School superintendent 'out of control'?

[Mercator Projection]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

One school in a state does not provide the entire state with an education [not without roads and high speed transportation].

No, but that's not what your initial post claimed or implied. You said that public-funded education was a gimmick for our culture. In fact, it has a long standing tradition. The fact that your family didn't have physical access to it, doesn't mean it didn't exist, and doesn't mean it didn't have a significant cultural impact.

Your tone was clearly negative and your implication was that since public-funded education is just a fad, maybe we should consider letting it go the way of the beehive hairdo and leisure suit.

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

The mindset back then was one which did not burden the government with providing services to the individual. [It was not a socialist mindset]

That is not what socialism means. Socialism means the government owns/controls the means of production. It doesn't mean the government provides services to the people.

And since you brought it up, here is what our economy looks like:



What Socialism Looks Like - Conor Clarke

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

Churches cared for the sick, the homeless and the ill.

To get a loan you needed a 'good' reputation, which was gained from charity giving AND openly living a 'christian life' [not a credit score].

There were alms houses and cemeteries for the poor.

No body thought of going to the government for money.

Of course there were schools. To my understanding every community tended to have a grammar school. They taught the Bible, and 'readers' up to the eight grade.

My family tree is filled with teachers [or so I was told].

Back them it was all about respectability, taking money from taxes was the worst kind of despicable act, almost as bad as divorce.

Now later [coming out of the depression] when the government lowered the income tax brackets so that average citizens could begin paying income taxes, my grandparents were very proud to begin paying them. That was a huge thing to them, to pay income taxes to help support the government [before it was only the uber-wealthy that paid to support the government].

They thought it was great and wonderful that roads were being paved, and schools were being built, while they paid their income taxes, and that was when I was born.

Forest, I'm not entirely sure what your point is, but this sounds like a disjointed rant about poor people getting gov't services that were once provided by church & charity. But what does that have to do with teachers (who work for the paycheck) and, more specifically, public-funded education (which is available to all regardless of social class)? If you think my kids should read the Bible in grammar school and my car loan should be negotiated based on my standard of Christian living, then start a new thread... and good luck with that. And (because you brought it up) it seems that a root cause of the current economic problem was BECAUSE loans were secured based on standards other than credit score. Banks were passing out $300k mortgages to any idiot with a pulse and, in turn, every idiot with a pulse was very eager to jump in way over his head.

I *THINK* your general point is that people rely on the gov't too much. Its one that I can understand but you've really made an incoherent case for it, here. Interestingly, your exact words above are, "Back them it was all about respectability, taking money from taxes was the worst kind of despicable act, almost as bad as divorce." Your entire post seems to place that philosophy on a pedestal and is all the more curious because you yourself are taking a gov't subsidized pension, have lived in gov't subsidized housing, rec'd gov't subsized healthcare, rec'd gov't subsized vacation, rec'd gov't subsidized job training, etc etc etc.. How do you reconcile these things?

You also seem to differentiate the teachers in your family history from current teachers because your family did it for respectability and the current crop just takes tax money. Is this what you are trying to say? If so... wow.


.

[7th generation]

Hey, at least they got their diploma in a public school