.

yeshuaslavejeff · Jun 28, 2016

thatbrian said:
a world in which people pay for goods and services that they desire for themselves and their children.

Reminds me of "At all cost, get TRUTH".... That makes the biggest difference I think and have seen.

Paidiske · Jun 28, 2016

thatbrian said:
I actually want the best for all people rich and poor, and personal responsibility is the way to achieve that

I disagree, because different people have different levels of ability to strive for "best." It's all well and good to talk about personal responsibility, but we can only do that if we also maximise personal agency (and giving people money is actually one way to do that). Not that giving money is, by itself, the answer to much; but a robust education system can go a long way to filling some gaps as well.

Otherwise, personal responsibility as a driving philosophy will result in some superbly educated children and some who are illiterate and dependent on others for the most basic things in life.

thatbrian said:
Both, isn't it?

Is the issue how I can get the best house, or how can I get the best house that I can afford to pay for?

From your OP I thought you were concerned with the best education for children. The question of how it's paid for was only raised later.

I look at it without your individualist slant. Isn't the issue how we - as a community - can give all of our children the best education, and therefore what the best funding model for that is, as well?

pat34lee · Jun 28, 2016

grandvizier1006 said:
I've noticed everybody who doesn't like public schools is calling them "government schools"

What else would you call them? The government tells them
what to teach and what not to teach. Even the parents are
being told they cannot interfere with what the kids are taught.

pat34lee · Jun 28, 2016

Paidiske said:
I look at it without your individualist slant. Isn't the issue how we - as a community - can give all of our children the best education, and therefore what the best funding model for that is, as well?

I look at it another way. Who is best qualified to decide
what to teach our kids? Obama and a bunch of entitled
idiots who send their kids to private schools or private
tutors, or you and I and the communities where the kids
live?

RDKirk · Jun 28, 2016

grandvizier1006 said:
I've noticed everybody who doesn't like public schools is calling them "government schools"

The Supreme Court considers them government schools--which is why they are constrained by the Constitution. They are paid for by taxes. "Public" is rather more the misnomer, in that "public" may or may not be "government," as in "public accommodation," which includes most businesses.

Paidiske · Jun 28, 2016

I'm not in America. But while I'm sure there are items in our state school curriculum which might give me pause, on the whole, I think that qualified educators have more idea of how to put together a good curriculum than I (who has only one unit in religious education that might possibly count towards any training as a teacher).

Because let's not kid ourselves that our curricula are devised by the head of state or elected buffoons. There are experts in education departments who devote their lives' work to furthering the education of our children.

I'm not saying state schools are the best option for everyone. But the idea that they're a disaster for everyone seems a bit paranoid. (Disclaimer: I spent some time in a Catholic school, some in a state school, and some in an Anglican Grammar school).

jimmyjimmy · Jun 28, 2016

Paidiske said:
I disagree, because different people have different levels of ability

Not everyone has an equal quantity of everything. That's OK, and you could never make it so everyone did. There are beautiful girls and ugly ones. There is brain power, physical strength, work ethic, parents, other family members, etc. All of these things are doled this things out out to us. They are from his hand.

People are ALWAYS going to be at different levels. God made it that way. God allowed gleaning from fields not pooled harvests. . . You grand design fully realized would actually bring everyone down rather than letting some people rise up and raise all boats with him. That's the way property works. Governments don't create wealth.

Paidiske said:
I look at it without your individualist slant. Isn't the issue how we - as a community - can give all of our children the best education, and therefore what the best funding model for that is, as well?

Can I spend $150,000 a year to educate a child? It's naiveté to think money grows on trees in endless supply.

RDKirk · Jun 28, 2016

pat34lee said:
I look at it another way. Who is best qualified to decide
what to teach our kids? Obama and a bunch of entitled
idiots who send their kids to private schools or private
tutors, or you and I and the communities where the kids
live?

When my son was in middle school, I was able to get him into an interesting Washington DC program called the "Six Schools Complex." This was located in the Palisades area of the city just north of Georgetown. The demographics of that area had changed to predominantly older couples and yuppies, so that it no longer had the school-aged population to support the five elementary schools and one middle school in that region.

But instead of closing the schools, this quasi-charter school system was devised (I have no idea what kind of political battle was fought to make this happen). Each school was open to transfers from other regions on a first-come-first-served basis, with the parents being responsible for their children's transportation.

The curriculum of each school--and in fact the administration of each school--was controlled solely by the PTA of each school. The faculty proposed, the parents voted. If the proposal went beyond the school system budget, the parents also had to decide how they were going to pay for it themselves: Candy sales? Donations solicited from area businesses? Out of pocket?

PTA meetings were literally standing room only. I mean it--if you didn't get there early, you were standing along the walls. Only parents who had children in that school were allowed to vote and only parents and faculty were allowed to speak. It ran amazingly well.

jimmyjimmy · Jun 28, 2016

RDKirk said:
When my son was in middle school, I was able to get him into an interesting Washington DC program called the "Six Schools Complex." This was located in the Palisades area of the city just north of Georgetown. The demographics of that area had changed to predominantly older couples and yuppies, so that it no longer had the school-aged population to support the five elementary schools and one middle school in that region.

But instead of closing the schools, this quasi-charter school system was devised (I have no idea what kind of political battle was fought to make this happen). Each school was open to transfers from other regions on a first-come-first-served basis, with the parents being responsible for their children's transportation.

The curriculum of each school--and in fact the administration of each school--was controlled solely by the PTA of each school. The faculty proposed, the parents voted. If the proposal went beyond the school system budget, the parents also had to decide how they were going to pay for it themselves: Candy sales? Donations solicited from area businesses? Out of pocket?

PTA meetings were literally standing room only. I mean it--if you didn't get there early, you were standing along the walls. Only parents who had children in that school were allowed to vote and only parents and faculty were allowed to speak. It ran amazingly well.

It sounds like it worked because it was not a typical government school. Am I correct?

Paidiske · Jun 28, 2016

thatbrian said:
Not everyone has an equal quantity of everything. That's OK, and you could never make it so everyone did.

No, but we can make sure that everyone has a bare minimum. I think a basic, solid education should be part of that bare minimum.

jimmyjimmy · Jun 28, 2016

Paidiske said:
No, but we can make sure that everyone has a bare minimum. I think a basic, solid education should be part of that bare minimum.

Finally something we can agree on.

Here's an interesting point that my brilliant pastor brought to my attention. It helps to distinguish who to help and when to help them.

At first glance, Paul looks like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth, but in the Greek, "burden" is an unbearable load. In other words, more than one can lift by him/herself, while "load" in verse 5 refers to the common everyday loads we all should bear.

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

Paul of Eugene OR · Jun 28, 2016

thatbrian said:
The below quote dates back to 1923. How much worse are things 90 years later?!

“Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.” ― J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism

What's the best way to educate your children?

The problem with home schooling is that some parents are simply not qualified to be schooling their children in subjects that require a good education to share with the kids. Math, literacy, civics, history, science are woefully misunderstood by many parents and would be a shame to not give the kids an exposure to a real education.

jimmyjimmy · Jun 28, 2016

Paul of Eugene OR said:
The problem with home schooling is that some parents are simply not qualified to be schooling their children in subjects that require a good education to share with the kids. Math, literacy, civics, history, science are woefully misunderstood by many parents and would be a shame to not give the kids an exposure to a real education.

While that's true, there are many co-ops where parents work in areas of strength and teach what they're good at. And, I'm sure that they are many online helps for all of the subjects, as well.

FireDragon76 · Jun 28, 2016

I guess I'm in the minority of those left of center that supports homeschooling and charter schools. I would think I would rarely agree with somebody like Machen but in that case of that quote I am mostly in agreement. American schools are a machine that manufactures a standardized product. Human beings are more than products or machines, and they don't even do a good job guessing what the jobs of the future will be anymore. We are past the industrial and agricultural economy that made this kind of schooling even halfway sensible.

A few months ago I read about a young woman that never attended school once in her life, her parents were part of the "unschooling" movement. She is now a filmmaker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

jimmyjimmy · Jun 28, 2016

FireDragon76 said:
American schools are a machine that manufactures a standardized product.

Amen, and here's another Machen quote for you:

“A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument for tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.’ (1923)” ― J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism

State-run schools have essentially become monopolistic in a couple a ways at least, but that's another subject.

RDKirk · Jun 28, 2016

thatbrian said:
It sounds like it worked because it was not a typical government school. Am I correct?

The board kept "hands off." The PTA ran each school. Inasmuch as it took a good bit of effort to get one's kid into the school (I spent all afternoon in conversation with the principal), the parental body was self-selected for concern and participation.

SnowyMacie · Jun 28, 2016

The other thing I'm going to add that I thought about this evening. In terms of what I actually learned at the Christian school I went to for 10th and 11th grade (believe me, it was a very conservative school), there was really no difference in what we learned and what those in public school learned. We read the same books in English, covered the same stuff in history, science (with the exception of evolution, which was just completely ignored), math. In some classes, even used the same textbook. The only exception was Health (which we literally learned nothing that entire semester).

ViaCrucis · Jun 29, 2016

As someone who went through nine years of private Christian education at a fundamentalist Baptist school it definitely left a bitter taste in my mouth and would never wish the same on my own future children.

I was also home schooled one year. Protip: If you're going to home school, don't use A Becca's video classroom material. That was a super failed experiment for my parents and my brother and I.

In a lot of ways I learned far more in the four years of public high school than all the years previous.

I'm sure there are plenty of good private institutions, and if parents are well trained and educated they could probably pull of the home schooling thing. But my own experiences were such that I would put far more faith in the competence of the public school system than anything like what I had.

It's taken most of my adult life to unlearn some things, relearn other things, and heal from the spiritual and emotional abuse I experienced.

-CryptoLutheran

grandvizier1006 · Jun 29, 2016

RDKirk said:
The Supreme Court considers them government schools--which is why they are constrained by the Constitution. They are paid for by taxes. "Public" is rather more the misnomer, in that "public" may or may not be "government," as in "public accommodation," which includes most businesses.

I know it's technically accurate, but calling a public school a "government school" sounds derogatory because it implies some kind of brainwashing goes on.

grandvizier1006 · Jun 29, 2016

pat34lee said:
I look at it another way. Who is best qualified to decide
what to teach our kids? Obama and a bunch of entitled
idiots who send their kids to private schools or private
tutors, or you and I and the communities where the kids
live?

But it's not the actual federal government. OBama and members of his cabinet are not teaching the subjects. It's usually local teachers who simply pass on knowledge they are fed by higher-ups. Depending on the personality and level of investment, the teachers may be great or terrible.

.

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