Isn’t It Time to Finally Put the Interests of Kids First Rather than Catering to the National Education Association?
by Dan MitchellThe Cato Institute’s Isabel Santa uses school choice as an example of why competition is better than government-imposed monopolies. The video explains that government schools cost more and deliver less, which is exactly what one might expect when there is an inefficient monopoly structure. The evidence about the school-choice systems in Sweden, Chile, and the Netherlands is particularly impressive. Leftists always argue that we should have government-run health care because it’s what exists in other nations. Yet they are conveniently silent about looking overseas when other nations are choosing market-based policies and getting better results.
There are many other reasons to support school choice, including diversity and innovation. There also is no need for fights over school prayer and sex education when parents can choose schools that reflect their values.
Perhaps most important, school choice should be the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Many minority families live in areas where the government school monopoly does a scandalously poor job of educating children, even though these often are the school districts with higher-than-average per-pupil spending.
For more information about education issues, see what Cato’s scholars have written.
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164 Comments
Ordinarily, the Democrats should be right out front, screaming, using the tried and true mantra "What about the children!" That appears to have ended with the 13 El Salvadoran call girls.
Think of the children!
The single largest destructive factor in our education system was and is desegregation. Go ask someone who was there before and after. What were once nice, clean, safe places of learning became drug-infested dangerous quasi-prisons where no one was learning anything. POLITICS was chosen over truth and education and all that was good. Until you guys can acknowledge the elephant in the room you are going nowhere. Don't try to place the blame elsewhere.
Educational system is devoid of competition.
If you gave teachers the $9000 per student x 20 students and told them to spend 50K on supplies and keep the rest they'd jump at it — > $180,000 – $50, 000 = $130, 000 !
If the students all do well and progress they keep getting more students to teach.
Socialist Unions suck.
.
That's a great idea. I've heard of this before, unions prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Christ- not only are you an antisemite, you're a racist as well. The total Nazi package.
Unless you're a soros-paid troll putting this stuff up so your fellow Kossacks can "discover" it here…….
Good article Mr. Mitchell, but I will have to disagree with you on one minor point. The goal of "diversity" alone is not a good reason for doing anything.
The unions are responsible for the degeneration of the American education system. Until that is addressed there is nothing we can do to help.
The NEA is nothing more, nor less, than a money laundering front for the DNC (Democratic National Convention). You are striking at the very heart of their most potent weapon against the US Constitution. For over 50 years they have poisoned the minds of our nations children. I, myself, have been the victim of their Communist brainwashing efforts. Thank God that I had good decent American parents who taught me to beware these commie propagandists!
To break the hold of the NEA and the teacher's unions on the minds of our youth is the first step in the long term restoration of our once great country. We must begin at home and we must begin today. Never again can we allow such vile filth to be allowed access to the minds of tomorrow!
Here is a great video link provided by HiPlainsDrifter posted to the article "Here Come the Feds: FCC to ‘Study’ the Future of Journalism" regarding the WashDC charter school program given the axe by Obama & Co.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7FS5B-CynM
The Democrats got a hold of being the ONLY ones re-writing ALL the text books!! There is false history, along with the dumbing down of America children that we need to focus on!! These teachers today are the product of leftist colleges, and their agenda has always been to socialize your children!!
He is actually a schizophrenic, can't track reality, forgets his med's, wets the bed and momma doesn't know what to do with him. So she puts him in the basement with his laptop so he can think he is hassling the conservatives of the world…when really he just shows his inability to grasp reality….sad really….
I really think vouchers for schools will be something big in the next few years and it may just win over the American people. I think many people are waking up to the fact that teachers (NEA) teaching their kids are not teachers, they are propagandist indoctrinating for left wing radicalism. As soon as we take our kids minds back to reasoning, logic, reading, writing and arithmetic, civics, real history not revisionist, we will see the death of socialism, progressivism, liberalism, facism, and communism in our country.
Unions couldn't care less about our children. I've been informing my children about the practices of the left so they are aware of the education my grandchildren are receiving. Like the changing of our history, and such! I will send this article along to my daughter-in-law also!
I thought that the parent of NEA was NAMBLA. Their motto is, "No child's behind left alone." Another motto is "Leave the rearing to us."
The problem is not really the teachers, although there are many very bad ones, but the unions who are in it for power and money and really don't care about children or teaching. We should get rid of teacher's unions and tenure and let the best remain teachers. For those who believe in Darwinism, isn't this the proper way? With unions and tenure, we are letting the weak and stupid run the system.
How many NEA members can calculate the cube root of, say, 17.53 using just paper and pencil? Years ago, every school teacher could do this. What happened?
Well said! I am seeing a trend in concern for the hearts and minds of our children. It is time we focus on them and not the frickin union of NEA….
People of all races want safe schools with higher standards of education for their kids you moron.
Inner city schools suck because inner cities are run by leftist as'shats and many parents that either don’t care about their kids or have subscribed to the lefts insane rhetoric in regards to what to teach and how to teach it.
Racists like you should just crawl back under the rock that spawned you and leave the sane people alone.
New constutional amendent.
All goverment employess (including all politicians) must send their kids to the worst public inner city schools, starting with Baracks kids.
There are two different issues here which can be confused with each other – desegregation and forced integration.
Desegregation which stops discriminatory enrollment is moral and just – forced integration which involves manditory placement of students based on quotas is tyrannical governance.
Perhaps you could clarify which you are speaking of?
This is the battle where the future will be won.
Basic Hypocrisy: Liberals send their kids to private schools, yet oppose Homeschooling, Vouchers, Charter Schools.
I agree with Bohemond. This is a lefty troll staging a setup.
He's not just "full of it"; he's packed-tight, tamped-down, and hydro-rammed Full of It. Think 10 pounds of "it" in a 5-pound bag.
The public school system is what it is by design, to dumb-down, socially engineer and propagandize future generations. It's not even about learning anymore. My husband use to teach. The teachers at his school were told they could not give any student below a 69, even if they made a zero. This is what passes for education these days. Social engineering procedures such as student quotas and busing have turned good schools into sewers. Some of these schools have gone right back to segregated status as a result of parents transferring their children into better schools. Schools where they can learn, rather than being held back because of the inability of other students to learn. One size does not fit all when it comes to children and the schools.
Yes, we can thank the Teachers Unions to a large degree for this. My husband refused to join because of its very nature.
Kids first rather than catering to the National Education Association?
Yea, like that will happen. It's a ridiculous notion. Ain't gonnna . . . happen.
Well said… actually.
I'm starting to think he is on the payroll. Of David Axlerod.
Are you trying to say that the only thing standing between teachers and their $130k salaries is their unions? I'm stunned.
Unions ARE microcosms of socialism and are used to instill socialist sensibilities into their members. The Demmunists have a bigger stake in preserving the unions than I think some people realize and for that reason. I've been in five of them.
Ask yourself what you can do to return control of your school board to people who are not puppets of the local teachers' union.
Better one…no Federal employee can vote in an election for a Federal office. Some may say that it would violate that person's civil rights, but I would say that we place restrictions on voting (children,criminals, resident aliens, etc.) in ways that protect the liberties of everyone based on what we believe would be, on the whole, the most informed and rational opinions of a society. People with a vested interest in Big Government should have less and less say in how big that government should get.
No, he is actually logging in from one of the remaining LA medical marijuan stores!
Andrew Breitbart: Bring on "Big Education"! Many Americans wish to speak out on the atrocities perpetrated on the American People by the Progressive Communists!
Yep, he's pretty much a complete racist. I think he's trying to get back to that mythical fairy-land of a Whites only America.
It's coming,Jenny2. Count on it! Real patriots are tired of their children being lied to! It's going to stop if blood has to flow. It is going to stop.
We have to divorse (sp) education from real estate taxes. Just like the withholding tax methodollogy it takes the sting away from the people using the system. The people ignore how the money is spent and leave the education solely to the government and its unions. Then some cry foul later when Johnny cannot read or keep a job. Our goal should be total privatization of the schooling of our chldren, and we should pay the bill directly as many parents do with private schooling. Force the educators to educate by removing all incentives not to do so as well as removing the incentive to spend other peoples money. The Goldwater Institutue, http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org, has been a leader in bringing these issue to light for those of us in Arizona. Say goodbye to unions and real estate taxes used as a funding mechanism and put the responsibility back where it belongs, on the parents of every child. They are the ones who truly want: "No Child Left Behind!"
I'm thinking he might be James van Brunn blogging from hell.
One word: homeschool. We pay a whole lot of property taxes that support our public schools, and my children, as homeschoolers, have never had access to anything at a school – sports, libraries, labs, etc. But I've never made a wave about it – it's our "tuition" for having the freedom to educate our children as we see fit.
LOVE this idea – think of the mud that would stick to the wall!!!
Thank you, Jacey, for acknowledging the truth of our plight! We must all join in the struggle to retake our educational system and restore our Constitution!
You are to be highly commended for fulfilling your God given obligation to your children! It is a National shame that you are taxed for providing lies to the rest of the nations children. Our government has made it as difficult as humanly possible for you to do this and yet you persevered. You are an American Patriot! Thank you for your example!
Oh, it's coming… and I, for one, just can't wait! Buckets of poop will be clinging to the walls for decades in monument to our efforts to undo the Communist propaganda that has poisoned our society for at least 3 generations!
God Bless America! Red, White and Blue: The colors that NEVER run!
Make a Big Education, please.
I mean who knows better how to educate your kids that some third person bureaucracy that loves testing social experiments on kids? How about Detroit which gets obscene amounts of funding yet 2 out of 3 kids drop out? Inner-city public schools are essentially dropout factories at this rate.
Been waiting for this since AB announced he was going to create it along with Big Journalism! I will be a regular poster there – public school teacher with strongly conservative principles! Did not join the union and will not. If I am not good enough to keep my job, I should be fired. Period. End of story.
What I find absolutely disgraceful is that the teacher's unions convinced Congress and Obummer to cancel the DC scholarship fund. The parents of those children loved that program. The statistics showed that the students were testing as least as well or better than their public school peers. The safety statistics alone make it worth while. They are such hypocrites!
Hate to break the news but its too late. We have three generations, and a fourth on the way, of Americans who's cognitive capacity has been irreparably compromised by our school system. Kids have been deliberately programmed to see the world in a set of hard-wired concepts. Our news/entertainment media is complicate in supporting/amplifying this. Everything that is perceived by by most people, gets mapped onto these concepts. Anything that does not correlate is rejected. What remains is the modified to fit the model. Memory is not like a tape recorder. It is regenerative. That is why a moonbat attending a teaparty convention will literally remember seeing nothing but white trash spewing raciest ideology. But its worse then that. Theses cognitive models also have been designed with built in defence mechanisms that shunt anything that might invalidate it. On top of that the average liberal can only have on of these models active at any one time. Try having a logical discussion with one and you will see.
Inductive learning is a very deceitful method of programming that gives the student the illusion that he has figured something out on his own when in reality all he has done was to follow the instructor to were he was leading. The teacher cements this by giving a positive response and praising the student. Students who stray from the path are encouraged to explore more and given clues to think about, e.g. "Jonny, have you thought that maybe the high pay of football players is a form of racism?" The problem with inductive learning is that the student really does not learn how to think but how to make the teacher happy. But because he believes he figured it out, he will never question it again! You might think that this sounds like classic brain washing and you would be right.
The founder of the modern American public school system is John Dewey. The most respected theorist is Pablo Ferrar. (sp?).
Imagine what the Roman taxes in Christ's day paid for. Yikes.
"Render unto Caesar…" still.
I've said this before, So, again, We must send better students to school. Stop using our taxes to breed the uneducated on welfare just to create more demos. If we are going to pay someone to have children, pay young educated couples. But consider, we are way overpopulated. So,also, NO more aliens to support and try to teach.
An amendment to the constitution to stop congress from spending our taxes on their special interest groups. Save money, improve schools. Tell your politicians you want vote for them unless…….
I guess reality is racist, too, then. BTW, Black can and do have all Black schools. Why can't Whites?
LOL! So I'm like Ignatius O'Reilly? LOL!
As opposed to those meccas of civilization in East LA and Detriot?
People of all races want safe schools with higher standards of education for their kids you moron.
Then why is EVERY school with high minority populations ghettos despite money being poured in to them????? Why do they have POLICE SUBSTATIONS IN THEM? Did White schools need police substations and metal detectors in them in the '50's??? No.
They both resulted in the same thing.
You can chart the growth of the Middle Class with unions and you will find they correlate. Unions are not the problem.
Destroy the youth and you will destroy the future of a country. — Joseph Stalin
I don't think vouchers are the way to go at all. Since the government will be giving the vouchers to the parents, then won't the government demand a say in the curriculum of the private schools the parents choose?
"Gee, ya know, we're giving you the vouchers to go to XYZ private school, we need to make sure you get your money's worth and your kids get a proper education. It's for the kids, don't ya know?"
It'll be letting the federal fox into the private chicken coop, and then private school teachers need to be unionized to "protect" them, and to make sure they are properly credentialed, etc. Can you say public "private" schools? I knew you could!
Paying young educated (indoctrinated) to have more children? Restrict the right for those in lower education and economic classes to have children?
I know you've got a 60p rating, but why am I struck with the urge to post a Troll alert?
If you really believe that you're more lost than I thought.
As Americans, we are all Caesars. WE MAKE THE LAWS! How then should we render? Will we honor God? Or will we worship ourselves? Know your Bible AND know your Constitution! Reconcile your beliefs! DAMN YOUR EYES if they WILL NOT SEE!!!
Private education and home school is all that's left to give kids a decent education. Unions dilute, pollute, and cheat kids of an education free of indoctrination. Like everything else, it's about getting politicians re-elected and greasing the right palms.
Indoctrination is more likely to occur in a monopolized system, they are well aware of that fact, they control the monopoly and frame the "Teachings" within it!!! Taxpayers are therefore forced to pay for their own demise!!!
Guest, I feel you're right on…When the unions got involved in the school
system, the schools start going downhill….There's no way to fire a bad
teacher…I've seen notes sent home with misspelled words, and there
were some simple words that were wrong….Then they start teaching all
these social issues, things that should be taught in the home, not in a
school, or by strangers…I blame parents as well, for not getting involved,
or possibly being intimidated by the schools and not fighting for things
they knew weren't right…..
It is human nature to seek God. Populist liberals have allowed progressives* to push God out of their lives and that in turn has left an empty spot. Attempting to fill that emptiness is what leads people to follow what seem to be well meaning causes such as ""Global Warming"" or ""Hope and Change.""
When these causes are exposed as frauds, it leaves the populist liberals in despair as day after day they witness their progressive* heroes twist and turn as their lies become more and more bizarre.
The answer is simple, continue your search for God, he has not abandoned you, he is there waiting. Even more important, save your children. Don't let these impressionable young minds follow the progressive* frauds down that same path.
*progressive: I am elite and smart, you are stupid, therefore I will be your master
Progressive Assault on Children
http://usataxpayer.org/?0040951310
Perversion Taught in Public Schools
http://usataxpayer.org/?0039156365
Penny, great post, and in my humble opinion, right on!!
I attended an overwhelmingly white high school that had always had an open campus policy. The year after I graduated, they started bussing black kids in. In a matter of months, open campus was gone, replaced by metal detectors, security guards, and drug-sniffing dogs. Draw whatever conclusions you want, but those are the facts.
Check out the following YouTube video done by a group of Tea Party kids. Pretty much sums up the debts Harry, Nancy and BO are dumping on our kids, and some actually understand it! Pretty out there flick and a bit funny. Must be hitting the left in the funny bone as well as you will see from some of the comments.
Name of the video is “ Barack Obama Song – It’s Your Money That I Love”
Link Is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQwyGMkAGbY
Enjoy!
Barackcountdownclock – Not Again In 2010!
My bother has a stay-at-home wife who stays home so their daughter can be home schooled. They did this to protect her from both the left-wing propaganda and to protect her from the anti-Christian attacks by our educators.
I'm not married so I have no kids, but I pay over $2,000 a year out of my atrocious $4,400 a year property tax bill to these indoctrination factories and it really ticks me off. If more people home schooled their kids they would not only provide their kids with a superior education, but they would also shrink the enrollment totals in public schools which would force our local governments to reduce our property tax burdens.
You are to far gone! Not even close….
I understand what you are saying about schools with a religious structure and that is my preference as a parent and I would choose and pay for that out of my own pocket. But there could be plenty of options of schools that would choose core curriculum's, that suit what the parents would want for their child that are non religious. It is a way to put the free market into the schools.
Are you a member of the NEA?
It's pretty clear that the NEA is more interested in keeping their dues paying sheep employed than providing a quality education to students. All they have to do is teach what "big brother" tells them to teach, regardless of how poorly they do it.
Think of the children. . . as another victim group.
There has never been any monetary reward for putting children first, only for saying that you're putting children first. Big difference!
.
BIGEDUCATION! BIGEDUCATION!
You are right about the system. My wife and I have opted-out of the school system and teach our children at home. The unions and socialists may get my school tax money, but they will NOT have my children s minds!
That's too bad – I think you would make a great Myrna.
Even the self-described conservatives here are too brainwashed by Political Correctness to make simple observations that are non-PC.
I used to be like you. I made it out of that dark tunnel and you can, too. I'm here to help you.
Barrack Hussein Obama Mmm Mmm Mm
You don't really think we have a problem in our schools do you?
Barrack Hussein Obama Mmm Mmm Mm
Equal pay for equal work Mmm Mmm Mm
Probably the greatest time in history: 1960.
"1960 One third of all workers in the United States belong to a union."
http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/laborunions.h...
There is at least correlation. I know that doesn't prove causation, but let's dispense with this notion unions are some sort of bane on society. Most people believe that, like I did, before they entered the workforce.
Its interesting you find me fascinating! I only find you repugnant….Nazi!
Addendum.
"We's all wants safe scoos."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/27/beating-...
BigEducation is coming next. AndrewB announced it on Glenn Beck last week. And he said there is a lot to start it with… I can't wait.
The sooner we see Bigeducation.com, the better!
Government-run education must die in order for our Republic to survive!
I'm not defending our public schools at all, but why is it the Right seems to constantly generalize about how terrible "government-imposed monopolies" are when discussing pet topics, but then they cheer the world's greatest military (ours), which is itself government-imposed monopoly? Turn the military into a private industry where competition occurs, and you get Blackwater. That worked out great in Iraq, didn't it? Do you guys also think our Fire/Police Departments should be privatized? They aren't federal, but they are government-run and they seem to work ok, so maybe less hyperbolic generalizing would serve this debate well.
You can use pencil and paper to calculate a cube root???
NEA required reading: Saul Alensky's Rules For Radicals
Obama's recommended reading: Saul Alensky's Rules for Radicals
There is not much to reason from this except Marxism, Marxism, Marxism is their agenda
for your kids.
As a non-breeder myself, I have always thought it unfair that I have to pay to educate other people's kids. It only makes it worse that the government does such a piss-poor job of it.
However, I also find it unfair that parents can't get their kids taught the way they want. If you want prayer in school, or intelligent design, or evolution, or sex education, or not, or Howard Zinn, or whatever, it should not be up to the government to tell you can't have it, or that you must have it. I might make an exception for certain forms of Wahhabism, which hold that freedom, democracy and tolerance are bad things, but even here I think lots of good schools would probably swamp the evil ones.
Our (US) upper educational system ranks among world's best. Our lower educational system ranks among the world's worst. It should be pretty obvious why this is, the choice available in the former, the lack of choice in the latter.
2 Desert Yote, read this before, many moons ago, thanks for refresher course.
Umm, hello! If the military gets things wrong they DIE! Shoddy work is not allowed.
What does one thing have to do with another?
Private schools work because they keep the undesirables out. If everyone got a voucher to go to private school it would just destroy the last bastion of education left in this country: the private schools.
Nazi….
Wooooooo!
I have to disagree. Not supporting teachers unions, but if parents had a greater choice to which schools they could send their kids, even NEA teachers would have to do a better job if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Yep, always advocated that if you want government in education, it should be very simple – vouchers to spend on any school you wish. Public education is constrained in its priorities to make this work effectively.
Love is hate. War is peace. Two and two is five. You must Love Big Brother.
And I am not knocking the US military at all. God bless the US military and all who serve in it. We need a strong military. It is appropriate that the government should provide us with one. But the US military is not an efficient organization. The normal situation is described by the acronym SNAFU. War is full of big stupid tragic mistakes. If someone can come up with a way that competition could make the military more efficient, I'm all for it. One way they have been able to save money, and still do, is by hiring contractors to do a lot of the work.
Marva Collins ran a private school,on the South Side of Chicago. The school was private, took no government money and the curriculum was more strick than that of THE best of the best private Day schools anywhere in this nation.
The kids wanted to be tehre, the parents were involved and these black kids were well behaved and did better than not just their peers of the same race, but tested better than any white kid in a Chicago public school.
Of course Jews have their own private parochial schools; so do Catholics, and Protestants.
The poorest of the poor blacks, in D.C. who were able to got to the best private schools there, because of the voucher system, which Obama stopped, did as well and the white kids.
Bush wanted to get rid of the National Education Association because he realized the money wasn't going to the schools and he wanted the states to be in charge of them, not the federal government. The Dems had a fit because the NEA is in bed with them and the money goes back and forth, rarely getting to the classroom level. The public school system went into the toilet when the NEA was created.
That's just not true, Fonz and just because you keep posting that codswallop, over and over and over again, isn't going to make it so.
A generation is 25 years, ergo your premise is completely incorrect from the getgo.
John Dewey was born did NOT start/found the public school system and most of his insanely crazy suggestions ( not teaching children penmanship, or even how to write, because he claimed that everyone would use a typewriter and never a pen or pencil ) were ignored and/or discarded, at the outset.
Are you a teacher, Desert Yote ?
If not, when was the last time you were in a classroom?
I don't know where you got what you posted, but it isn't accurate.
The true beginning of the fall of public education ( private as well, but more of that later, or not …………) was after WW II and the BABY BOOM, when there weren't enough teachers and everybody was taken, good bad or indifferent, because they needed warm bodies in the classroom.
But the true turning of the tide happened in the 1960s when lots of guys went to college to become teachers, so that they wouldn't have to run to Canada to get out of the draft. Many really didn't want to teach, golt lousy grades, but somehow they did get jobs and held onto them for dear life. In the same vein, a lot of far lefties went into teaching, around that time, for the same reason, but also so that they could stuff little heads with their views/garbage.
It wasn't until the mid/late 1960s that teacher unions got a stanglehold on the public school system. So while curriculm had been somewhat dumbed down, prior to that, it still was nowhere near what happened after that date !
The pretty gal does not know what she is talking about.. hmm In socialist finland there is an egalitarian public schooling system that is the best and most cost effective in the world..
Quote:
The Finnish education system is an egalitarian Nordic system, with no tuition fees for full-time students. Attendance is compulsory for nine years starting at age seven, and free meals are served to pupils at primary and secondary levels, where the pupils go to their local school. In the OECD's international assessment of student performance, PISA, Finland has consistently been among the highest scorers worldwide; in 2006 Finnish 15-year-olds came first in science and second in mathematics and reading literacy, in 2003 Finnish came first in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, while placing second in problem solving. In tertiary education, the World Economic Forum ranks Finland #1 in the world in enrollment and quality and #2 in maths and science education.
I just wonder how that can be spinned against egalitarian public schooling.. market good, government bad, mmmkay… sounds like education in south park, mmkay… good luck with that..
There must be away to reject the successes of the government run systems in EVERY case, because reality is black and white, and it has a liberal bias.. and it is always either or solutions that work, not more complex dynamic solutions between government regulation and free market.. government can NEVER run anything.. (thus privatize military as well, they don't know what they are doing…)
Take a look at our government indoctrination schools. They teach our kids a bunch of clap-trap so they will accept it when they become voters. There is no God, praise homosexuals, be politically correct, global warming, kill your baby, embrace illegals and bigger government is the answer to everything. They don't have time for the three RRRs any more. They are too busy turning out idiots that can't speak, write or form a cognizant thought. The government is their god.
Liberal Democrats Assaulting our Children!
http://usataxpayer.org/?0039156365
Home School Information
http://usataxpayer.org/?0056126499
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