A Christian republic (POLL)

[zoogs]

People don't have a choice for what the options are. If all options were public schools then none of them would be religious schools. "Any school they want" is an illusion.

 

Is it impossible that Davos's goal is a scenario where public funding is used to maintain or grow the number of religious schools (particularly in parts of the country where this might be likelier to happen), so that they in turn grow in their influence? Is it impossible that there will be plenty of places (again, differing based on where you live) where Davos hopes or anticipates the best option not being a public, religiously nonaffiliated option?

 

Would you be OK with that if 90% of those places happened to teach the Qu'ran story of creation as equally plausible fact, as well as the tenets of Sharia law?

 

I'm sympathetic to the idea that there are different ways of improving the school system, including the introduction of competition. However, I think the motivations laid out for the new education secretary in particular are cause for concern, and they don't paint a dishonest picture of where she's coming from on this topic.

[Hedley Lamarr]

I think vouchers are a phenomenal idea

[JJ Husker]

You need to separate what you think one person wants from what school vouchers (as they have been traditionally represented) will actually do.

 

I'm a Christian and the last thing I want is religion forced on anyone. Heck I don't even want the information presented.....unless that is where the parents want their kids educated. There is nothing magic about public schools. Their sole purpose is to educate our youth. So what if some of the schools doing the best job of that happen to be religious in nature? Should we dumb down the educational opportunities available? Aren't parents better suited for selecting schools than some faceless government entity? Sure, many parents aren't very engaged or involved so their kids will continue in the public system just like they are now. Why should my tax dollars only be used for public education? If I wanted to send my kids to a Catholic school, why shouldn't I be allowed to use the $8000 yearly that the public schools get for their enrollment to send them to the school I choose?

 

We sent our kids to the public schools we did because we felt they offered the best education in our area. Although from middle school on we opted out of our home school boundaries. What if we had determined the local Catholic school is where we wanted to go instead? Is it fair to tell me no, your tax money is only good for this underperforming public school, if you actually want a good education, keep letting us waste your tax dollars and while you have to spend even more of your money to obtain that good education you desire. Who's held accountable? Publicly funded schools don't have the market cornered for providing a good education. But, without school choice vouchers, they do have the funding cornered.

 

I need to add that we could've afforded any private school we wanted but we chose free public schools. I don't see good schools being forced out of business due to vouchers. I also don't foresee any flight to religion based institutions. The majority of people so inclined are already going there. And the schools people would flee from aren't deserving of staying open.

[zoogs]

I think there are different ways of implementing a program and this is highly dependent on what the implementers are hoping to accomplish.

 

For example, I'm somewhat open to the idea (which I've criticized independently in another thread) that you might have this pool of local public schools, and you enforce competition between them by allowing parents to choose which system gets their money.

 

I'm very worried about throwing private schools into the mix in the context of removing money that goes to support public schools, and therefore changing the existing landscape. I think it's completely fair to say: tax money for public schools, your own money for private ones. It's hard not to see the public system under threat otherwise.

 

Again, you read about what Indiana did. No, public schools weren't snuffed out, but the vouchers were used almost exclusively on religious schools. The Indiana Supreme Court decided public money was not directly going to religious schools, and so this seems like a clear runaround. These were schools that in many cases could be classified as struggling, in bad financials, and perhaps ought to have closed down. They got a big, big boost from (indirect) government assistance.

 

As a public we exercise discretion, through voting, for what areas we want the government to be investing in and supporting. In an example like that, it's no mystery to me the motives as well as the result of the policy. So my argument is that the public should understand the aims of the people they empower, and factor that into their decision-making. I do imagine many folks are quite open or even supportive of this idea, and I want it to be made absolutely clear on what grounds that support is offered.

[funhusker]

One thing I'm curious to see about a "voucher system" ,if it is implemented, is what parents do when they send their child to a private school to get away from the "bad kids holding him back" only to find out their kid is a "bad kid and holding himself back".

 

Vouchers aren't going to trump parenting, never will. Not that anyone here is claiming it will.

[Saunders]

I think it's completely fair to say: tax money for public schools, your own money for private ones. It's hard not to see the public system under threat otherwise.

Um.... It's all my money.

[knapplc]

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

[Saunders]

IMO, we need to look at taking some ideas from South Korea's school system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea

 

By buddy and his wife currently have a 9 year old from Korea staying with them and their girls as part of their private school's program. Learning about how their school system works has been fascinating.

[Saunders]

 

I think it's completely fair to say: tax money for public schools, your own money for private ones. It's hard not to see the public system under threat otherwise.

Um.... It's all my money.

 

And for the record, we contribute as much as we can (supplies, fundraisers, time, etc...) to our public school, because they do a good job. But, our current education system is in shambles, and it's a multi-faceted problem.

[knapplc]

IMO, we need to look at taking some ideas from South Korea's school system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea

 

By buddy and his wife currently have a 9 year old from Korea staying with them and their girls as part of their private school's program. Learning about how their school system works has been fascinating.

 

Which ideas in particular should we look at?

[Danny Bateman]

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

 

I believe that's a part of a certain party's electoral strategy.

[BigRedBuster]

So, let's take the example of Louisiana. The public keeps pumping huge amounts of money into the school system and it still is pathetically horrible. It ranks dead last at 51 in safety and 49th in school system for 2016. They rank right in the middle for spending per student at 26th.

 

This is clearly a school system that is failing the public, the students, the parents...pretty much everybody involved except the people who are making money off of it.

 

There are also private schools in Louisiana that actually do a pretty decent job of education.

 

I read and hear people saying that giving more parents choice to move their kids out of public schools hurts public schools. Well, my opinion is, the public schools have to offer a system to meet public's educational expectations before we force kids into the system.

By forcing kids to stay in the system, aren't we penalizing poor people? Aren't many of these poor people in Louisiana minorities?

 

Why is it OK to force these poor people to send their kids to these pathetic schools when there are other options in the area?

Now, getting back to the nominee for this position. What if she could go into the Louisiana school system and totally change the environment so that it raises the level of education? What if she could force a cleaning out of the administrations and unions in the system that are totally failing the students and communities?

 

Meanwhile, with a voucher system, individual kids will have an opportunity to get a better education at a safer school.

[BigRedBuster]

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

 

I believe that's a part of a certain party's electoral strategy.

 

So..... allowing kids to get out of failing schools and into better schools is somehow reaching some goal of having an uneducated electorate?

[Danny Bateman]

 

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

 

I believe that's a part of a certain party's electoral strategy.

 

So..... allowing kids to get out of failing schools and into better schools is somehow reaching some goal of having an uneducated electorate?

 

 

No, but gutting funding to public education and offering prohibitively expensive or substandard private schooling as an alternative is.

[NUance]

NUance, the dictionary definition is not helpful here. When we are talking about creationism within the context of discussions centered around politics/policy/public education, this is what we're talking about, as it encompasses the vast majority of "creationist" thought:

 

 

 

 

Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the religious belief[1] that the Universe, Earth and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of God less than 10,000 years ago.[2] Its primary adherents are those Christians who subscribe to a literal interpretation of the creation narrative in the Bible's Book of Genesis and believe that God created the Earth in six 24-hour days.[3][4] In contrast to YEC, old Earth creationism is the belief in a metaphorical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the scientifically-determined estimated ages of the Earth and Universe.[5]

 

Since the mid-20th century, young Earth creationists—starting with Henry Morris (1918–2006)—have devised and promoted a pseudoscientific explanation called "creation science" as a basis for a religious belief in a supernatural, geologically recent creation.[6] Evidence from numerous scientific disciplines contradicts YEC, showing the age of the universe as 13.8 billion years, the formation of the Earth as at least 4.5 billion years ago, and the first appearance of life on Earth as occurring at least 3.5 billion years ago.[7][8][9][10][11]

 

 

 

Also, how can you ask, "Why do people always assume that evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive?" when the definition that you linked included a sentence saying, "...rather than by natural processes such as evolution."?

 

It's fine to believe in creationism if you want. Any kind of creationism. But that is a spiritual belief - it is not, whatsoever, a scientific believe, and thus doesn't have room in a public curriculum.

 

If I recall correctly, you believe in God. So we're just quibbling over the definition of "creationism".

 

My point in bringing this up is that there are many who lump all Christians in the six-24-hour-days-of-creation camp (and call them creationists). But that's simply not the case with all Christians. As for me, I believe that God created the universe, but not necessarily in a week. I suspect that the Hebrew word yom (days) in Genesis has been misunderstood to mean a 24 hour day. Maybe yom was intended to mean "periods" of activity. And it seems to make sense to me that, rather than sit back and passively watch his creation from the outside, God played an active roll in the evolution and development of the earth. But that's just my own opinion and speculation.

 

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Anyway, my pointed comment above about the quote from the NY Times article seems to have taken on a life of its own. We've gone off on a tangent unrelated to school vouchers. My bad.