Thursday, February 17, 2011

My Defense of Vouchers for Education

a blogger: Vouchers also remove more money from the public schools; and if giving schools money doesn’t help. how does taking it away?

Those public schools will be smaller and that is apt to make them better, more personal, and less costly. Besides, where is the logic in continuing to subsidize failure more than we subsidize success? Highly motivated families and students will take their vouchers to better schools –those schools will grow and serve more students –including the poor.

Some think that private school students are rich and shouldn’t have vouchers. Yet, we all pay taxes and the rich more than anyone –but even the middle and poorer classes sacrifice to send kids to religious schools; they deserve vouchers so they can more easily afford the better schools.

Our country will be better off, overall, when we get gov’t out and help the successful schools serve more people –and give parental choice with vouchers.

It’s very important that gov’t keeps its nose out and doesn’t force the successful schools to change in order to accept vouchers. If religious teachings are part of their success, leave them alone. However, no school should teach kids that overthrow of Am. gov’t and violating our laws is OK (unless the law starts to undermine Christianity –telling parochial schools that they cannot receive vouchers and teach their students whose parents have chosen those schools, beliefs and all--beliefs such as Christ is the only way to Heaven–or that homosexuality, abortion and pre-marital sex are sins. Then we would have trouble with Big Brother's nose in the Christian school tent.)

My children went to a successful public school; the grandkids are home-schooled for now. It’s interesting to me how many public school grads are home-schooling –not just religiously motivated people –but others –because they don’t trust the liberal philosophy, the moral neutrality toward sexuality and transgendering, the witless teachers who would show-R-rated movies to jr. high, the questionable and downright immoral activities (like sex acts at school dances, with helpless administrators nearby, as reported to my husband by patients about a local suburban school and also featured on an Oprah program within the last year) , and the peer influence of the public school.

Inner city schools are classified as failing AND MONEY IS NOT HELPING!!! Maybe they pay better in some suburban schools as claimed here; this has not been so for our area. The failing schools in my state are not failing for lack of funding –but for lack of parenting of the students –fatherless, abusive, neglectful, addicted, religion-free, structure-less, discipline-free home life of the students being raised by TV. Too many kids who attend public school (inner city) now and then, don’t do homework, are disruptive and disrespectful, are vandals and thieves, drug users, sexually active, foul-mouthed, filled with “attitude,” and don’t get to bed at night and fail to get up in the AM because of their games, porn, and television. So when they do come, they already have quarterly F’s for truancy and tardiness –and get suspended more for disruptive behavior. Their disruption is probably to hide the fact that they are behind and ignorant. Better to act like a bored rebel than let peers see how ignorant you are.

People are fleeing such public schools –except for those families who have no choice –which includes those growing numbers of people who are multiplying on the gov’t dime –on SSI, ADC, and foodcards. And many of those needy homes ARE, nevertheless, responsible in their goals and child-rearing, and their kids deserve and would benefit from vouchers.

Of course, I think ALL kids deserve a chance at a better education–but I know some NEED boarding schools as a last resort to save them because their behaviors and attitudes destroy the learning environment for the others. Those kids could be given a chance at private schools, but as soon as they change the studious atmosphere and the moral climate of the school, they should go back to public which would be the bottom tier of options in some districts –as now –where they can’t expel but must try and educate in spite of the obstacles. But the rest of the students should not be held back from success by the miscreants in their midst.

We like the egalitarian ideal and the melding pot function of the public school –but as more and more students embrace television morals and delinquent attitudes and behaviors as the norm, responsible parents want something better for their kids –and we should subsidize the better schools so they can serve more of the poor who need to escape less motivated peers.
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In this blog discussion at another blog, I did acknowledge the problem with other schools that could demand vouchers via our Constitution's view of religious neutrality --radical Wahabi Islamic schools, schools for gay youth (as NYC attempted or has,) polygamists, the school for witchcraft and wizardry, and the KuKluxKlan --and any schools existing only for racism. Gov't's nose would rightly be in our academic tents to prevent teaching favoring the violation of our laws, including civil rights law --but Christian schools will then be given trouble for their Biblical views on sexual morals --denying our vouchers if we don't conform to PC thought that Christian view of sexuality is a hate crime.




"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

1 comment:

Masoni said...

Hey Barb,

This is Masoni from Masoni Raves About. I took my leave from the blogosphere last year and left you and a few other regular readers behind, so I thought I'd let you know about my new project.

It'll be a little less opinion-oriented but will have a fair dose of political and philosophical content as time goes on. It's still under construction, but I'd like to have you and the network of Blogger readers that MRA had stop by sometime. Thanks a lot.

http://masonireview.com

—M.