An Argument Against Public Education
MichaelW on Feb 12 2008 at 4:37 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Education, Libertarianism, MichaelW's Page, regulation
Via Glenn Reynolds, Wired posts an article describing the fight to include evolution in the science curriculum for students in Florida and Texas:
Charles Darwin was born 199 years ago Tuesday, but the debate he ignited about the origins of species rages on. Florida’s department of education will vote next week on a new science curriculum that could be in jeopardy, because some conservative counties oppose it.
Nine of Florida’s 64 counties have passed resolutions over the last two months condemning the new curriculum that explicitly calls for teaching evolution. The resolutions, passed in heavily Christian counties in the state’s northern reaches, demand that evolution be “balanced” with alternative theories, mainly creationist…
Watchdogs say the stakes are high in the pending vote. If Florida backpedals from evolution, Texas may follow suit. Texas is scheduled to update its own science standards this year. In November, an education official was fired for mentioning a pro-evolution lecture. Along with California, Florida and Texas are the largest purchasers of textbooks in the nation.
“Texas buys about 10 percent of all K-12 textbooks, and Florida buys another 8 percent,” said Lawrence Lerner, a science-curriculum expert at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education watchdog. “If they want creationism in their textbooks, Wyoming may not have a choice.”
I still have a hard time swallowing this argument. Is the publishing world so archaic and backwards technologically that they can’t churn out different versions of textbooks for 18% of their customers, while delivering what the other 82% really want? Diane Ravitch made the same case in The Language Police (an excellent book; I highly recommend it), but I didn’t really buy it then either.
Nevertheless, the reason its even an issue is because the state mandates what the curriculum will be for each and every school.
Florida’s current science standards, which tell teachers what their students must learn, don’t mention evolution by name. In 2005, a prominent education think tank gave Florida a failing grade in science teaching, prompting education officials to overhaul the curriculum. The new standards, drafted last October, explicitly called evolution “the fundamental concept underlying all biology.”
But nine counties — Baker, Clay, Hamilton, Holmes, Jackson, Madison, St. Johns, Taylor and Washington — have passed resolutions officially calling for the teaching of evolution to be balanced with alternative explanations of life’s origins, almost certainly religious.
The resolutions have been patterned after the one from St. Johns County, which calls for “teaching the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the theory rather than teaching evolution as dogmatic fact.”
Critics say the resolutions’ language is thinly veiled creationism — either in the strictly biblical sense, or the more-modern take of “intelligent design,” which purports to use scientific methodology to prove divine intervention.
“We’re concerned that we not impose state standards that prevent an open dialogue concerning other theories,” said David Buckles, superintendent of schools in Putnam County, which is also considering opposing the new curriculum. “Did life begin in ice? Or was it the Genesis version? Or intelligent design? We want the pros and cons of all of it.”
Looking just at the bolded portions, isn’t that where the problem lies? Does this issue ever come to a head if there weren’t some state regulators “imposing” rules on the schools? Or am I just some crazy libertarian nutter who doesn’t appreciate the value of a public education (yeah, some value)?
In fact, I do see the value in having an educated public, but over the past 30 years or so I don’t see governments actually accomplishing that task. Instead, we get propagandized curriculum that has little to no bearing on the real world. Classrooms are used as social science labs, and students are treated as the guinea pigs. Whether its the idiots trying to shove PC, multi-culti, white-people-are-racists nonsense down our kids throats, or bible-thumpers filling their heads with religion dressed up as science, I don’t see an educated populace being created. I see a bunch of poorly equipped kids being fed ridiculously antiquated and/or downright false ideas. And to top it all off, we are treated to nanny-staters of all types duking it out in a game of moral oneupmanship for our political amusement. How does any of that add to the value of public education?
I’m one of the lucky ones who can send my kids to private school (barely), but what about all those parents who don’t have that choice? Their kids are left to suffer at the hands of petty bureaucrats and teachers unions, each with their own agenda that’s applied in a “one size fits all” manner, regardless of what might be truly best for the child. And heaven forbid that a teacher develop his or her own method of educating. If that were allowed, then how would the bureaucrats maintain control? Next thing you know, they’ll want merit pay.
For so long as the state is in charge of education, these sorts of problems will only get worse. Are vouchers the answer? I think they would help by putting choice back into the hands of parents. But that wouldn’t do anything about abominations like No Child Left Behind, and the ridiculous wrangling over evolution that comes up again every couple of years. In my opinion, the best thing to do would be to get the state out of the business of education entirely.
By that I don’t mean pulling out all tax dollars. Even though my children don’t actually benefit from it, I don’t have a problem with helping kids get an education. I just have a problem with the government being the one to control and deliver it. Instead, I’d say let all schools be private, and let the government funds used for education now be set aside for use by parents, without any strings attached. They could apply the money towards the school of their choice. And let the schools decide what and how they will teach. If one school doesn’t prepare kids for the future as well as another, then it will see a loss of income. It will be forced to give parents what they want, or go out of business. And for every school that is successful, thus earning a greater share of the tuition, another one will spring up to grab some of that lucrative pie. In the end, we would have schools that are responsive to the needs of children and their parents, and not beholden to local, state or national politics.
Sphere: Related Content
What kind of private school? I MUST ask.
Salutations.
Guess.
I’ll give you a hint: the answer is not “madrassa.”
Well, it wasn’t polite for me to presume, was it?
If you ask for me to guess, I’m going to say you send your kids to a Catholic school. One that you can “barely” afford.
Again, it’s not polite for me to presume. So what else can you “barely” afford on your no doubt six figure lawyer salary?
Nice home in an affluent part of town?
A nice luxury car, perhaps? Maybe two… one for the Mrs. Of course. It’s not just luxury after all, it’s the safety features. GPS? Naturally. MP3 digital audio? Comes standard. Voice activated? Again, it’s all about the safety.
You know what. I can “barely” afford health insurance. Perhaps you would want to help me pay for that. Through vouchers or some such. Or is that some kind of “nutty libertarian”?
Like my wife’s employers, it’s heartening to know that you can “barely” afford private school. And no doubt that makes for a convincing argument to have me help you pay for it through vouchers.
Where my money would be unaccountable. And I would have no say in how it was spent.
Forgive me if I presume too much.
You wanna take tax money outa public schools? Fine. You want me to help you pay to teach your kids, in a Catholic setting no less? Not a chance!! (oops, there are those damned exclamation points again.)
“Where my money would be unaccountable.”
So the money is accountable now?
Your real argument seems to be against public funding of education period. Well enough, but how politically possible is that? If we are going to have the government provide us with things, at minimum it shouldn’t have to be accountable to the state. Freedom and all that silly kind of thing being an issue when it is. I don’t tell people how to spend their unemployment insurance, or where they can go to college or what they can teach there when they get government aid, and I don’t see why my kids should have to go to government schools when I have no option to opt out of having the tax dollars for them taken from me.
Michael and I both, if in different ways, have just had to be screwed rather than have our kids educated in an inferior manner. And yes, it would have been inferior, far inferior.
As for your catty remarks about Michael’s income, presuming given what you know about him what school he might go to is fair game really, as for the rest of his lifestyle you are definitely presuming too much.
So pogue, I imagine you hang out at the Piggly Wiggly screaming at the folks who use food stamps to buy kosher products?
yours/
peter.
Yep, my oldest goes to Catholic preschool, and his brother will start attending a Presbyterian preschool program in the Fall (and join his brother when he reaches kindergarten or 1st grade). We can barely afford it, but we are fortunate enough to have jobs that pay well enough to afford the luxury. We’re pretty proud of that, in fact.
Actually, I think the median salary for lawyers is somewhere around the $50K to $60K range. I make above that, but not six figures. I work for a very small boutique firm with some incredible people, and which fits my lifestyle quite well. I make below market for the area, but I also get to see my kids much more often. It’s a trade-off I can live with.
Heh. If you only knew. I live in the richest county in the nation, and I do not have the richest means. My house is great, IMHO, but it’s nothing like a big fancy house, nor an affluent neighborhood.
I drive a pretty nice luxury car, but nothing that fancy. My wife’s car is a run-of-the-mill Explorer which we paid off a few years ago. The best thing is that, through some killer negotiation (on the part of my wife) and some careful planning, we were able to afford both cars for the monthly payment of the least expensive of the two. Of course, I’m not really sure where you’re going with this.
Let me ask you, Pogue. Do you think that paragraph makes any sense? We went from your skepticism about my ability to pay for my kids schooling to you wanting a handout for your health care. What’s the connection?
Ahhh, I think I see now. You are under the impression that I want the state to help me pay for my kids school. Aside from the fact that I already pay taxes to support the public schools, the ones my kids will never attend, and that any vouchers I received would be less than what I pay in taxes, I never had any intention of begging for other people’s money.
Looking back at the post, I think I see where we went astray. The solution I proposed was under the assumption that I wouldn’t receive any direct benefit from the vouchers (i.e. I would sill be paying for private school), and that the parents who were not in as fortunate a position as I would at least have some control over their kids’ education. That’s my fault for not making it clear — the way I was thinking of it, I would be means tested out or something.
The point of the post, in case you care to comment, was that having the state in charge of what our kids learn, who can teach them, etc., is a fool’s game that only leads to misery. The government can barely deliver mail (and it doesn’t even do that very well), I don”t know why we would want it teaching our kids. At the same time, I do have an interest in seeing all kids educated. Although I’m reasonably confident that American’s would step up and provide the necessary funds for those who needed it, most people would not be as sanguine. The compromise solution I tried to strike was a balance between public funds for those in need, but private providers. It may not be perfect, but I felt that if I was going to criticize the status quo, I should at least proffer an alternative.
Michael, you just made the connection. So yeah, I think it makes sense too.
How are vouchers any different from socialized health care?
You’re taking my tax dollars and giving it to someone else for something that they need to be paying for themselves.
Not everyone can pay for that, I know. So if my tax dollars are to be spent, I would like some nominal say in how it’s spent. You know, like math and science over myth and legend.
You get it.
Cheers.
Maybe I’m missing something, Pogue, but I’m drawing the opposite lesson.
Socialized health care takes care of everyone by limiting choice–unless you opt out of the system and pay for private care. Same as our current public school system. Vouchers would increase choice (theoretically) making it less like socialized health care.
Creationist parents want some nominal say in how their tax dollars are spent, too, which leaves us with our current predicament. If by law or by school policy every kid has to be taught the same stuff, then it becomes very important who wins the political fight over what stuff gets taught. Michael’s argument is that it’s ridiculous to have a political fight over this at all, but that such fights are unavoidable given the current system.
That is the point Robby. In a world where we have to have some social shared costs, whether one thinks it is for good or ill, it certainly makes sense to choose the path that gives the state less power.
As for teaching myths and legends Pogue, once again, doesn’t that happen anyway?
As a side note, while I have no patience for creationist teaching in our public schools, it is hardly a disaster if some kids receive it. The kids I deal with who go to private schools and get this stuff as part of their education certainly seem to be receiving good enough instruction generally, including in science, relative to those who attend public school to offset it. Throw in the other benefits of private school, in areas of atmosphere and other factors of a less academic nature, and I certainly have no problem with it being a choice for parents to choose.
Freedom means allowing people to make stupid choices. In addition, while they may make some choices we disagree with, the availability of choice leads to better outcomes generally. Not having that choice leads not only to conflict, but instruction that has been watered down.
Finally, your desire to have a say, is just the flip side of creationist parents wanting the same.
“So if my tax dollars are to be spent, I would like some nominal say in how it’s spent. You know, like math and science over myth and legend.”
“You get it.”
I’ve heard similar for years, so, yeah. I get it.
Not to pile on Pogue, but, do you?
Do you have any reason whatsoever to think that Catholic schools, protestant schools, or religious homeschools skimp on math and science?
Because you certainly have presented the question as either/or and there is *no* objective support for that. Guessing based on prejudice doesn’t count.
Have you examined creationist science curriculum? I have. I’m not a creationist and didn’t homeschool my children with those materials, but I was impressed with how they presented information and taught critical thinking compared to other science texts I’ve seen. It’s true that the science dealt *only* with what can be seen here and now and reproduced in experiments. The amount of time spent on evolution in a science text that teaches it is very small. The amount of time spent on actual creationism in a science text that teaches it is *also* very small.
Students who graduate from church schools are not disadvantaged in science or math compared to public schooled students when they arrive at college. If you have some data that shows they are, I’d be interested in it. Considering how many people for how many years, many of them education professionals with advanced Ed degrees, have been arguing against homeschooling, I feel fairly confident that this data doesn’t exist for homeschools *or* church schools.
So math and science on one side and myth and legend on the other is probably about something else because it’s not about any objective trade off.
Probably it’s about keeping other people’s children from being taught myth and legend. When homeschooling was still not a done-deal I often heard the argument that an important function of schools was to counter the ideology of parents. Deliberately. With malice aforethought. Convince children to give up their parent’s beliefs. It was the *job* of teachers to do so. This argument isn’t made (or I don’t hear it) any more because there is no use any more in trying to stem the tide of educational diversity.
In short: Because those teaching myth and legend *DO ALSO* teach math and science… it can’t be some imagined lack of math and science that raises the objection.
Can it.
No worries, I feel no weight.
Not me. I’m not your liberal bogeyman. You can teach your kids whatever fairy tales you wish.
It’s about me not wanting to pay for it. I don’t want to pay for something to which I get NO SAY.
I don’t want to pay for my idiot neighbor to send his idiot kid to Southern Baptist Podunk Academy of Fear and Mythology. Even though they may be excellent in teaching math. At least with the public system, as flawed as it may be, I get to have a nominal say on who sits on the school board and how they conduct the local educational system.
Why is that so difficult for neolibertarians to understand?
It seems that some wish to make vouchers and end round to getting their religious views taught in school. And in the public system, if the powers that be decide to teach creationism, excuse me… intelligent design, then the voters… you’ll remember them, right… the ones who pay all of those tax dollars, can kick their sorry buts out.
Remember Dover, PA?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110900114.html
If creationists and others want their ideas taught in public school, paid for by public funds, then they can battle it out in the market place of ideas. Instead, they want to take their ball and go home, but not before they expect me to help them pay for the ride.
Vouchers? I don’t like it. In my experience, not many do.
You wanna homeschool or send your kids to private school, then go right ahead. You certainly have the freedom to do so. Just don’t expect me to sit idly by while you pick my pocket to help you pay for it.
If you want a refund cause you don’t send your kids to public school, great!! So do I.
Sign me up.
Cheers.
“At least with the public system, as flawed as it may be, I get to have a nominal say on who sits on the school board and how they conduct the local educational system”
So, you would rather condemn those who cannot afford to make a better choice to their fate, because you having a say over a trivial matter overall matters more to you than their future. That actually does sound like our liberal bogeyman. Of course, you don’t want them to have a say, if that means they get to teach their kids myths and legends.
“Instead, they want to take their ball and go home, but not before they expect me to help them pay for the ride.”
Actually they don’t. Most want to just get their tax dollars back. Offer that and they would leave in droves. However, they can’t get that, whether through tuition tax credits or vouchers. It wasn’t libertarians, neo-libertarians or conservatives who fought against tuition tax credits. Society has deemed it necessary to socialize the costs of education, no fair then claiming after making it unaffordable to go elsewhere to say we also have to submit or have our pocket picked so you can push your beliefs on them.
No, they have to do what you want them to do, and pay for it whether they want to or not. It is you picking their pocket, and if they can’t get 51% of the vote they have to just suck it up. That may be inevitable with some decisions where only one view can prevail, but there is no reason that if we have to have publicly funded education that it be a monopoly. That you don’t want to provide at all doesn’t change that. There is absolutely no rational reason why you should care about evolution vs. creationism in instruction if your tax dollars are at work, nor who provides that instruction. It obviously isn’t the quality that is the issue (which a libertarian might rationally complain about) but the ideas. They are not destructive ideas, and certainly our schools have no problem disseminating destructive ideas anyway.
If you were really a libertarian, then you would want the least control of the state over the content of the education, regardless of whether you wanted to pay for it or not. So take your neo-libertarian nonsense and shove it. This is an issue that has animated libertarians of all stripes for a long time. Neo has nothing to do with it.
“If creationists and others want their ideas taught in public school, paid for by public funds, then they can battle it out in the market place of ideas.”
I want you to read that again.
Slowly.
What you have just said is that if creationists want to teach their ideas in public school all they have to do is get a majority and then they can have YOUR money to do it with AND (this is the really important part) they get to make that coercive decision and impose it on the minority who do not want those things taught in school.
Yes, this is democracy.
No, it’s NOT freedom.
If we must collect taxes and if we must fund education, we can maximize freedom by removing the coercive elements when ever we can.
I HAVE NO RIGHT to impose my religious beliefs on the children of people who do not agree with me. Getting a majority of my friends together does not give me the right to impose my religious beliefs or anti-religious beliefs on the children of other people.
Not only is this a freedom issue, it’s an education issue.
There is too much in this world to know to favor standardized education. For everything added to the curriculum something is removed. For every bit of History covered there is a magnitude that is ignored. Our society can have a very small amount of knowledge in common or we can be immensely rich in diverse knowledge by holding it in aggregate.
The inability of people to trust others… not just the Baptists you despise, but the secular parents who chose alternative education and schools… is not a virtue. Trying to keep humanity small enough to control is not something that is good for humanity.
You want control of education? You don’t have it. You want public schools to not teach spurious ideologies? In what reality is that possible? It’s not. You want accountability? When have you had accountability?
The cake is a lie.
“A similar controversy has erupted in Kansas, where the state Board of Education on Tuesday approved science standards for public schools that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards.”
If you approve of PA, I assume you also approve of Kansas.
The Southern Baptist Podunk Academy of Fear and Mythology…now there’s a band name for you. It would be a country/emo band, and they would be terrible, although formally daring and experimental.
I’m not condemning anyone, Lance. They can teach their kids anything they damned well want to. And they can send their kids to Mars for an education for all I care.
All I want is to have a nominal say over how my money is being spent.
I’m mean, is that so terrible?
Yeah, some liberal bogeyman you have here.
Wrong again. I want them to have a say. And they actually get one. The same voice as I have. Their vote counts just as much as mine does.
That’s EXACTLY what I’m offering. Well, my idea of what an offer would be. But as long as they are taking my tax dollars too, then I want a say in how it is being spent. There’s that liberal bogeyman again.
Right, Synova. No need for me to read it again… slowly. That was it from the start. Good of you to notice.
You see, I’m used to having my tax dollars spent in ways that make a coercive decision and impose it on a minority. It’s one of the reasons I’m so pissed off all of the time.
But this is the rub about vouchers, and maybe you want to read this slowly, now… the idea is, you want to take my tax dollars and give it to other people so they can spend it however they wish. No thanks.
If it were simply their own tax dollars they were getting back, then I would be cheering them on right with you. But it’s not. It’s mine as well. And it’s the tax dollars of my friends, and my parents, and my sister, and my uncle, and everyone I know that does not have any kids in the public school system, yet pays for it right along side those that do.
You want vouchers. Fine! Give me one!!! I’ve got my eye on this speedboat I’ve been wanting. And I could afford it if only I didn’t have to pay school taxes. I’ve got an idea, you give me vouchers for health insurance. That would clear up $300 a month. HEY!! That’s a speedboat payment.
Or post grad work, perhaps… Dr. PogueMahone. Yes, I like it.
Ooo, oooh… I’ve got it… Professor PogueMahone.
Yessss, that’s it. That would really piss some people off.
But I dream.
Hmm… stuff that I should pay for myself for the well being of my loved ones, being paid for with other peoples money. I’m starting to see how attractive that is.
You know, my neighbor has a speedboat. You remember him, right? The guy who wants to send his kids to Podunk Academy. He’s got a nice speedboat. A wreck of a house, and a POS truck… and I know what he does for a living so I know he can’t make too much money. Yet, he has a speedboat. I know how much he paid for it too, because he tells me often.
I wonder if he would get vouchers for his four kids.
Probably. The means testing doesn’t sound air tight to me, you understand.
But I got a better idea… How about he sells his speedboat?
You guys have written about how it’s about the “freedom” that vouchers would give people. That you’d be taking the power away from the state and putting it back with the people. And if I could have my money back too, I’d be right there with you. But vouchers don’t do that. All they do is give my money to them as well. Without having at least a nominal say.
And the truth is all of these freedoms you speak of already exist. Mr. Speedboat can freely send his kids to Podunk Academy and I could say shit about it. Of course he may not be “Mr. Speedboat” anymore, …but you know… sacrifices and such. I make them. So can he. But if he wants my money to help him pay for his kids education, then he’s going to have to listen to me scream that Podunk Academy, though excelling in math – teaches fear and mythology, would be more useful as kindling. Otherwise, he can take his kids, and his speedboat, and go do something better with them.
If you’re going to take my tax dollars, then I’m going to have to stick to our current POS system until something better comes along. And I’m going to have to elect that incompetent motherscratcher to the school board because he’s my only voice in how my money is being spent.
And I love my little voice. It’s pathetic, but it’s the only one I have.
Give me my money back,
And I’ll STFU.
Cheers.
“I’m not condemning anyone, Lance.”
You need to re-read the statement. You are condemning them to their fate, even if you are not condemning them as people. A child growing up in Cabrini Green cannot do what Michael has done, or have the educational background, or means, to homeschool. You have sentenced them to a lousy education on the grounds that you want a say. Pretty cold hearted, and frankly a pretty poor use of your say. Your say would be better spent allowing them a better education, even if some fraction of them have to learn a myth or two.
The same is true to a lesser and lesser extent as you move up the food chain. As I said, you would have a say, and that is to let them educate their children as they see fit, and let them get a better education. The problem isn’t whether you have a say, but the say you are choosing. Your say is crappy education is okay as long as the particular myths 51% of the voters support gets taught, and the smaller groups don’t. Pretty stupid thing to say if you ask me, and makes you a poor steward of your forced contribution.
What it really is is that you don’t want to pay for the education, and so you are cranky, and want to exact some price on society for having made you. Not one word has come out about the best way to spend that money, just that it not be spent on this. What a pile. Vouchers, tuition tax credits, whatever is a “say.” Your vote on it counts, you want control.
“I could allow kids to go to good schools of their choice, but some may teach some things I don’t agree with, or they can go to crappy schools that don’t teach these offensive things. Hmmm…, I’ll send them to the crappy school so I can micro manage it.” Either choice is you having a say, that isn’t the issue, it is what you are saying that is the issue.
So it’s my fault they don’t have the means to send their kids to private schools? I’m the one condemning them to their fate!?
God forbid the parents sell their speedboat. Or perhaps obtain a second job. Or any number of things they can do to better their situation. No, they need my money.
And “pretty cold hearted”. No more cold hearted than anyone here not wanting their tax dollars to pay for someone’s health insurance. Wouldn’t you say?
Oh sure, it’s alright for us to pay for little Jimmy to go to Blair Academy, but we’ll be damned if we’re going to pay for little Jimmy’s chemotherapy.
The “particular myths of 51%”. Lance, it’s not just religious schools either. Something tells me that you wouldn’t like it if your tax dollars were being used to have some hippy liberal “free education” school teach kids that the U.S. Military is evil. I know I wouldn’t.
And you can say that people are free to make bad decisions. Yes they are, but I just don’t want my money helping to pay for those bad decisions. That’s not terribly unreasonable.
Because though that kind of same crap happens in public schools, one at least has the avenue of correcting that. You’d have Bill O’Reilly and his ilk falling all over themselves to have the public pressure the school system to do something about it.
I don’t know enough about any one particular school, nor do I care to do any research on any particular school, religious or secular, but you can’t tell me that the potential for abuse, and the potential irresponsibility that the unaccountable private institutions could offer isn’t there.
Here’s a discussion I found interesting…
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=9843
Besides, who is to say what private schools would meet the eligibility for vouchers?
You?
Me?
Harry Reid, maybe?
And why couldn’t the David Koresh Memorial Academy for pillow making somehow qualify for vouchers?
You’d have the government make those qualifications? A Democratic majority government, inevitably? Or by some tragedy a Mike Huckabee government. Yeah, I wonder what would come out of his department of education.
Too many holes in this voucher idea.
You’re right, all I offer is criticism. No solution.
But this voucher idea leaks like a sieve. So you’ll forgive me if I want no part of it.
What I see is that conservatives see the public education system as a flawed institution that does nothing but indoctrinate their children to liberal social, economic, and foreign policy ideas. And they can’t stand it. So they want their money back.
That’s fair enough. But taking my money and giving it others so that they can send their rug rats to the ideological school of their choice isn’t exactly fair either.
And that somehow characterizes me as a vindictive, bitter, religion hating, cold hearted control freak who’s just pissed off about his tax bill?
Not true.
Well, … except the part about being pissed off about my tax bill.
Cheers.
“you want to take my tax dollars and give it to other people so they can spend it however they wish. No thanks.”
And that’s different from majority rule winner-take-all… how?
“No, they need my money.”
No, they need the money that was supposedly taken from you for their education rather than so you could have your “say.”
I was on the “Separation of School and State” list for a few years. I may look them up again.
There was a guy there with interesting ideas about the self-organizing ability of chaotic systems… I forget the term but it’s been in science news quite a bit lately… birds, crowds, or even inanimate things organize and sort themselves. Individual and often sub-optimal choices somehow work together (like a market! ha!) to get better results than directed organization can get.
The widest possible diversity of education, even a complete anarchistic separation of school and state (and if there has ever been a conflict of interests, look right there) might be what takes our entire race one step farther… independent processes and choices interacting globally and self-organizing into something more.
Charlie Stross could write it… I couldn’t.
Conceptually, abstractly, I can almost see it. Just not well enough to show someone else.
“And “pretty cold hearted”. No more cold hearted than anyone here not wanting their tax dollars to pay for someone’s health insurance. Wouldn’t you say?”
You don’t get the distinction. If you want to argue that you shouldn’t have to pay at all, that is fine. If you want to argue that tax dollars that will be spent should be spent in ways that lock the poor in a bad situation just so you can stomp around and make sure some tiny minority doesn’t learn something that offends you, then yeah, pretty cold hearted.
For that analogy to work you would have to have a situation where health care is provided and I won’t let people choose a chiropractor or a midwife. I would also have to insist that the government gets to run the hospitals, so I can control the care. Screw that, if we subsidize people, which we do, I want them to get care where they want to get it, even if they need to pay over the subsidy to get it. No leveling everybody for me. Your analogy is all wrong. I feel exactly the same about health care and education, even though health care is a much less subjective a sphere in which to assert that control.
“have some hippy liberal “free education” school teach kids that the U.S. Military is evil. I know I wouldn’t.”
I wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t forbid it. The hippy part doesn’t bother me though. Been there, done that myself. Not to mention, that happens in public schools now.
“Too many holes in this voucher idea.”
Refundable tuition tax credits then. Whatever, and yes there are holes. Exactly why my leaky boat isn’t preferred to one taking on torrents isn’t clear however.
[...] This is an extension of the commentary from this post from MichaelW. [...]
birds, crowds, or even inanimate things organize and sort themselves.
Chaos Theory. From ultimate chaos is order. Basic up thermodynamics.
It is the same as in war in which you and your subordinates can do everything right, but something bad will still happen. And you can do everything wrong, and your enemy can still suffer a crippling defeat because of a lucky break for you at the end. Tet is an example of the latter, and Hannibal Barca is an example of the former.
That’s not exactly a strict direct model comparison, since there are more than one system interacting.