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Davachka, my point is that the Rs say (in numerous threads) that it's not the president's money... yet, they turn around and try to blame Obama.
School board members are VOTED in.
You do have a say.
Vouchers take money away from public school education.
I don't want my taxes paying for private (exclusive) schools when education should be inclusive.
Why would parents choose private school for their children before they even start kindergarten? Would it have something to do with the fact that it's common knowledge in various locales that the public schools undereducate students, not to mention the weak curriculum and low test scores parents have investigated? Or are you asserting that ALL of those parents are religious isolationists?
I don't care why some parents choose to send their kids to private schools. It's their choice, although the ones that do so in order to keep their children from being exposed to dangerous ideas like evolution are no doubt doing a disservice to society as a whole. Common knowledge is meanwhile frequently wrong. Perhaps more often than not in some areas. The facts are that both public and private schools run the gamut from really good to really bad, and that the good ones and bad ones of both are very likely to be found in close proximity to each other. Private schools and the vouchers to send childen there are not a panacea. They are more like a placebo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Hmmm... "The only study so far, funded by the federal Department of Education, found positive but "not statistically significant" improvements in reading and math scores after the first year. But education experts agree it takes a few years for results to start showing up. In other places that have vouchers, such as Milwaukee and Florida, test scores show notable improvement. A new study on charter schools in Los Angeles County finds big academic gains when families have expanded choices for educating their kids."
It isn't any one study or set of studies that are the problem. It's that the sum of them taken from everywhere that vouchers have been tried have indicated results that consistently fall far below what voucher advocates have and still do advertise and promise. You can get some disappointing numbers out of Milwaukee and then use some right-wing cash to go in and dig up something that looks better on paper, but it doesn't change the fact that nothing really happened. No miracles. No turnarounds. No dramatic improvements. In the end it's all been a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Refuted by the above, at least academically, by that bastion of religion , The Wall Street Journal.
No need to get hung up on religion. It was the nest in which the voucher movement was hatched. Plenty of people have been deluded since by non-religious arguments. As for the WSJ editorial page, it's not to be trusted in refutation of anything. It isn't that they are always or completely wrong, it's merely that they lie, distort, and misrepresent no less often than any other node on the disinformation network. Meanwhile, nothing that they are academically or otherwise pandering here refutes the fact that surveys in DC and other voucher locales show significantly less perception of improvement on the part of students actually involved in voucher programs than on the part of their parents. And per the implications all those studies, it tends to be the students' perceptions that are closer to the mark.
My tax dollars support public education.
Want to educate your kids privately? Pay for it.
Aren't you part of the group that wants people to be responsible for themselves?
But people do pay for public education without a choice. The voucher system is one of giving people choice instead of making the people pay twice. Choice is self responsiblity instead of the government making those choices.
But people do pay for public education without a choice. The voucher system is one of giving people choice instead of making the people pay twice. Choice is self responsiblity instead of the government making those choices.
I'd rather "You" pay for your kids education and I pay for "My" kids education. Elimate all government funding. Make all schools private/military. And if you don't have kids, it's more money in your pocket or to donate to the school of your choice.
K-12 public schools are primarily the responsibility of state and local government. Why would you want to focus on the federals and the federals only?
Are you saying that Obama made a campaign promise that he had no way of keeping?
Didn't Obama promise parents that they would have the same educational choices that he and Michelle have for their children?
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