Do you oppose school vouchers under ALL circumstances?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Do you realize that I DON'T F**KING GIVE A SH*T WHAT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSITIONS ON AN ISSUE ARE?

I'm normal, by which I mean I actually make my own mind up rather than just going "DAH WHAT DO OTHER PEOPLE IN MY IDEOLOGY THINK I WILL AGREE WITH THEM BECAUSE I SURE DONT WANT A GUY ON THE INTERNET TO TELL ME WHAT MY IDEOLOGY IS".  Your ideology comes from your positions, not the other way around and is irrelevant in every way except to give a brief overview of the general facets of what you think.  At least, that's the case if you aren't f**king retarded.

Which is true, but that does affect your ideology, which I'll then argue is not liberal as I argued in this thread as you hold a far right wing position (as something that's so right wing it was rejected with over 60% in Utah sounds pretty far right to me)

And if you've noticed, I don't take every single position based on my ideology either.

Not necessarily.  There have been many documented cases where a child's ability for knowledge is far enough above what the school is offering that he or she is attending that the child actually was getting poor grades due to apathy.  The fact is that a school that is unconducive to learning drags down every student, regardless of intelligence.  Raw intelligence is not enough to succeed; proper motivation is at least as large a factor.

There are advanced placement public schools and classes. Besides private schools aren't necessarily harder, even if better ran, which I doubt is the case most of the time anyway.

BRTD,

You have a problem with taking your personal experiences and extrapolating them out and then you base your views on that.  Not only that, but you take a cut throat 100% black/white view on many issues that clearly are anything but black and white.

I spent 10 years in public schools, 3 in a right wing Christian school and 3 years at a private, Catholic institution and 1 year at a public foreign university.

I don't like being a pompous ass but I think my experience in various school systems is more diverse than yours.  So don't go around spewing out crap when you don't know what you're talking about.

OK, but didn't you say you are against vouchers earlier because they would defund public schools?

I think Gabu sums it up nicer than I could have. BRTD, your black and white notion of "public schools good, private schools bad" seems to be based on some irrational hatred that I can't even begin to guess the source of rather than on any hard facts or logical thought.

Because the thought of going to a private school when I was would a kid I find quite terrifying. Hell, I'd probably try to get kicked out if I was sent to a private school with all the horror stories I've heard, and the fact that I'd probably have to wear a uniform and not have open campus. Not that my parents would send me to one even if they could afford it, but still.

I would also note that contrary to what BRTD claimed and bearing in mind that Gabu is 100% correct on what he says about ideology, etc it IS liberal to support shcool vouchers. Claiming otherwise is ridiculous. You would have to be far-out socialist to come up with ideological arguments against voucher schools.

By that logic, the vast majority of Democrats and all of the presidential candidates running are far out socialists, as is over 60% of Utah voters. And the Reagan administration is one of the most liberal in recent years, as it made the biggest push for vouchers.

[Alcon]

Which is true, but that does affect your ideology, which I'll then argue is not liberal as I argued in this thread as you hold a far right wing position (as something that's so right wing it was rejected with over 60% in Utah sounds pretty far right to me)

60% of Utah residents enjoy chocolate ice cream.

Clearly, chocolate is a right-wing ice cream.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Don't try logic on BRTD.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Which is true, but that does affect your ideology, which I'll then argue is not liberal as I argued in this thread as you hold a far right wing position (as something that's so right wing it was rejected with over 60% in Utah sounds pretty far right to me)

60% of Utah residents enjoy chocolate ice cream.

Clearly, chocolate is a right-wing ice cream.

Is ice cream a political issue?

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

No it's not.

[John Dibble]

I think Gabu sums it up nicer than I could have. BRTD, your black and white notion of "public schools good, private schools bad" seems to be based on some irrational hatred that I can't even begin to guess the source of rather than on any hard facts or logical thought.

Because the thought of going to a private school when I was would a kid I find quite terrifying. Hell, I'd probably try to get kicked out if I was sent to a private school with all the horror stories I've heard, and the fact that I'd probably have to wear a uniform and not have open campus. Not that my parents would send me to one even if they could afford it, but still.

So you believe everything you hear? You are being highly irrational about this - so maybe you didn't like what you heard about the private schools in your area. So what? Does that mean that every last private school is bad and to be hated? Why is it that you can't seem to think of anything outside of black and white terms?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think Gabu sums it up nicer than I could have. BRTD, your black and white notion of "public schools good, private schools bad" seems to be based on some irrational hatred that I can't even begin to guess the source of rather than on any hard facts or logical thought.

Because the thought of going to a private school when I was would a kid I find quite terrifying. Hell, I'd probably try to get kicked out if I was sent to a private school with all the horror stories I've heard, and the fact that I'd probably have to wear a uniform and not have open campus. Not that my parents would send me to one even if they could afford it, but still.

So you believe everything you hear? You are being highly irrational about this - so maybe you didn't like what you heard about the private schools in your area. So what? Does that mean that every last private school is bad and to be hated? Why is it that you can't seem to think of anything outside of black and white terms?

I hate the entire concept of private schools though (schools for rich people) and I would never want to go to a school with uniforms.

Don't forget, every single suburb in the country (if not the world) is an awful place to live, since that's what BRTD thought when he lived in one.

Actually I've never lived in a real suburb.

[Jake]

If their kid was that bright, they would've gotten great grades in the public schools, regardless of what they were like, which would've made for easy admission to any public university.

Which tend to be of two different types, A. small campuses that offer nowhere near the education oppurtunity of a larger school or B. large campuses in urban areas that might offer a choice of two in the entire state. If a kid wants a small school, with big oppurtunities and doesn't like the options in state, they have to pay private school money to go out of state.

Obviously Virginia and California are exceptions here, Virginia as they have small private education quality schools at public prices and California as they have a large number of top notch public schools. Most states do not have this system at all. Yours included.

Here's some facts:
1. Private schools educate students better, on average, than public schools.
2. The best private schools will always be better than the best public schools, which are in rich suburban areas.
3. Poor areas have horrible public schools 99.9% of the time.

What do you say to that kid who's extremely bright, but doesn't want to put up with their poor area's public school?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Which tend to be of two different types, A. small campuses that offer nowhere near the education opportunity of a larger school or B. large campuses in urban areas that might offer a choice of two in the entire state. If a kid wants a small school, with big opportunities and doesn't like the options in state, they have to pay private school money to go out of state.

Well most states have reciprocity agreements with their neighbors allowing for in-state tuition at any such state, in Minnesota you could also get in-state tuition in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa or Wisconsin. Not necessarily the same in every state, but there's plenty of opportunities.

Even if one has to pay out-of-state tuition, it's about equal to private schools in the current system, so they aren't much of an improvement, and besides, it's not like it's hard to reestablish residence in another state and then get in-state tuition.

Obviously Virginia and California are exceptions here, Virginia as they have small private education quality schools at public prices and California as they have a large number of top notch public schools. Most states do not have this system at all. Yours included.

Wrong. The University of Minnesota is regarded as a top school. MSU is smaller, but has just as many programs as the U of M does. The same applies to all the other state universities, Winona, St. Cloud, Moorhead, Duluth...It's tough to see how someone who wants to go to school in Minnesota wouldn't have a choice.

Here's some facts:
1. Private schools educate students better, on average, than public schools.
2. The best private schools will always be better than the best public schools, which are in rich suburban areas.
3. Poor areas have horrible public schools 99.9% of the time.

1. It's not like there are any additional factors coming into effect here from the types of people likely to attend private schools.
2. The one private school in my hometown was a Catholic one, but it's GPA averages and standardized test scores were basically statistically tied with my high school, and the other one in the city. The public schooling system throughout most of the Midwest is so good actually that this is why vouchers are considered laughable and never brought up, because no one sees any point in them.
3. Inner city Detroit and St. Louis aren't 99.9% of the areas. Snowguy doesn't seem to have any problems with the public schools he went to, and he's from a very poor area. I can think of other poor areas throughout the Midwest with fine education systems.

What do you say to that kid who's extremely bright, but doesn't want to put up with their poor area's public school?

Go to an advanced placement school, or apply for a transfer to a better one, for which exceptional performance should be considered for. This is a better alternative to me than anything involving private schools.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Ok Harry you want to fix schools? The answer is simple: drop the department of education, drop no child left behind, drop teaching to the test as part of a 5 part strategy of radical reform. The second part of this involves moving to a german-type educational style with vocational education/apprenticeship for those who want it. Thirdly, set up more charter schools plus regulating private schools to prevent them from discriminating based on factors besides ability to get in(if we allow vouchers at all). Fourthly place enough regulations on homeschooling to keep out things like mixing Jesus and actual education. These regulations would more or less kill homeschooling except for a very few lefties doing it. Lastly pay teachers more than chickenfeed AND cut down on job security/union protections(to prevent idiots from not being fired).

[Alcon]

Is ice cream a political issue?

No.  Is school vouchers an issue that strongly correlates with political affiliation (offer proof)?  Charter schools certainly aren't.

Edit:  Scratch it.  Correlation does not matter!  Unless having a certain issue necessitates having x political philosophy, correlation has nothing to do with anything.  I almost let you get away with your most constant logical fallacy.

[John Dibble]

I hate the entire concept of private schools though (schools for rich people) and I would never want to go to a school with uniforms.

First off, private schools aren't just for rich people - numerous private schools have students from various income brackets, and many have financial aid for those students whose families can't afford tuition. I've known a few people whose families certainly weren't even close to rich who went to good private schools. For many such students quality private schools provide opportunities that their local public schools do not, be it because the particular private school provides a better learning environment for that individual or just because the local public school is a bad school to begin with.

Second, not every private school has school uniforms. School uniforms aren't exclusive to private schools anyways. Some public schools in this country have them, and in many countries they are standard to public schools.

[Gabu]

Is ice cream a political issue?

No.  Is school vouchers an issue that strongly correlates with political affiliation (offer proof)?  Charter schools certainly aren't.

Edit:  Scratch it.  Correlation does not matter!  Unless having a certain issue necessitates having x political philosophy, correlation has nothing to do with anything.  I almost let you get away with your most constant logical fallacy.

You're still letting him get away with turning an argument into "liberal or not", which is quite possibly one of the most irrelevant things to worry about ever.

[Alcon]

Is ice cream a political issue?

No.  Is school vouchers an issue that strongly correlates with political affiliation (offer proof)?  Charter schools certainly aren't.

Edit:  Scratch it.  Correlation does not matter!  Unless having a certain issue necessitates having x political philosophy, correlation has nothing to do with anything.  I almost let you get away with your most constant logical fallacy.

You're still letting him get away with turning an argument into "liberal or not", which is quite possibly one of the most irrelevant things to worry about ever.

That's true too.  There are like four levels at which his argument doesn't matter to people with half a brain.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

While it failed in every county, a definite correlation between the level of failure and presidential voting records in the Utah referendum exists. This California referendum on Proposition 38 (couldn't find a map, sorry): http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2000_general/measures.pdf shows similar results.

To say correlation does not matter is rather ridiculous. Does that mean that the results on an abortion referendum's correlation to voting patterns doesn't matter if abortion is a left/right issue?

[7,052,770]

Ok Harry you want to fix schools? The answer is simple: drop the department of education, drop no child left behind, drop teaching to the test as part of a 5 part strategy of radical reform. The second part of this involves moving to a german-type educational style with vocational education/apprenticeship for those who want it. Thirdly, set up more charter schools plus regulating private schools to prevent them from discriminating based on factors besides ability to get in(if we allow vouchers at all). Fourthly place enough regulations on homeschooling to keep out things like mixing Jesus and actual education. These regulations would more or less kill homeschooling except for a very few lefties doing it. Lastly pay teachers more than chickenfeed AND cut down on job security/union protections(to prevent idiots from not being fired).

All 5 of those points are fantastic, except that homeschooling should be completely disallowed, except in rare special cases (the child has an unusual disability or something).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

1-Agree with dropping NCLB, but not Dept of Education, although it needs reform. Teaching the test needs to go though.
2-Not sure how this works, so no comment.
3-Good idea, although too weak.
4-Great idea
5-Teachers deserve more pay, yes. Not necessarily much less job security, although it shouldn't contradict common sense.

[Alcon]

While it failed in every county, a definite correlation between the level of failure and presidential voting records in the Utah referendum exists. This California referendum on Proposition 38 (couldn't find a map, sorry): http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2000_general/measures.pdf shows similar results.

To say correlation does not matter is rather ridiculous. Does that mean that the results on an abortion referendum's correlation to voting patterns doesn't matter if abortion is a left/right issue?

I give up on you.  Fine, far right-wingers agreeing with something automatically makes it a "far right-wing position" no matter what the underlying reasons for someone's opinion are.  If that's what you want to believe.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Ok Harry you want to fix schools? The answer is simple: drop the department of education, drop no child left behind, drop teaching to the test as part of a 5 part strategy of radical reform. The second part of this involves moving to a german-type educational style with vocational education/apprenticeship for those who want it. Thirdly, set up more charter schools plus regulating private schools to prevent them from discriminating based on factors besides ability to get in(if we allow vouchers at all). Fourthly place enough regulations on homeschooling to keep out things like mixing Jesus and actual education. These regulations would more or less kill homeschooling except for a very few lefties doing it. Lastly pay teachers more than chickenfeed AND cut down on job security/union protections(to prevent idiots from not being fired).

All 5 of those points are fantastic, except that homeschooling should be completely disallowed, except in rare special cases (the child has an unusual disability or something).

What's wrong w/ homeschooling if they can fit into a college perfectly well?

[7,052,770]

Ok Harry you want to fix schools? The answer is simple: drop the department of education, drop no child left behind, drop teaching to the test as part of a 5 part strategy of radical reform. The second part of this involves moving to a german-type educational style with vocational education/apprenticeship for those who want it. Thirdly, set up more charter schools plus regulating private schools to prevent them from discriminating based on factors besides ability to get in(if we allow vouchers at all). Fourthly place enough regulations on homeschooling to keep out things like mixing Jesus and actual education. These regulations would more or less kill homeschooling except for a very few lefties doing it. Lastly pay teachers more than chickenfeed AND cut down on job security/union protections(to prevent idiots from not being fired).

All 5 of those points are fantastic, except that homeschooling should be completely disallowed, except in rare special cases (the child has an unusual disability or something).

What's wrong w/ homeschooling if they can fit into a college perfectly well?

There's no way a single person is qualified to teach all those subjects.  Even if they bring in all sorts of different teachers, it still prevents people from getting social education and learning to live in the world.
That's another drawback of private schools in the South...whites with racist parents who send them to private school get to college/workforce and have never interacted with blacks before, and it's a big culture shock to them.  Integrating the schools will help cut done on this.


Also, for the record, I don't agree with abolishing the Dept. of Education either.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Ok Harry you want to fix schools? The answer is simple: drop the department of education, drop no child left behind, drop teaching to the test as part of a 5 part strategy of radical reform. The second part of this involves moving to a german-type educational style with vocational education/apprenticeship for those who want it. Thirdly, set up more charter schools plus regulating private schools to prevent them from discriminating based on factors besides ability to get in(if we allow vouchers at all). Fourthly place enough regulations on homeschooling to keep out things like mixing Jesus and actual education. These regulations would more or less kill homeschooling except for a very few lefties doing it. Lastly pay teachers more than chickenfeed AND cut down on job security/union protections(to prevent idiots from not being fired).

All 5 of those points are fantastic, except that homeschooling should be completely disallowed, except in rare special cases (the child has an unusual disability or something).

What's wrong w/ homeschooling if they can fit into a college perfectly well?

There's no way a single person is qualified to teach all those subjects.  Even if they bring in all sorts of different teachers, it still prevents people from getting social education and learning to live in the world.
That's another drawback of private schools in the South...whites with racist parents who send them to private school get to college/workforce and have never interacted with blacks before, and it's a big culture shock to them.  Integrating the schools will help cut done on this.


Also, for the record, I don't agree with abolishing the Dept. of Education either.

How do you know they aren't qualified?  Probably not in high school, but elementary and middle schools is actually pretty easy.  And if they can pass the same tests, why does this matter?

[Lief 🗽]

Straha's solutions are common-sense and agreeable.

[Gabu]

To say correlation does not matter is rather ridiculous.

Not as ridiculous as the argument over whether or not a position is liberal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's ridiculous about it? Defining the liberal position on an issue is important in determining whether someone is liberal based on the positions they hold.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There's no way a single person is qualified to teach all those subjects.  Even if they bring in all sorts of different teachers, it still prevents people from getting social education and learning to live in the world.

Plenty of ways to learn social skills: church, youth sports, scouting, interacting with other home schooled kids, even going outside to play with other neighborhood kids after they come home from school.  Nah, strike that last one.  I don't think kids just go outside to have unstructured fun anymore.