I'm done talking to teabagger Linda, she is a lost cause and a waste of our precious time....
Did you know Glenn Beck wants grandparents to get off the golf course and home school their grandkids?!! He wants you to take your kids out of pre-school right now, WHY?? The Heritage Foundation and teabagging so-called patriotic Americans want to abolish public schools. Do not be fooled, this is what they will fight for if they get any power in the upcoming election. The taxes citizens pay for public schools will go where when they shut down the schools? What will happen to the poor who can not afford private schools for their kids? What if parents and grandparents just don't have the skills to home school their kids? Ask yourself people!
from Mother Jones: It's fairly common for conservative political candidates to support
eliminating the federal Department of Education. But in California, tea
party darling and congressional candidate David Harmer has gone further.
He's advocated eliminating public schools entirely and returning
education to "the way things worked through the first century of
American nationhood," when educational opportunities for poor people,
African-Americans, women, the disabled, and others were, to say the
least, extremely limited.
Harmer has a long history of pushing libertarian education policy. In
the 1990s, he worked on education issues for the conservative Heritage
Foundation, and published a book, School Choice: Why You Need It—How You Get It through the libertarian Cato Institute. He also coauthored an article in
which public schooling is referred to as "socialism in education." In
that piece, Harmer and coauthor Joseph Bast assure readers that they
"are 100 percent committed to getting government out of the business of
educating our children." They cite the "life-ruining effects of
government schools" and argue for school vouchers—but only as a step
toward for the eventual total elimination of the public school system.
In late July, both President Obama and Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan spoke to the National Urban League’s Centennial
Conference, the president said, "Now, for years, we’ve
recognized that education is a prerequisite for prosperity. And yet,
we’ve tolerated a status quo where America lags behind other nations.
Just last week, we learned that in a single generation, America went
from number one to 12th in college completion rates for young adults. [We] used to be number one, now we’re number 12. At the same time, our 8th
graders trail about eight [to] 10 other nations in science and math.
Meanwhile, when it comes to black students, African American students
trail not only almost every other developed nation abroad, but they
badly trail their white classmates here at home - an achievement gap
that is widening the income gap between black and white, between rich
and poor. We’ve talked about it, we know about it, but we haven’t done
enough about it. And this status quo is morally inexcusable, it is
economically indefensible, and all of us are going to have to roll up
our sleeves to change it."
Is this a black or white issue? Isn't it the right who cries about accusations of racism yet they want to deliberately hurt the poor and minorities by abolishing public education? The rightwing of America wants your kids dumb so they will not know what the hell is going on in our country! We must NOT let them take us back to colonial times. If what happened to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson is any indication of how the American people feel about the rightwing religious fanatics, the teabaggers should be killing themselves off in the next 2 years. But that doesn't mean we sit back and wait for their demise, we have to stop them before they kill us....
Public education has to be a priority in this country. Secretary Duncan says...
"This issue is even bigger than education - it is an
issue of social justice and economic security. We have a moral
obligation to change these outcomes and it won’t happen unless we start
doing things differently. Not just talking about it, but actually doing
it."
Judge Merchan Kills Trump’s Lie He Can’t Testify Due To Gag Order
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[image: Trump delivers remarks after hush money jury sworn in.]
[image: Trump delivers remarks after hush money jury sworn in.]
After Trump claimed outsid...
43 minutes ago
55 comments:
Only the uneducated want to abolish public education. We see examples of the uneducated every time a Tea Bagger or Republican opens his mouth.
I hope you keep her off. Her one and only agenda is to destroy the integrity of your blog.
republicans want to privatize everything. Profit is the primary motive. They are even privatizing our defense. Look at the growth of private armies, such as Blackwater, now Xe, under republican rule.
Public education was established in New England in 1673, more than 100 years before the American Revolution. It was funded by the government of Plymouth Colony, and was a precursor to America's eduction system.
Please note the wisdom of the fathers and grandfathers of the Founding Fathers.
And now we have a party in the United States, of which even it's more "moderate" members (an oxymoron if there ever was one)- are intent with doing away with, minimizing, or reducing the role of public eduction instead of fighting to improve it.
And we're trying to tell populations of other countries that "our way" is the best- because we SAY it is?
Incredible.
And very, very scary.
Yeah, Linda's gone! Woo-hoo!
Those Repubs like their people stupid so they can continue to vote against their best interests. That's why they want to eliminate public education. Millions of families rely on public education to educate their children; where are these kids going to go? Not to mention, every nation has public schooling of some sort - they're going backwards, not forwards.
An educated populace is a republican nightmare.
Abolish public education? Hell Ya!
The education of our children is way too important to be left to such a decrepit, incompetent organization as the federal and state governments.
Let's see, over the last month or so I've heard Tea Bagger candidates say they'd like to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, a woman's right to a safe, legal abortion, unemployment compensation, the minimum wage, public education. In addition I've read on some conservative blogs how much they detest
Michelle Obama because she's interested in suggesting ways to get our children exercising and eating healthy food. She's never uttered a word about federally mandating anything. It's a cause--and all First Ladies take up a cause that is beneficial to the country.
Every First Lady has engaged in this but because this particular First Lady is of a particular race, the conservative blogs I've visited have reviled her with hateful epithets and by spreading stupid lies about what her campaign to keep America's kids healathy is about.
The Tea Baggers are all about destroying all the programs that have helped not only them and their families, but everyone else.
Without public schools, how does a country educate its people? Make them pay? So we'll have two classes: The rich and educated, and all the rest.
The Tea Bag Party stands for turning America into a Third World Country.
Thanks for all the great comments, I was afraid I went a little overboard with this one but I guess you all agree with me, well except for silverfish which is normal...
Where do the teabaggers want to take our country is the question, backwards to the 18th century I do believe. Do they not realize the population today as compared to 1774?? Do they actually believe our kids can be educated by parents and grandparents? Of course they want our country full of uneducated morons who vote republican!
SF if you believe our kids education should not be left to decrepit state and federal government then who do you propose educate our kids? You guys have no answers to your stupid ideas!
Thanks for the insight into the beginning of public education Hugh. The only good things that have moved our country forward have come from liberals. The wingnuts really do need their own country so they can live with fear, and backwards thinking. It's all so ridiculous!
Shaw I can't even read those hideous comments about Michelle Obama. Its disgraceful and shameful, but it also shows where the rights brains are because Michelle is even more popular than her husband. Her popularity is huge in this country which proves the wingnuts are such a tiny minority that they'll never be a driving force. Their jealousy of our first lady is beyond sickening.
This high school education has been brought to you by:
The caring folks at Phillip-Morris. You know we have your best interests at heart.
Uh...yeah, that'll work.
This is a ridiculous comment:
Without public schools, how does a country educate its people? Make them pay? So we'll have two classes: The rich and educated, and all the rest.
Remove "schools" and "educate" and insert "grocery stores" and "feed" or "telephones," or "internet service" and communicate.
Health care is delivered by private enterprise.
It is grand folly to believe only the government can do it.
Free market capitalism, not big government, produced the technology that saved those Chilean miners.
Two views, one lib, one conservative, for your perusal
Even Johnathon Chait is unable to completely refute it, and ends up declaring it a draw.
So government has a place, but innovation comes from the private sector.
And we sorely need innovation in education. A bloated government bureaucracy can't do the job.
I think that one problem with public education is too much local control. That explains the literacy gap with most red states lagging behind. Another problem is local funding with rich school districts far better than poor ones. As a rule, I prefer local control to federal, but in this case we need national standards in math, English, science, social studies and humanities and schools funded equally regardless of location.
"So government has a place, but innovation comes from the private sector.
And we sorely need innovation in education. A bloated government bureaucracy can't do the job"
That is actually an interesting point. However, those private sectors OFTEN rely on LOANS. The reason why I bring this up is because of that "you can't spend your way to prosparity" bunch who often borrow to prosper in "small business"(wink wink).
The government and private sector need each other, like it or not. I'd really like to see the business model of the private sector for establishing a school with costs laid out for each student.
"Health care is delivered by private enterprise."
Hardly. Mayo and locally, St. Thomas and Baptist Hospitals are all non-profits. And then there are city-run and state hospitals. And don't let's forget VA.
The "private enterprise" ones are only for the rich in the same way that private schools are for the rich.
Mayo is privately owned and are many other hospitals. Grocery stores, last I checked, are privately owned.
what private enterprise will take over public schools? Who in the private sector will take over where government leaves off?
back in the "old days" people farmed, grew their own food and killed their own chickens, today we have big cities, people shop for their food in grocery stores. You proved my point SF, you want us to go back to the 1700's.
Sue, that's what makes SF a Libertarian. I know he's been misdiagnosed by a bunch that he's a teabagger or republican, but even Libertarians have a HUGE bone to pick with republicans and teabaggers alike.
in my state schools are not funded equally. Our state depends on property taxes for schools and the poor towns do without. The kids are not getting the education they deserve because of cuts in education. 800 million to a trillion dollars in cuts to education, the first thing Christie did to our kids when he took over. The burden on NJ tax payers is causing them to leave the state. Have you ever heard of a 3 bedroom 2 bath home in your state having 10,000 dollar property taxes? Christie keeps the tax cuts for the rich in place so they don't flee the state but cares not one bit about the poor and middle class being taxed right out of their homes.
C, I don't like the libertarian viewpoints, they are the teabaggers.
Sue, in my opinion, the teabaggers are the ones that are uninformed, uneducated and are just plain mad and they really don't know why or who they should be really mad at.
They're just free radicals and are a poison to serious discussion.
that's the truth C.
I have to go out for a bit, carry on....
If you want to see teabaggers REALLY mad, just implement all the changes that they want, step back, and wait for the explosion. They just don't know what they are asking for.
Jerry Critter - EXACTLY!
CDM ~ ***" However, those private sectors OFTEN rely on LOANS. The reason why I bring this up is because of that "you can't spend your way to prosparity" bunch who often borrow to prosper in "small business"(wink wink).***
There is a very important difference in borrowing to grow a business as opposed to borrowing to enlarge government.
Business borrows to hire employees and to buy materials in order to produce something to sell for a profit. The government, on the other hand, borrows to fund entitlements or to hire more government employees (whose pay must come from taxes or more borrowing)...producing nothing to sell and making no profit. Governments constantly need to be financially supported, whereas successful businesses generate profit and grow our economy.
When Government had a monopoly on phone service, you got one clunky, rotary dial phone for your house and extensions were expensive. Long distance calls were a big deal because they were so expensive.
Thanks to deregulation that let the free market do its thing, I can talk to my friends in South America and the Middle East on my cell phone for pennies per minute.
Not to beat a dead horse on the NJ property tax/school funding situation....but no Dem or Republican can fix it because of one reality- New Jersey has too many municipalities and too many school districts.
NJ has about one third the population of California and about 100 more cities, towns, and townships, and consequently more school districts.
How did it get this way? Three hundred years- going back to colonial times- of portions of towns breaking away and forming new towns; some originally to have lower taxes. A few generations later, the tax rates rose as well.
New Jersey citizens want to have home rule, and low taxes....only political scientists have the guts to say they can have one, but not both. The pols of both parties know that to tell the truth to our citizens would be political suicide...so the kabuki dance continues decade after decade.
And if people leave the state because of the high property taxes, this is the reason. The only way to fix it is to merge towns and have stronger county government- and to a certain degree both parties have played a shell game with NJ voters for years.
Mayo is a 501 C-3 operated by the Mayo Foundation. Originally it was called the Mayo Properties Assn. Doctors are salaried and it was a model for much of the health care reform bill because they run such an efficient operation.
I can attest to their patient oriented program - as opposed to the $$$s seen in private hospitals.
I have a sore throat...that's what I get for smothering a sick child with hugs and kisses, I can't help myself she is irresistible...
Thanks for coming and commenting, great comments too. Talk to ya tomorrow!
Linda - The reason why I brought the business loan thing up was that a lot of tea party candidates(at least this election cycle) were campaigning on were using the "you can't spend to prosparity" as a platform. That was a load of shit, plain and simple. Recently they pulled those ads. Funny, I guess someone told them about their hypocrisy.
I also love hearing the bailout total amount being thrown around and not the amount that was actually used...and paid back. Yes, there were some freeloaders, but as a whole, different story.
Oh Gawd. I see the Tramp sisters have tramped back in. No class.
tnlib: Point taken on Mayo. 501 C3 is still not government run.
We have community hospitals here, and its a good system. They are run as a business and compete in the free market.
I have no complaint about communities partnering with local governments to build services tailored to the community.
Sue: I do not want to take us back to the 1790s. The environmentalist alarmists want to do that...
What I want is for the department of education to go away and the billions returned to parents who can then, on an equal footing, go shop for a school for their kids.
Take away the bureaucracy and cost goes down. Good teachers get paid more and the bad ones are looking for another line of work. That is what the free market does.
when you say go shop for a school, money coming back to us for that purpose comes from where? Our property tax money that goes to school funding? That isn't enough to put a family of 4 kids in private school. You are delusional SF. It is not possible. We need to fix public education and stop blaming government for everything. Sometimes we do need government. States can't afford to subsidize private schooling. Private schools are for the rich, public schools are for ALL Americans.
You're getting it Sue!
The current system is so expensive we must tax other without kids to support it, and we are doing worse against other nations.
And people in the poorer school districts (like my family) get short shrift compared to the high dollar districts. My kids are constantly bringing home fundraiser stuff, my wife's collecting Campbells soup labels...
Public education does not have to compete in the free market, so it has no incentive to clean up its act.
I don't know who said this, but it's true: If a foreign power did this to our education system we would consider it an act of war.
SF: I hate belaboring an issue but I in no way said that Mayo is gov't run. I said it is a non-profit.
tnlib: OK. No argument.
Happy Saturday!
The profit motive works in some areas, but not in others. Education and health insurance should be run by the government. An educated workforce benefits everyone, so people without children certainly should pay.
Silverfiddle's plan benefits only the wealthy, who use their "billions returned to parents" as a subsidy to send their children to private schools. While the children of poorer parents are screwed.
Education is the means of improving your lot in life. Privatizing education keeps to poor poor, and keeps a ready pool of "slave" labor and uninformed voters -- precisely the republican goals.
thanks w and Jerry. Our side is correct on this issue. Its the righties who are always trying to change our country to suit the wealthy and to hell with all the rest of ya. Public education works under democrats, so lets keep them in place by voting!
Yeah, your side is correct...
While our kids continue to fall behind every other developed country, and now some less advance ones as well.
The system is failing, so let's have more of the system!
"Heckuva job, Brownie!"
Remind me again which of those countries which are ahead of us in education have a private system and is not heavily funded and supported by their central government?
Red herring. So our government is less competent than foreign governments.
Big story there...
Silverfiddle, your claim that our government is less competent than other governments who run successful educational systems is a red herring. Our government is not "less competent", it's corrupted by conservative ideology.
Cons purposefully run government programs "incompetently" in an effort to convince the public they should support privatization. That way education, health care, the military (etc) dollars can be handed to their cronies in the private sector to do the work at a greater cost.
Your argument against government providing these services -- "Heckuva job, Brownie" -- PROVES this to be the case. FEMA wasn't incompetent under Clinton -- it functioned well and was highly regarded.
Sure, W
Move along folks! Nothing to see here... Our kids really is learnin'!
FEMA is a government joint. Ask the people of Louisiana what they think of FEMA and the federal government
So, there is plenty of evidence that governments are more than capable of running excellent educational systems. Just look at all the countries that are ahead of us. Where is your evidence that private education can even compete with a well run government program?
Jerry, You're too smart to play obtuse.
I provided analogies of grocery stores, telecommunications and health care.
Add in energy production for good measure. Where people compete in the free market, bad products and producers get punished and good ones rewarded.
It's up to you to go see what those other governments are doing that ours isn't.
Our government does a shitty job educating our kids. You can't escape that fact.
The very fact that you guys are defending such a debacle says much about liberalism.
I love it when people like Dervish blame those nefarious conservatives. Reminds me of Napoleon blaming snowball...
My point is that we need to improve how government handles education, but privatize it.
I assume you meant "...not privatize it."
Thank God! Finally an honest liberal who admits there is room for improvement.
seriously SF, I and all the liberal comments say public education needs work, hell even the president says it. We are saying fix it, keep it in the governments hands though. I'll be right back with a link...
I was gonna do a separate post on this but I'll just put it here....
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/radical-idea-public-schools-ar.html
Radical idea: Public schools aren't an awful mess
This post was written by Nancy Flanagan, an education writer and consultant focusing on teacher leadership. She spent 30 years in a K-12 music classroom in Hartland, Mich, and was named Michigan Teacher of the Year in 1993. She is National Board-certified, and a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. She writes for her blog "Teacher in a Strange Land" for Education week, and her work is featured on the Web site Teachers Lead.
Nancy says....Backed into a corner, beat up and wildly uneven in quality, yes. There's plenty of room for improvement, even in the schools that look terrific on paper. But perhaps it's time to take a deep breath and consider the words of Wendy Puriefoy:
In a society where the wealthiest are walled off in gated communities and the poorest are isolated in ghettos, our public schools—for all their faults and shortcomings—are still our best chance to give all children a shot at the American dream.
She closes with this thought....The campaign against public schools is dangerous and deceptive. We stand to lose something great: the uniquely American idea of a free, high-quality public education for every child.
"We stand to lose something great: the uniquely American idea of a free, high-quality public education for every child."
Twaddle.
As you all have shown, it is not a uniquely American idea. All advanced countries have public education.
What we stand to lose is a crappy system where overpaid bureaucrats gorge themselves obese on taxpayer money while good teachers go unpaid and our kids fall further and further behind.
I can't believe there are still people defending this criminally incompetent and decrepit system.
this link leads to alot of really good writing about schools if anyone is interested.
Public schooling is here to stay, it just takes a president (most likely a liberal)to implement changes that benefit our children and their future. Republicans cut education funding every single time they get the chance. Is this how we solve a problem? One thing we can do to insure public schools improve is keep liberals in place!
sorry SF, you are just spewing typical republican talking points. You hate government involvement in every single instance, even if it works well. We are not living in a dream world, Every facet of our existence needs constant upgrading and that's what progress means. That's why progressives have the right ideas.
Sure...
Let' just throw more taxpayer money at it. It's worked for everything else...
BTW, you know you can voluntarily send more money to the US Treasury, right!
I NEVER have and NEVER will understand the righties obsession with taxes! Good lordy SF, we have paid our taxes since the beginning of time, get OVER IT! You guys are the biggest whiners, complainers and cry babies on the planet! I have to find that cry baby face Nikki uses to describe liberals, it's the right who are the cry babies!
No whining or crying about it. I just hate to see the money of hard-working people wasted.
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