ext_306469 ([identity profile] paft.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] talkpolitics2011-07-16 10:14 am
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They Could Always Go Work in Factories

Teri Adams, Head of Independence Hall Tea Party and School Voucher Activist:

Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.



In other words, Adams would like education to be, along with medical care, available only to those who can pony up the cash for it.

The article I’ve linked to includes a few quotes from people speculating about what drives the American right’s hostility towards public education. The ban on teacher-led prayer is invoked, along with the mercenary desire to funnel the money now paid into public schools into private hands.

I suspect it’s much more simple than that. Without universal education, the far right wouldn’t have to contend with so many pesky arguments about the facts of history, math, science, etc.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

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[identity profile] kylinrouge.livejournal.com 2011-07-17 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
It's weird to be opposed to something in practice but not in principle. Unless they're planning to spend as much on these magical private charities that can somehow afford to cover all needy Americans as they did before on social programs, it's a moot point.

If they are planning to spend as much, then what exactly is the difference? If it's just an ideological complaint, then it's pedantic bullshit.
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[identity profile] kylinrouge.livejournal.com 2011-07-18 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
No, part of the whole contention is that you won't need to spend as much.

Any evidence to back this up?

another argument is that government programs are resistant to the very forces that require increasing efficiency and outcomes; namely, profit and loss.

Or this? The argument that those forces are required.

Government has vastly reduced pressure to better itself, and in some instances has incentive to NOT better itself (see the teacher cheating scandal unfolding as we speak).

Teacher cheating is government policy? In both a specific, and general sense? Citation?

schools often have a need to show that they need MORE funding.

So what's your solution? I never claimed that there wasn't a host of problems with the public education system, but I haven't heard any positive arguments for why private charities would do better. Besides any financial or accessibility reasoning, there's also the issue that the majority of private schools are religious in nature, and I want my accessible schooling to be secular, but that's a personal beef.
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