Why One Woman Says Sending Your Kid To Private School Is Evil 1255
theodp writes "Slate's Allison Benedikt is ruffling some feathers with her recent manifesto, If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person. 'Not bad like murderer bad,' Benedikt writes, 'but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.' If your local school stinks and you send your child there, Benedikt explains, 'I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.'"
Private School Evil? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Private School Evil? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Private School Evil? (Score:5, Funny)
Hero Killing 112
I took that class and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone having any interest in executing heroes. They teach you everything about constructing high tech execution machines, but when I asked the teacher why a bullet to the head wouldn't be more time and cost effective I got shouted at.
Re:Private School Evil? (Score:5, Funny)
Hero Killing 112
I took that class and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone having any interest in executing heroes. They teach you everything about constructing high tech execution machines, but when I asked the teacher why a bullet to the head wouldn't be more time and cost effective I got shouted at.
The worst bit is having to memorize your entire evil plot so you can soliloquize in front of the hero, while you think you have him/her utterly at your mercy, so they can then make an improbably escape and foil your plot.
But then, it can't be all milk and cookies at the hero academy, having to practice your improbable escapes and practice remembering entire evil plots, so you don't leave anything important out while foiling them. Nothing more embarrassing than finding that female reporter rotting away in a dungeon cell several weeks later, when all you had to do was rip the door off its hinges.
Re:Private School Evil? (Score:4, Funny)
They had better cover Peter's Evil Overlord List [eviloverlord.com] or your career is as doomed as all that came before it.
Why read past the second paragraph? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for telling me up front that you don't know what you're talking about so I got to save time by not reading the rest.
Re: (Score:3)
Speed Reading 101. If the author admits right up front they are clueless, your average rate of finishing articles goes through the roof.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Corollaries (Score:4, Informative)
But current events [wikipedia.org] indicate [wikipedia.org] that that way of thinking [wikipedia.org] does work out well. [wikipedia.org]
not applicable in Hong Kong (Score:5, Insightful)
where most schools are private, and the public ones are more prestigious than the private ones.
Re:not applicable in Hong Kong (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not applicable in Hong Kong (Score:5, Informative)
Being live in Hong Kong for a considerable amount of time, I can certify what the GP said is very true... Public, directly funded schools are the HARDEST to get into (besides international schools), and produce standardized exam scores that are usually in the top 10%, more than 80% of the graduates goes to HKU, CUHK, Peking, Tsinghua or going overseas.
The second tier of schools are those that are funded by religious organizations, be it a catholic, protestant, baptist and buddhist.
The crappiest school are usually operated and funded by some local "chamber of commerce" who only get involved in education to make them appear "philanthropic".
Another thing, within Hong Kong there is no geographical restriction on which school you can apply, although spaces are usually given priority to those who live within their own district.
I like her logic! (Score:4, Funny)
Why send your kids to school at all?
I bet if you sent your kids to the ghetto, you'd do everything you could to improve it!
Another damned collectivist (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hate people that tell me I'm a bad person because I do what I think is best for my kids. They still get my taxes to pay for public education so why the hell should I be a bad person for sending my kids to a better school?
She's just another damned collectivist who thinks that they should have the right to control another aspect of my life.
Re: (Score:3)
I really hate people that tell me I'm a bad person because I do what I think is best for my kids. They still get my taxes to pay for public education so why the hell should I be a bad person for sending my kids to a better school?
She's just another damned collectivist who thinks that they should have the right to control another aspect of my life.
(disclaimer - my kids go to a catholic school)
It depends on how the funding is set up. In Australia, the states fund the public schools, and the federal government provides a small amount (compared to state government) funding to all schools, but does provide more funding to private than public schools. This leads to the situation where the anti-private school claim "the government is giving more money to private schools!", which is a complete misrepresentation of the truth but comes up over and over again.
Re:Another damned collectivist (Score:5, Insightful)
You (and everyone else) are missing the point. The point is, if "good" parents are disinvested in the public school system, they will not strive to make it better. Public education will keep getting worse because the people who can make the biggest difference lack the incentives to do so.
Re:Another damned collectivist (Score:4, Interesting)
You say the problem is with "students who don't want to be there and disrupt the operation of the classroom." What were you, the biggest nerd in school? Why do you have such a bone to pick with the other "less diligent" students? Sure, they contribute to the problem, but (except in your fantasy land) they are not the problem. The problem is complex and it encompasses many different aspects of the way our school system is structured. For examples of how a "good" public education system is run, we could look to other countries such as Finland, Hong Kong, Japan and the Netherlands.
I actually spoke with people who taught in urban public schools in the US. In addition to being a brutal environment that chews up and spits out new teachers, there's a lot of kids who don't want to be there either. And they disrupt classes for those who do.
The US does sometimes run schools like those great European examples and sometimes it doesn't. It is worth noting that the US spends a considerable amount [businessinsider.com] on education and doesn't get education results commensurate with that spending.
I'm simply explaining the social dilemma surrounding public education
It's not a social dilemma for those other countries because those school systems are much better run. It's my belief that some US school systems are so bad, that it would be better to do away with them altogether than keep them in their present state. They're just really awful, dangerous, and expensive baby sitting services.
Re:Another damned collectivist (Score:4, Insightful)
Gates, Obama, Damon on Opting Out of P.S. (Score:5, Informative)
Bill Gates [boston.com]: " If they [my children] had to go to a general inner-city school, I would do anything I could to avoid that being the case, because as a parent, I particularly see the potential in my kids that that wouldn't unleash," Gates said.
President Obama [washingtonpost.com]: President Obama reopened Monday what is often a sore subject in Washington, saying that his daughters could not obtain from D.C. public schools the academic experience they receive at the private Sidwell Friends School.
Matt Damon [time.com]: Damon told the Guardian there were no longer public schools progressive enough for his family so private was the only choice in their new home of Los Angeles.
Re:Gates, Obama, Damon on Opting Out of P.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont coment often but i had to do it this time.
Isnt it a tragedy if our public education system is not good enough to make sure your kids get a education that is good enough for them to actually pursue their goal. I mean most families doesnt have the luxury to pay alot of extra money for their kids to go to private schools.
I think its a serious problem for the future when important personalities like Matt Damon, Bill Gates, and the american president says that public shools wont give their own offspring the skillssets needed to progress in the american society. This means essentially that for +80% of the population the "american dream" is stone dead. All the big paid jobs/popular jobs will be reserved to the rich minority who are lucky enough to be born into a rich family, that can afford private schools for their children. The rest of the population will be left in the dust, fighting for the scraps.
I really dont see how a country can keep up the stability and prosperity with that policy and mindset from the people we see at the top of our society today.
Politics vs Market Forces (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly (and really only generally speaking - there are exceptions), private schools' quality is driven by market forces whereas public school policies are driven by politics. School officials obtain and maintain decision making positions and power by there connections. There is little to nothing even a group of parents can do to address this. When they do, it gets taken away.
For example, in my city, parents organize "booster clubs" to raise money for their local schools and improve the quality. But parents in poorer sections of the city are often genuinely unable to do this. For example, they have a disproportionate number of families with a single parent who barely makes ends meet and works too many hours to have time to invest in a booster club. Since this is unfair, the school system is working to take money from the booster clubs to distribute to the poorer areas. So, the parents have the incentive removed and, disheartened, give up. The school system has decided, essentially, "If those schools are going to fail, it's only fair that all schools fail."
The parents can't do anything to fix their public school, so the ones who can afford it take their kids out and put them in private schools. Ms. Benedikt is correct that there are Bad Persons at play. She is dead wrong about who those Bad Persons are.
Next (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, those who doubt massive, growing, and all-encompassing government, and don't wish to be pwned by it, are morally suspect.
Dictators throughout history could not be more pleased useful idiots are trying to build this meme.
This is irrational. (Score:5, Interesting)
You cannot say on the one hand that we can't have control over our public schools and then on the other hand that we have to be sent to them.
And yes, we've tried to reform our public schools but they won't let us do it.
How hard is it to fire a pedophile teacher? Nearly impossible. How hard is it to fire a bad teacher? How hard is it to put in hiring standards for teachers?
We've tried to put this in place for decades and the schools, teacher's unions, and politicians have stopped us. So fine. You don't want us to have any control over these schools. Mission accomplished. But why would I feel morally compelled to stay in the system if you're made every effort to systematically marginalize me?
You cannot have both. Either you let me have influence over the system... and I will change it so that I find it acceptable... OR you do not get me in the system.
Choose. Effectively, either the teacher's unions need to get neutered or you can expect intelligent parents to choose other schools when public alternatives are unacceptable. We are not sacrificing our children on the alter of your corruption and incompetence.
It's true; Finland outperforms the USA (Score:5, Informative)
There are no private schools in Finland. Turns out, when you make the kids of the rich and powerful go to the same schools as everybody else, those schools turn out to be decent. Here's an article on how Finland outperforms the USA in education [theatlantic.com].
Re:It's true; Finland outperforms the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's true; Finland outperforms the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming you haven't already had a collapse and all the people who could and care have abandoned ship, who'd be far more likely to move than return to public school. I went to public school here in Norway and it was a somewhat mixed bag but the bright and average managed to keep a decent learning environment despite the disruptive and indifferent students, one year (8th grade, I think) they redivided the classes to split up a disruptive bunch across three classes and it helped keep a decent environment in all three. If they'd done the opposite and kept all the gifted together and all the disruptive together the last one would become a total hellhole that'd be sure to drag everyone in that class down with them. Nobody's going to send their kid into such a class as a "rescue" operation, once such a critical mass is created it only expands.
We've seen this with the distribution of minority students here, once the "minority" percentage of a school district reaches 60-70% the remaining natives abandon ship and a few years later it's at 90%-100%. Nothing wrong with minorities and getting to know other cultures but when you're raising a kid in Norway I'd like the primary cultural influence to be Norwegian. As a result you have many children in minority schools that grow up with hardly any contact with the rest and a lot of multiculturalists wants us to become better integrated but hardly anyone wants to send their kid to be the missionary. Instead of mingling it's more like a ghetto with border regions that keep moving.
Yes, but not for everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the parent's prerogative to send their children wherever they see fit. It's also the parent's prerogative to prepare their children the best they can for "real life". Some parents are well equipped to actually fully participate in their children's environment, try to make it better, implicate themselves, do activities, vote, give time, money, opportunities and trying to make the school a genuine good place for their children to be.
Not everyone is able to do that. My parents were able to do that. They were able to actually send me to alternative (and public) school, to participate fully in the school's life, always be there for me. It was a hard choice for them, not only needing to drive me an hour every day, then go to work, but also participate many nights and even some days to school life. Even for them, they eventually gave up one such school, and went to another one because it was plainly too demanding. So I wouldn't expect everyone to give the dedication to bring their prized school up to par to their expectations. Some parents are just able to pay up, are not able to speak or talk adequately, or they don't have time to dedicate themselves to such hard work, and we have to respect that. Alas, today in this world where parents are paying premium and expecting their young bastard children (exaggeration intended here) to do well, and screaming to the teacher (instead of screaming at your own children) whenever they don't have straight As is the norm, I expect the school system to remain crooked.
In the end, people are voting with their attendance. If your school system is bad enough to fear for lives just by attending, I'd expect people to try to move away from these places. There's preparing for real life and there's plain madness... and I'm truly sorry for the dedicated teachers giving their lives and soul for these schools; my mom is such a teacher (nearing her last working years now), giving her life to people with learning disabilities (or missed opportunities); her and many fellow teachers are giving what they can, but sometimes, it's not enough to convince parents.
On my side, I actually moved to a place where active outdoor life is adequate, near good quality schools (not the best - but in the >75%), and I plan my children to have a good chance in life, using neighbourhood friends, public school system, dedication, caring and be with my (future) children for anything they might need. That's where I decided to give my money, that's where my vote is going, even if I have to take the train and public transportation 3hr every single work day.
One major flaw with her logic (Score:5, Interesting)
There is one major flaw with her logic. People who send their kids to private schools still pay taxes that support the public schools. By not sending their child to the public school, there is actually more revenue per student enrolled in the public school, unless the state legislature does something like reappropriate it elsewhere (which would make them evil, but again, they are politicians).
So, if people pay for the public schools but don't cause an increase in the variable cost of running the public schools because their kids are in a private school, that is evil how?
Re:If I... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is a very poor assumption. Lots of private organizations use money unwisely, even to the point of committing outright fraud.
Re: (Score:3)
Your primary duty.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your primary duty is to your child. I promise you, responsible parents agonize about the best options for their children. Sometimes private, sometimes public.
We started private and then left. The early years at private were probably worthwhile. I tell myself that. They were expensive.
But we've been delighted with the quality of our public schools. They operate from one third the budget of the private school (per pupil). The buildings and landscaping are dramatically tougher, but we're happy with the change. The teachers have been high quality, highly dedicated to the job and responsive to us. My kids are engaged and enjoy their schools.
You have essentially no control over the private school or the public school. In both cases, you will monitor your kids' work, talk regularly to their teachers, meet their friends and their friends' parents. Your recourse in both cases is to find a different school.
No one should demonize a parent for trying to do the best they can for their child. Your first duty is to your child. Social welfare and activism should come after family.
Re:If I... (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me clue you in.
In, on December 24, 1913 when no one was looking Income Tax came into being. The problem is there were people out there who spent a whole lifetime free. They earned their money and did with it what the wanted. Compliance with paying income tax was low to the point of being nonexistent. It would also not be likely that a jury of your peers would find you guilty of doing anything wrong if you had not paid it.
There had to be a way to get people to comply, and they had figured it out by the 1930's. Social Security was a program you could opt into. If you did, you also opted into paying Federal Income Tax. But now, you could retire at 65 and the government would take care of you. The average life span was less than 65. It would be much like Social Security being started today and them promising benefits when you turn 85. Your average white, wage earning male (the major working population back in the 1930's) is not living to 65 back then, nor are they living to 85 now.
It was so very nice for us that the government offered a 1 in 5 lottery program and all we had to do was to opt into paying income taxes AND have social security payment come out of our wages. Don't forget your employer pays to. Do you know why you are only worth $14 an hour and not $16? Your employer is already paying into Social Security on your behalf as well. It counts towards your pay and figures into what they are willing to offer for wages.
Speaking of bad Social Security Stories. My parents were divorced and remarried. One division of Social Security believes that they never remarried and therefore my mom is entitled to no benefits. The other division believes that they did remarry, and she is responsible for reimbursing his funeral expenses.
It will be a shame when it collapses. There are millions of people who had been promised that they could rely on it, have planned on it being there, and will find that it is not there. If you think unemployment is high now. What happens when 65-100 year olds are dumped on the labor market?
Re:If I... (Score:5, Interesting)
Other people would invest but get unlucky and lose their entire investment (and it could be you)
This! a 1000 times this. People DO NOT GET THIS.
They think that if they "invest wisely", diversify, invest in index tracking funds, pay attention, and do all the right things, that they will be fine.
And this is idiotic. Statisically, yes, this will pan out. But investment is still a calculated risk. If this "do everything right strategy" yielded a 99.99% chance that you would have sufficient money for your retirement and everyone followed it there would still be several hundred thousand people who didn't.
Doing everything right does not guarantee a positive return. It maximizes the chances of a positive return, but a negative return is still entirely possible, and its going to happen to people, even people who did everything right.
Besides, what happens without social security?
Crime. Because the people who don't have enough to survive aren't going to just roll over and die, they'll try to take what they need any way the can from anyone they can.
Re:If I... (Score:4, Insightful)
One way or another the elderly will be paid for by working age people. It's really just a matter of how to organize it and how many elderly people without support you're willing to let die.
Unless that can't be affordable. Then it won't happen. That's the problem with these fantasies. Someone has to pay for them. Social Security has the problem that it promises to pay out considerably more over the average lifetime of a recipient than they put in, but never does anything useful with the money that is put into that system. The money is used to buy US bonds, which are just a mechanism for tossing Social Security money into the general fund and squandered.
But even if we take those bonds at face value as some sort of investment that will always pay out, we still have the problem that they aren't earning enough to pay for current Social Security promises. The system is insolvent on several different levels.
Re:If I... (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, most schools don't actually waste money. The schools you see spending shitloads of money on fancy laptops for students or things like that are almost always in rich neighborhoods which are swimming in money. They've covered all their necessary expenses (i.e. enough desks for everyone, plenty of textbooks, etc.) but they have money left over, so they spend it on luxuries. Nothing wrong with that. When a school does this and isn't in a wealthy neighborhood, you'll find that the expenses were covered by a private donation. In this case, someone donates money to the school and states that the money may ONLY be used to purchase fancy equipment. The school couldn't use the money on textbooks or school renovations even if they wanted to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, private organizations use money unwisely all the time.
Yes, but when they do, you can take your money elsewhere. For example, if I were to find out that my daughter's private school was wasting money, I'd pull her out and send her to a different school. However, if I find out that my daughter's public school is wasting money, THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO because I have to send her there or I go to jail, CPS takes my daughter away and sends her to the school anyway.
Love the sig, by the way.
Re:If I... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can vote for a new school board. Volunteer to help their election campaign. Or run for election yourself. You actually have MORE voice there than with a private school, where losing 1 customer is quite frankly not a big deal.
Re: (Score:3)
You can vote for a new school board. Volunteer to help their election campaign. Or run for election yourself. You actually have MORE voice there than with a private school, where losing 1 customer is quite frankly not a big deal.
One customer is a bigger deal than one taxpayer. The former can stop paying. Money speaks louder than words do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can vote for a new school board. Volunteer to help their election campaign. Or run for election yourself. You actually have MORE voice there than with a private school, where losing 1 customer is quite frankly not a big deal.
Well, considering that the last school board election was decided by more than one vote, my voting would have made no difference. Sure, I could run myself, but I'd be running against some academia type who has the backing of the teacher's union, which make up the bulk of the school board voters anyway, because he/she won't make the teachers accountable. (I support vouchers and would never get elected) And even if I could start a campaign to elect school board members who would make schools and teachers a
Re: (Score:3)
You can vote for a new school board. Volunteer to help their election campaign. Or run for election yourself. You actually have MORE voice there than with a private school, where losing 1 customer is quite frankly not a big deal.
Oh, and my daughter's class has six students. Losing one of those students is a HUGE deal. How big of a deal is it to a public school if I pull my child out of an class room that I pay for no matter what, that is already overcrowded, doesn't have enough textbooks to go around and has a shortage of desks?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I sent my kids to public school, they got a great education, certainly wasn't child abuse - perhaps you could be more specific, something like "sending your child to AMERICAN public school is akin to child abuse".
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the thing with public education.
In some places it is great. In some places it is a horror show.
I went to both public and private school growing up and had a pretty good experience in both. That said, the schools I went to were top quality.
I did not go to an inner city day care high school. And that is really what we're talking about here.
Most public suburban and rural public schools are actually pretty good. Why? The community has some control over them and the families that use the schools are involved in them. This is not the case in the urban schools. Parent teacher participation is very low. There is no school community interaction. And parents have very little control over whether the teachers are doing a good job or not.
In suburban schools, you tend to get a greater degree of autonomy from the larger school boards as well.
Look, the statistics on public schools are HIGHLY determined by demographics. If you're a middle class family in a middle class area with middle class students then you're probably going to get a pretty good education. However, if its a very poor area with parents that didn't graduate high school or might not be able to read english... then chances are the school is going to be a nightmare.
And if you happen to live in such a school district but CAN read and DO want a decent education for your child... then typically you need to send them to private school. No choice in the matter. Just what is.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to one of those middle class highschools. While we don't have gunfights in the hallways, I'd say there's plenty of anti-intellectualism (the real deal, not the leftwing slur), dogmatic policy, and athleticentrism while I was there.
1. sports programs need to be separated from academia. move them to camps, state or privately funded. They don't belong in school. This really needs to happen at the university level too. athletics is some kind of cult in public schools in the USA. If you don't play some kind of sport, you're branded a 'loser' by the students AND the staff. While I don't mind them, and I do realize they can teach life lessons when they aren't neutered by political correctness, they compete for academic funding and relative importance within the school culture. that has to stop. same thing goes for other extra-curriculars.
2. The school budget should focus solely on math, science, the english language (in the USA), history (not 'social studies'), and a life-skills program (minus the political correctness in current health classes). This program would cover things like: eating habits, sexual behavior, phys ed, and at least a basic program on managing money. If the kid plays sports in after-school camp, then he's exempt from phys ed.
3. remove the tenure and bureaucracy that rewards non performers. Also, get rid of the crazy overreacting discipline policies. Stop expelling kids for bringing a fork to school to eat lunch, etc. If a kid's trouble, warn, then throw him out for the period. If it happens repeatedly, call the parents. No need to confiscate belongings, search lockers, or tell them what they can wear. If the policy gets in the way of doing these things, change the policy.
4. kids don't need ipads or other stupid toys.. They need teachers, decent textbooks, and buildings that aren't 90F in the summer and 40 in the winter. Bonus if they don't smell like urine. For technology access, a few computer labs are sufficient.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
This program would cover things like: eating habits, sexual behavior, phys ed, and at least a basic program on managing money.
This sounds like trying to teach the kids something that should be taught by parents. I recognize that some households are bad in that area, and that the issue of poor public schools is complicated, but I do not think it wise to give MORE excuses for the parents to tune out and let the school raise their kids. Parental involvement is generally recognized as key in a good education.
Agreed on just about everything else.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, it should be, but since the skills aren't being taught at home, what else could be done? My goal was to remove the political bias from the system yet still retain the pragmatic parts. Finance, health/diet/sex, cooking, job search, etc are all needed basic life skills. If they can't be taught at home because the parents never really learned or haven't bothered, then this might be the best way to minimize that state babysitter nightmare in subsequent generations. It sounds a bit backward, but kids that can do these things are less likely to become permanent welfare recipients when they grow up.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, private schools know that they have no hold on students. They piss off the parents and the kids get put into another school. End of story.
A big issue with public schools... especially bad ones is that they feel they are entitled to student enrollment indifferent to their incompetence and corruption. And more importantly, they believe they're entitled to funding despite not actually doing their jobs.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
problem children are expelled
Which is great for the private school. but that just means the problem children end up at the public school. If the private school can cherry pick the students, they can probably provide them with a better education, but that doesn't remove the need for ALL students to be educated, problem or otherwise.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, all students don't need to be educated. If we handled this the way countries like Germany did (or the US did in the old days), we'd have different schools for different kids, and the problem kids would go to the dumb-kid school, and be kept away from the rest of the kids. Just because there's a public mandate to have compulsory school for all children doesn't mean they all need to be mainstreamed in the same school and the same classes.
Re: Oh, really? (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly and your mother clearly holds the children and parents in contempt.
I honestly don't know how you got that from reading the grandparent post. What he's saying about the low-income schools reflects large bodies of research (parental involvement in education is one of the largest determining factors in academic success). That's not regarding the students or parents with contempt, it's wanting what's best for the students and realising that it requires parental support.
The private schools understand that in their bones. They know that they either deliver a top quality education that meets the standards of the parents or they're out a customer.
Complete bullshit. The big difference between private and public schools is that private schools are allowed to turn away anyone that they want and they usually have more applicants than they have room for. I went to a public school in the UK (which is roughly equivalent to a private school in the US) and they periodically expelled people (or, rather, asked them to voluntarily leave so that they didn't have the expulsion on their record). My mother worked in a state school (the equivalent of a public school in the US) and the biggest sanction that they had was a week's suspension, which the pupil treated as a week-long holiday and then the school was required to take them back (at which point they'd be a week behind). Permanent expulsion was possible in theory, but it never happened.
Private schools make it clear to pupils that it's a privilege to be there. If the parents complain or if the students are disruptive, then the parents will be invited to have a chat with the headmaster, who will politely suggest to them that their child might be happier in a different school. They'll have no problem filling the space. They usually have waiting lists and so if they need to then they'll start calling people further down and ask if they're still interested in the place. If not, then they'll just wait for the end of the academic year and let in more people.
In Depth Fisking for the time crunched: (Score:3, Interesting)
Larry Correia (multi NYT bestselling author of Monster Hunter International) did a point by point slam on this article:
Fisking Slate over Public Schools [wordpress.com]
Naked link to same article:
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/fisking-slate-over-public-schools/ [wordpress.com]
The woman who wrote the slate article is married with 3 kids in New York. Strangely, last year she wrote in Slate about how happy she will be to stop paying $5000/month on private preschools.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I didn't agree with it all, the Slate article was pretty well written and had some pretty insightful points to make.
In comparison, I found Larry Correia (who is he anyway, some no-name pulp fiction author?) to be someone with an axe to grind against liberals, and nothing more than corny rebuttals.
His comments lacked much, nay, any insight, and just sounded like an angry diatribe. I hadn't read the original article, but after reading Larry's idiotic rebuttal, I went back and read it, and if anything,
Re:In Depth Fisking for the time crunched: (Score:4, Informative)
His rebuttals are spot on. The slate author basically says "it may suck for your kids, and grandkids, and they wont learn as much, and you may have to ignore your religious beliefs, your child's special needs, etc.... but thats OK because its for the common good."
News flash: Individuals do not exist for the sake of society, society exists for the individual. It is NOT a parents duty to sacrifice the wellbeing of their child to on the altar of the state. I think Larry hit that point pretty square on, and the slate author has no clue.
Re:In Depth Fisking for the time crunched: (Score:5, Interesting)
Pupil to teacher ratios have been declining for decades. Public schools are already down to a student/teacher ratio of 15.4, with a median class size of 20.0 for public elementary schools (according to the National Center for Educational Statistics).
Pay for teachers has more than outpaced inflation since the 1980's, rising from an inflation adjusted ~ $44k to ~ $54k. Once you factor in benefits, extended summer vacations (or additional income earned teaching summer sessions), pensions and the potential for tenure, the overall compensation picture is hardly unfair or unattractive. And the UNESCO statistics show that starting salaries are actually relatively competitive, internationally speaking; behind Switzerland, Germany,Demark and the Netherlands, but ahead of Australia, Spain, Norway, Ireland, Austria, Iceland, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Sweeden.
Money is good. Some schools are legitimately underfunded. However, it is not a panacea, and there is little evidence that too little money is pumped into public education. Consider this; the best funded school district in my area, on a per pupil basis, currently spends over $27,000 per student and achieves the absolute worst results, as measured by performance on standardized tests, graduation rates and college attendance. Other districts excel with half the funding. Parochial schools outperform with less than a QUARTER the funding. And nationally, home schooled children consistently out-perform their peers, in spite of per-pupil spending that is often measured in the hundreds, rather than the thousands.
Statist is the intelligent term (Score:5, Insightful)
So many people use the old "liberal" and "conserative" labels wantonly, when they don't really correctly identify a modern division.
Statist is a word that does correctly distinguish the major division of our times. Are you primary for, or against the state supporting each and every person, to the extent that some (or all) choices are removed at the directive of the state?
The people falling on one side or the other are both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.
So instead of stopping reading, you should read more carefully when you encounter the term as it's someone who realizes there is more depth to the matter than the classic labels that would otherwise be shallowly applied.
Re:In Depth Fisking for the time crunched: (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
Something you may find interesting; A copy of the text of an eighth-grade test circa 1895.
http://www.salina.com/1895test/ [salina.com] (Google also shows a working link to the document available directly from Kansas State Dept. of Education as .PDF)
Heading:
"Examination Graduation Questions of Saline County, Kansas
April 13, 1895
J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent
Examinations in Salina, Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)
READING AND PENMANSHIP - The Examination will be oral, and the Penmanship of Applicants will be graded from the manuscripts."
I don't think a majority of college grads these days could pass the above-linked test. Yet those with power over public schools want to go further down the same path and throw ever-more money into a system that's resulted in a decades-long history of utter failure to educate better.
Strat
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The school we’re zoned to is not just tough, it’s dangerous- Most teachers don’t try to teach; if they prevent major crimes from occurring, they've had a good day. The stories that come out of that place are gut-wrenching; the kids there aren't being prepared for squat. I've busted my ass and sacrificed a lot to send my son to a private school as a result.
What little good that could come of us participating in the local public school would pale in comparison to the harm it has the potential of doing to my son- not only to his well being day-to-day, but to his chances of success afterwards as well. I'm not sacrificing my son's future on account of Allison's idealist prattle. From what I've seen, not many of the our local public school system's participants: teachers, parents (especially the parents), or the students give a rat's ass about making their school system any better.
I attended a very tough school while growing up, and learned more about avoiding having my ass kicked than anything else that I needed for college- as a result, it took two tries and 6 years to finish my first degree- my first two years were spent learning what I should have learned in high school.
Allison Benedikt has her opinion of me, and I have my opinion of her. My son is my responsibility until he's grown; if his young life is made difficult by starting out with a rotten education, I can't see Allison getting very worked up about it... I mean, it's no skin off of her ass, is it. Allison can go fuck herself.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
TL;DR: If we play Prisoner's Dilemma, I'm defecting.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Funny)
Plus the bonus for both-cooperating is purely hypothetical.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if everyone lives by that principle, no one will have a good life.
That is the problem here. Exceptional egocentrism destroys things. If in grandparent's case everyone was sending their children to public school, it wouldn't be anywhere near as dangerous, as there would be a lot of "good" students. These would quickly balance out the bad ones, improving the situation.
Taking out the good students, and leaving the bad ones among themselves is what causes schools to become bad. Many egocentric people use "it's not my responsibility" excuse to wash their conscience clean, and you end up with system that cannot properly function, starts to become massively inefficient and many people who could have had a good life among the "bad" students if they had a decent environment in school lose out because they don't get.
That's the reality of it. You can wash your hands off it, but it certainly doesn't make you a good person. And fact is, when there are too few good people in the world, it goes bad for EVERYONE.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of education outcome is more correlated with the parent's money than anything else. Children who grow up in poverty tend to underperform no matter what you do with them in school. Overcoming a difficult home life is really hard, and neither teachers nor their lesson plan will change that very much. Meanwhile, rich kids can do well anywhere. If all a child has to worry about are grades, their life is straightforward.
When someone has a terrible local school, their options include private school and moving to a higher class neighborhood. Since school quality depends more on the parent's wealth than anything else, those neighborhoods also cost more. That's not just a correlation, it's a direct cause and effect. Expensive areas block children from lower incomes, which makes all of the jobs a school has to do easier. Has nothing to do with the effort parents put into school or the kids; it's just plain easier to focus on being a student (and have the resources to do so) when your parents have money. The writer of this article is pretty naive to think that all parents can affect a change simply by being more involved.
The only way to equalize this issue across the population of the US would be a massive shift toward socialism, probably via higher taxation, to more evenly distribute wealth across the country. Good luck with that.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Informative)
Socialism won't fix bad parents, no matter how much of other people's money you give them.
Money isn't the biggest problem, behavior is. More money for bad schools could help, but it won't fix parents. Poverty is more than lack of money, it is an ethos which is pernicious. It tells kids they can never get ahead. Giving out more money won't fix that problem, it won't instill a work ethic. The generations of families on assistance is testament to that.
That said, the U.S does a poor job of lifting those that have a good work ethic out of poverty. The Democrats are in thrall of the teachers unions, so it is impossible to fix bad schools from that direction. The Republicans figure if you aren't rich, it is your own damn fault, so we cannot expect any help from that direction.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Informative)
Most of education outcome is more correlated with the parent's money than anything else.
Ummm.... no. Dead wrong. Show me your citation. Everything I've read says that education outcome correlates much more with parent involvement than with household wealth or any other factor.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think a massive shift toward socialism would help much actually. It's not just the parents' wealth (or lack thereof) that's the problem, it's their culture and attitude towards education. Poor people generally don't believe that much in it; my mother was always told by her family that education is a waste of time and that a woman needs to get married at 16 and start having babies. Forcibly redistributing wealth to people like that isn't going to change their attitudes towards education. These things can be changed through well-funded education systems that seek to overcome parents' bad attitudes, but it takes generations, and the US has been going backwards for a long time.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
John Adams wrote, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
There is a long generational tradition in the USA of sacrificing for the next generation starting with the revolutionary war.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I say that sending your child to public school is akin to child abuse.
Not supporting Public Schools is Child Abuse on a Mass scale.
The worst thing that has happened to Public Schools in America is they have become a political weapon used by one party against another. Rather than improve the schools, we keep getting assholes who call themselves Education Candidates -- in a way, they are up front, they're going to teach you how not to run your schools.
While public school systems in many countries are great successes, the American public school has become a target of derision, blame and shame. Not quite lofty goals, not what they could be.
I do believe teachers should be held to account, but so should parents. I had good parents and I attended excellent public schools, which received the full support of the community. It should be that good everywhere, then private schools would be the joke.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not supporting Public Schools is Child Abuse on a Mass scale.
If you don't like your grocery store, should you try to improve it by continuing to shop there? It seems to me that schools are not going to improve until they see their "customers" going elsewhere. My kids go to public schools, and their classes are mostly just fine. But there are a few atrociously bad teachers, everyone knows they are bad, and yet they keep their job year after year. That needs to change.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure you were being flippant, but as someone who worked in retail for many years I used to have a manager who said that if a customer ever complains the first thing you do is thank them. Most customers, if they have a bad experience, will leave and never come back. By complaining they are giving you an opportunity to fix whatever the problem is.
The way to get improvement isn't simply to take your money elsewhere (even just in the form of per head govt funding), it's to give specific, targeted, constructive feedback on what is wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
So what is it if I send my kid to a private school so that someday they will have a decent education and be able to try to make public schools better, while simultaneously trying to make public schools better myself.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
As always, the problem is that people don't agree on what "success" means. I think that impersonal testing with static measures of success is best. Other people think that you need to factor in how this particular child got to this point.
The problem with Teaching To The Test is you aren't preparing these students for anything, but taking tests.
Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Teaching to the test IS the problem. My oldest son, instead of being given math problems to practice, was made to spend his time studying test-guessing strategies. As a result, in 7th grade, he was still counting on his fingers when the going got tough, and his PSAT math was 48/80. Mine was 80/80. His teachers named him as among their best college bound scorers.
At that point, I started requiring an hour of math practice aday, before other homework.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know how it works in the US (very poorly, IIRC), but in Australia, there's a rather interesting factoid which was true 20 years ago when I was an undergraduate. More private school students than public school students start a university-level undergraduate degree. However, more public school students than private school students complete a postgraduate degree.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I had to go to a private school to get (neo) Marxist indoctrination. It was pretty great ;-) (for one year. Between dropping out of college - I was 13, and got into a fight with my program administration - and going back for lack of other reasonable options.)
Public school... well, one of the lines that annoyed me the most is about how your gifted child will be fine. For some kids, yes. Or maybe your district has a decent gifted program. But for many children gifted education is a type of special needs education, and keeping them in a standard setting is not only cruel, it's likely to turn them into angry disaffected hackers who get lousy grades and blow things up for kicks.*
Er, not that I'd know from first hand experience or anything.
Gods, when people say that your teens are the best years of your life...
* Oh, wait, technically that was the gifted program, right before they decided I needed to try college.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
...Public school... well, one of the lines that annoyed me the most is about how your gifted child will be fine...
They are ALL gifted... if you check each and every kid will have little trophies, awards, ribbons, and certificates stating that in no certain, exact, or quantifiable way... It's not like they're keeping score... (they could be sued, or worse, someone might feel bad). I'm shocked they are still allowed to even hold a spelling bee.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is a casual forum, and we're mostly making light of this article, however there is a valid reason that schools have adopted this idea.
The idea is that you're rewarding the child for putting in effort, which has been shown to produce better results for complex cognitive tasks. In fact, there's been a fair few articles which have been either directly related or tangentially related to this, linked on Slashdot.
In addition to this, the student which is rewarded for their innate ability or luck, does not necessarily learn to continue to put in enough effort. This is particularly prevalent later on in life, when study for almost everyone becomes quite a lot harder, and persistence pays off.
Lastly, there is more of an appreciation for the random/luck component of the outcome, which probably makes up more than 99% of the probability of a successful outcome. I was a huge nerd at university, I put in a lot of time and effort, and I'm blessed with a reasonable innate ability to learn easily, and got grades that were quite good. However, I like almost all of the other nerds I knew, had a lot of courses that I did not achieve good grades for, when my competency in that course was amazing. Similarly I had some courses that I did achieve amazing grades for, when my competency in those courses was far below that suggested by the grade.
As always, a caveat, the topic of motivation and what drives people, is hotly debated and researched. Most of the research hasn't been that great into this, but some of it has, and those ones suggest that on average, this is a better method for raising our children.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://rossieronline.usc.edu/u-s-education-versus-the-world-infographic/ [usc.edu]
and there is no way for any parent to change that by demanding change at the school level... THEY have to do what is best for their kid, and maybe that kid can grow to occupy a place where accountability will roll down hill and change the system... but given the way things work in the upper levels, I don't hold much hope for that happening.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was raised with a combination of public school and home school and self taught. The most advanced electrical class was how to read an analog Watt Hour Meter. My dad did more for my technical education by providing erector sets at younger ages and electronic components, hand tools, soldering iron, etc at an older age.
When I went into the military, I opted for the advance electroncis program. The first class was called BEEP Basic Electricity and Electronics Prep. I challanged the class on moved on. Already knew basic DC and AC theory. Later sat the ISCET exam and received my Journeyman certification. This combination of self taught in a supportave environment and military school and certification is worth the same as a degree to employers. I have no student loans.
Amen (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree 100%. I actually moved to a better town to get my kids into a better school. The local school from my former home town had a crackhead blow his brains out on the playground. The kids found him the next day inside a playground feature. Allison can eat a bag of dicks.
And hey! If you really want to have a better school experience for everyone - take 5% of the defense budget and put it into schools. It would probably be 100 times the money they're used to having.
Garbage in, garbage out. So forgive me if I don't feel like playing. I'd like my kids to wind up better than the baggy pants wearing drug addled dipshits from my previous home town.
And good luck to you. I hope you get your children into the best place they can be.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you follow the right wing american view that any planned economic activity is socialism, then yes, it's socialism.
It's not right wing american. It's normal american. In order to be in the right wing in the US, you have to believe in over militarism and strong role of church in the affairs of the state.
As to racial superiority, the fascists were no more racially superior than 'free' societies.
The state was central to everything in fascism. This was not only for the purposes of subjugating private economic activity, but also for the purpose of deciding which states would be masters and which should be subservient. Hitler just took it further and rather than the state as an administrative entity, he decided to emphasize nationality as an ethnic-centric concept. But you can't accuse Italian fascism of being internationalist. They certainly did view the world as divided between nations which must rule and nations which must serve.
Re: Bull$h!t (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yeah, the left were just angels. Stalin and Mao were model leaders.
I now anxiously await your belabored response spouting that Stalin and Mao were really right wing.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Informative)
Fascism = totalitarianism + racial superiority complex.
Fascism is a system of government in which a dictator controls military, industry and commerce (and whatever other aspects of his nation that happens to become important to him), and takes tyrannical measures to maintain his control. Racism is often used as a tool, but is not necessarily a required quality for something to be "fascist". Fascist regime is necessarily Totalitarian, but a Totalitarian regime is not necessarily Fascist. Therefore, your formula should read:
Fascism = totalitarianism + dictatorship
Now, a Communist system is not necessarily Totalitarian, but Totalitarianism becomes the method of choice for maintaining Communism when a meaningful portion of the population does not wish to be under Communist rule. I suppose there may be some other way to enforce Communism on a large scale, but I don't know what that might be.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a public school teacher, and I see some of the issues you address above on a regular basis. However, that is not the norm. Teachers do NOT try to create passive cattle. Most teachers work hard to teach students to be independent thinkers, while they go home to households that don't care about their education, don't push their kids to be more than obedient, and don't help find the children the support they need to prosper.
Are there terrible teachers? Yes. Should we fire them? Yes. They are not though the norm. Think of any professional environment and the slackers that do as little as possible. We all have those losers.
We also have to quit thinking of schools as external from our society. We need to see them as a part of a larger whole. We can escape blame that way, but it isn't accurate or beneficial. Do you know who your local school reps are? Have you spoken to them? Have you raised a voice that asks for more accountability or initiative from the students, teachers, and administrators?
Of all political bodies, school boards are the most local and relatively responsive to community input.
We have serious problems with our public schools, but I believe educating our children is essential for a functioning society; it is more so for a democracy. Let's not throw out the system because it has flaws. Let's work together to fix them.
Start locally.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, I believe you'll find that --as far as education is involved-- Slashdot is not a place that welcomes people with experience. Instead, people are valued for uninformed opinions and political stances based on anecdotal experience. To them, it is better to punish a hundred people (teachers) because one of them annoyed them ten years ago than try to actually try to analyze the problems.
If someone posted on a story saying "I'm a restaurant waiter and I think we need to seriously look at adding some restrictions on the Open Source system" they would get 800 comments laughing at them for talking about something they know nothing about. But say: "I'm a coder with self-diagnosed Aspergers and people should listen to what I have to say about the education system" and somehow its considered "informative".
They don't care about your experience. They don't care about logic. The vocal minority (I hope) here simply thinks that their limited experience is both typical and sufficient for them to draw conclusions about a diverse system spread across a country.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm afraid you might be right, but I'm a public school teacher. I go into work every day excited to fight the good fight with people who have a lot in common with the slashdotters you describe.
It's what I do.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I've spoken to the shivering worms. I live in a district , now nationally famous for being a FAIL. I gave up 3 years ago and removed my child from a discipline problem, underachiever quality public school. The board are the politically motivated, inept losers you would expect on a television show, interested in protecting themselves and their positions.
Locally, I recommend private and home schooling. There are wonderful home schooling projects going on and the students make the public kids look stone age. I, do not have the resources to do that myself at this time. I found a wonderful private school within my budget and her world has taken off.
Public schools will never be fixed until the special interests are removed and never let in again. We had a working process and broke it. Either do it over the way it worked or give up, it's not worth it.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear the frustration, and I identify with it. I'm glad you have solved the problem for your daughter. In spite of the Slate article, I don't think you are evil for sending your child to private school. If I had no options for a good public school, I'd probably look at alternatives too.
The problem though isn't completely personal. It's social, which I think was the essence behind the provocative title of the article. It's a social problem because not all of our children have parents like you or me who are willing to look for those alternatives.
It's in our social interest to educate as large a swath of the population as possible. As tragic as it is to say, the vast majority of parents aren't interested in finding the solution. They often send talented boys and girls to school after telling them that school is a waste of time, or more often never mentioning school.
Public school is vitally important because those kids deserve a chance too, and right now, I'll admit, we aren't giving them the best education we can offer. I can tell you that the teachers and administrators are, for the most part, going into work every day wondering how we can make school more meaningful for our students. We lose sleep over the disinterested students, specifically the talented ones. We try to make it interesting and engaging, but we are blowing against a very strong cultural wind that does not originate in the school. It is the collective force of an indulging society. That's the fight we need to fight. That's the change we need to see.
While I realize you are frustrated and have found a great alternative for your child, public school is still an important issue, and I'm saddened to see your energy sidelined because you found a solution for your child. There are other kids out there without parents as caring as you seem to be.
Re:Oh, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
That's a pithy aphorism, but really it's complete bull sh&*t. If you asked a carpenter to build you a house using nothing but a butter knife and a rock, what kind of results do you'd think you'd get? What do you think the "craftsman" would have to say about his tools?
Do public school teachers have adequate tools to do their jobs? I don't know. I'm not a teacher nor am I involved in education any way. But I do think that telling teachers that its solely their fault if students fail, no matter what the actual circumstances might be, is just absurd.
Re:Larry Correia wrote an interesting refutation (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd not call it interesting: It's mostly name calling and a bunch of strawmen.
Now, I do not think that sending a kid to a private school is in any way evil, but I'd much rather see a proper refutation, instead of just answering crap with crap. I mean, I'd understand sinking to crappy dialectic if the original point was actually difficult to refute, but why not use proper logic to refute an argument as full of holes as that one? If anything, a refutation that bad gives credence to the original article,and makes me think this guy is right in the same sense that a broken clock is right twice a day.
I've seen better refutations in the slashdot comments.
Re:Larry Correia wrote an interesting refutation (Score:4)
At least the original author was sincere - this guy is just being an asshole because he knows it'll bring in pageviews. Once you've started using "Liberal" as an insult, you're just preaching to the choir & have no intent of actually engaging in rational discourse.
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't guarantee the system will be bad, but it makes improving it drastically harder than a market system: You can always get involved in local politics, and make sure your local board of education is actually on the ball. Not every school district in the US is bad. It just happens that, at the very least, we need options in case the only choices are a bad school district and moving.
Now. I am personally not very concerned about how bad most US schools are because we are getting pretty close to a major
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
There is competition in US public schools. If you don't like the school move. That's what I did once our kids became school age. I didn't pay for private school but just moved to where parents actually care about education so the school is better. It has nothing to do with funding or even the teachers abilities. It all has to do with having kids that grew up in homes that value education. You see this all the time in charter schools. They take the kids in a poor neighborhood whose parents give a shit and put them in one school and all of a sudden they learn. Imagine that. You get rid of all the kids that are impediments to learning and work can get done.
Re:Competition (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3)
Priorities for the Concrete and the Abstract (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed concrete individuals should take priority. I think she's approaching from a kind of categorical imperative. Hence her statement, "Whatever you think your children need—deserve—from their school experience, assume that the parents at the nearby public housing complex want the same. No, don’t just assume it. Do something about it." Or, again, her rather annoying, "ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kid bad." In other words, she would prioritize the needs of the "nation" over those of your "spawn" [her word, not mine]. After all, wouldn't it be wrong to put your own children before the common good? Isn't it selfish to secure for your own what humanity is often denied?
This kind of thinking always puts me in mind of a passage from the Brother Karamazov. In the passage a woman declare to Elder Zosima her great love for all of humanity, but her apparent inability to actively love an individual. Zosima replies:
Loving and caring for abstractions like humanity or the nation is comparatively easy. Humanity, nations, or the people are objects which can be loved without fear. They will never leave or reject you. They can be readily idealized, so one never doubts the worthiness of loving them. And since they're abstracts, one needn't have to worry about them remembering those times you didn't particularly feel like caring for them. It's also very rewarding. In some cases, all we need to do is vote the way we think best, and then we can hold our heads up high, even regarding neighbors in scorn who have failed to see our good sense.
Loving and caring for concrete individuals is quite hard. They are sometimes ungrateful--in the case of infants and teenagers, it can seem almost constantly so. They have bodily needs which require unpleasant cleaning. They have wills of their own and cannot be idealized. They can remember your bad days. They can suffer and you may feel responsible, even when you're not. They can break your heart. They die.
This, I think, is at the heart of the preference many have, particularly among the educated and white collar, for giving priority to abstracts. A person such as Benedikt can hold you in contempt, for she prioritizes the higher ideal of the national good, while you privilege your "spawn" by giving them the
Re: (Score:3)
Re:She is not wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no middle ground for this line of thought, either you put your interests above the collective and is an "egoist shit" or you can't have anything better than the barest minimum until everybody does.
I am sick and tired of your kind of hypocritical "liberalism".
Re: Change the System (Score:3)
You mean like Hawaii, which has a state-run education system (not town or local)?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawai'i_Department_of_Education
Re:This woman is an idiot.... (Score:5, Informative)
Any belief that forcing public schools on everyone is seriously misguided. Nothing ever gets better when it's forced on people. The best schools in the world are in Finland, where a voucher system forces public schools to compete with private schools.
Uh, wrong. There are no private schools in Finland. [theguardian.com] Everyone gets the same education, and the results seem to be exactly what the author of TFA is suggesting.