few. And I can't support public funding of religious education. If communities want some kids from their neighborhoods  to attend private school, they can pool resources and offer scholarships. That would be an admirable plan, but should not mix this money in with the public budget.

I agree they should be locally controlled, with accreditation associations possibly regional rather than local, as they now are.

Regarding vouchers, I'd be willing to support them as long as no money was taken away from the public schools in the process (as it is now, if a public school loses a student to a private school via a voucher, they lose funding, since funding is on a per pupil basis; I'd support changing this to allow the same funding for the school even after losing the student, which would be likely to help improve the public school in the process, as they'd have more money to spend per pupil). I also strongly feel that the church/state seperation needs to be maintained.

The reality of vouchers, I think, is that government money would be more efficiently spent on improving public schools rather than spent on vouchers. Private schools are very expensive, and thus any comprehensive voucher plan would be extremely costly in order to give any great number of students a quality education.

So while they sound good in theory, in actual practice I can't see them being a really good idea unless one believes that public schools are irrevocably broken beyond repair, and can never succeed under any conditions, which seems preposterous to me.

Eric, I think you have it backwards.  When I say private schools, I am not talking about elite prep schools.  Since kids going to elite prep schools generally don't come from areas with failing public schools, they would not be covered by vouchers.

I am talking about less expensive private/parochial schools that operate at far lower cost than public schools, and do a better job.  The reason they are able to do a better job, in general, is that their students have parents who are interested in their children's education while in failing public schools, many of the parents of not interested in their children's education (which, rather than lack of adequate funding, is the main reason the schools are failing in the first place).

You say that it is more efficient to improve public schools than provide vouchers for private schools.  You are failing to recognize that it is impossible to improve certain public schools with any amount of money, given the types of parents and students involved with those schools, and the only humane solution is to allow parents and students, who would otherwise have to attend these concrete jungles, to escape.  That is the reality.

The liberal view is effectively that in order to save anybody, you have to save everybody.  If everybody cannot be saved, or does not want to be saved, then even those willing to be saved cannot be.  Picture a sinking ship, with enough room in the life boats, but a number of people who refuse to get off the ship because they don't want to go back to land, for whatever reason.  Would it be a humane policy to tell those clamoring to get to the safety of the lifeboat that they had to go down with this ship, because not everybody on the ship was interested in being saved?  Therefore, everybody has to die?  That is the reality of inner city education today. 

Those who are not interested in education, whose family life is too deficient to allow them to get an education, whose parents aren't interested in education or taking any responsibility for their behavior, and who come to school only to disrupt things and prevent others from getting an education, are being allowed to destroy the educational hopes of those who don't have enough money to move away from such people.  Blanket liberal emphasis on "rights" has largely led to this situation, and no amount of money can fix it.  Is it right that we allow it to continue, whatever high-minded but unworkable theory we use to justify it?

[minionofmidas]

I want to see some no/no votes.

[Nym90]

I see what you are saying, and I do mostly agree. I did say that I supported vouchers under certain conditions, remember.

If the private schools in question are indeed cheap and high quality, then vouchers make a lot more sense in those cases, for sure. It obviously depends on the local area, which is why I support more localized education, with more power in the hands of local school boards, which can be more directly influenced by those in the community through local elections, and in which the people will be more likely to be heard at local school board meetings.

You are correct that bad parenting is mostly to blame for bad schools rather than the schools themselves. Obviously if the parents have no desire to improve a school, it isn't going to improve. I just don't believe that there are large percentages of parents who don't truly want a good education for their kids; I think that most of them just simply never learned the skills themselves in the first place. It's a vicious cycle, to be sure, but I think that ensuring high-quality teachers, a high-quality facility, and administrators and educators that take pride in their job can turn around these areas, albeit slowly. The schools can be a force for changing the attitude of the community, rather than having to be strictly responsive to it. It can help instill pride and a sense of hope into the area, the lack of which is responsible for a lot of the problems of the area.

I think that the liberal attitude is more that no one is completely beyond hope for redemption, no matter how hopeless their situation. An enduring faith in the ability of all people to overcome adversity, basically, and as a result, a conviction that we as a society have a responsibility to try to help the downtrodden in their quest to turn their lives around.

I personally believe that this is true, though in many cases individuals must reform on their own, as it would be too expensive for society to give them the help that they would need. If helping some people would drag down the vast majority of others to a lower standard of living in the process, it's not going to be a good idea for the nation as a whole to do it.

So regarding the schools you consider unsaveable, I favor a compromise approach; allow those to escape who want to, yes (as I strongly favor choice, and not forcing anyone into an educational system that isn't working for them personally) but also continue to work strongly to improve the school, rather than simply abandoning it, as vouchers often do in their current form. I agree that money itself isn't the answer, the money has to be used in a constructive way to change people's opinions and attitudes about life, but I think it can be done. If we spend money smartly and attract the right people, it can and will work, and the long-term positive repurcussions will be well worth it.

[dazzleman]

I see what you are saying, and I do mostly agree. I did say that I supported vouchers under certain conditions, remember.

If the private schools in question are indeed cheap and high quality, then vouchers make a lot more sense in those cases, for sure. It obviously depends on the local area, which is why I support more localized education, with more power in the hands of local school boards, which can be more directly influenced by those in the community through local elections, and in which the people will be more likely to be heard at local school board meetings.

You are correct that bad parenting is mostly to blame for bad schools rather than the schools themselves. Obviously if the parents have no desire to improve a school, it isn't going to improve. I just don't believe that there are large percentages of parents who don't truly want a good education for their kids; I think that most of them just simply never learned the skills themselves in the first place. It's a vicious cycle, to be sure, but I think that ensuring high-quality teachers, a high-quality facility, and administrators and educators that take pride in their job can turn around these areas, albeit slowly. The schools can be a force for changing the attitude of the community, rather than having to be strictly responsive to it. It can help instill pride and a sense of hope into the area, the lack of which is responsible for a lot of the problems of the area.

I think that the liberal attitude is more that no one is completely beyond hope for redemption, no matter how hopeless their situation. An enduring faith in the ability of all people to overcome adversity, basically, and as a result, a conviction that we as a society have a responsibility to try to help the downtrodden in their quest to turn their lives around.

I personally believe that this is true, though in many cases individuals must reform on their own, as it would be too expensive for society to give them the help that they would need. If helping some people would drag down the vast majority of others to a lower standard of living in the process, it's not going to be a good idea for the nation as a whole to do it.

So regarding the schools you consider unsaveable, I favor a compromise approach; allow those to escape who want to, yes (as I strongly favor choice, and not forcing anyone into an educational system that isn't working for them personally) but also continue to work strongly to improve the school, rather than simply abandoning it, as vouchers often do in their current form. I agree that money itself isn't the answer, the money has to be used in a constructive way to change people's opinions and attitudes about life, but I think it can be done. If we spend money smartly and attract the right people, it can and will work, and the long-term positive repurcussions will be well worth it.

You're more optimistic than I am about our ability to change people's attitudes within the current system.  I actually think that we stand a better chance of doing that by allowing people to escape failing public schools, and create some positive momentum in that way.  If people see good results, they may lose some of the hopelessness that blankets their existence.  I think that being trapped in failing public schools, with no way out, would cause anybody to lose interest in education.  There is almost no hope in trying in such a situation.

It sounds great to say that you will attract top-notch staff to public schools in bad areas, that are failing.  The reality is that this is nearly impossible.  Top quality people in any field need to know that they are making a difference, and need to have work conditions at a certain level.  If their main concern is getting through the day alive, they are unable to really teach anything, and they get no support from the parents or the administration, how long do you think they are going to stay?  Would you stay in such a situation?  I sure wouldn't.

I also think you are being overly generous to many of the parents involved.  Many of these parents have no life skills, period.  It is impossible to start from the ground up giving them basic life skills, when they already have children that they are not capable of raising.  Assuming that they're even interested in gaining these skills, which many are not, their kids will be practically grown before they can even function as adults.  It's a losing battle.

I don't believe anybody is beyond redemption, but people cannot redeem themselves without some of their own effort, which is not forthcoming for many of these people.  They want other people to do the whole job.  And we cannot hold other people down because of the deficiencies of these people.  That is what we are effectively doing with the education system as it stands now.

[Nation]

Yes/yes.

Haven't we already had this discussion?  Is this another one of those "I Hate Suburbs/I Hate Private Schools/I Want to Boink a Dominatrix with a Hammer & Sickle Tattoo on Her Breasts" series of polls?

BRTD - you have the maturity of a 10-year-old.  Grow up, man.  You didn't even go to private school, so what do you care?

I support public schools that are locally controlled, with a voucher system for private schools in areas where the public schools are failing.

Agree 100% -- with the entire statement.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This asks about both private and public schools though, so it also fits wit the extreme libertarians who want to end public schools.

[DanielX]

No/no would result in there not being any schools...