From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon May 27 2002 - 22:15:08 MDT
Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
wrote on Sun May 26 2002 - 09:56:51 MDT:
"On the other hand, why not have both - a personal
trust, pulling the kid and the parents to economically
viable outcomes, and a state stick to push the truly
negligent parents by demanding that they finance at
least a basic education, in case of insufficient
investments by a trust, as well as a safety net for
orphans, and children of total derelicts physically
unable to pay."
There is the slight problem of the state, which I
consider a liability in general, a mafia/prostitute
that always sells out to the highest collection of
bidders to enforce their wills on the rest of us.
The U. of Chicago was responsible for Head Start, a
state program that actually does some reasonably
worthwhile things in terms of enriching early
childhood for low-income kids. However, the reason
why U. Chicago is responsible explicates a different
perspective. When they started studying outcomes of
different child-rearing environments, they quickly
came across one very puzzling fact:
The kids of the lower income working class families
were doing much better in reading skills for the first
several years of public school than the kids of the
wealthy or professional class.
They discovered that the reason is that the parent of
the working class kids had not been reading the
academic journals about how to correctly raise their
kids. Thus, they never learned that they weren't
supposed to teach - or even allow - their kids to
learn to read, because it would screw them up - they
being ignorant parents and not "professional
educators." The parents of the wealthier or more
professional sort did read, practice and pass on this
piece of approved "knowledge" handed down from on
high.
Now imagine that the educational establishment in the
U.S. had managed to convince people to vote them more
money, enough that they could go out and advise the
working class parents on child-rearing at home...
Obviously, the result would have been to reduce the
academic performance of those kids, in which case the
U. of Chicago would never have seen those results, and
the problem would never have been noticed - and no
Head Start program - right?
If you bring in the state, then the state is going to
have to make decisions about what constitutes "a basic
education." The example I gave above should make you
question whether that's a good idea. The State is an
agency that exists by pointing guns at people to get
resources to keep pointing guns at them. Pointing
guns at people to make them do things they don't think
are correct to begin with and truth - scientific or
otherwise - are not very compatible. That's just one
of the problems with bringing in the state.
The HomeSchoolers have demonstrated via objective
tests over several decades now that they - on average
- do about a 25% better job at education than the
average public school. Of course this includes in the
average the nut cases, the neo-nazis, etc., some of
whom are doubtless doing truly stupid and destructive
things with and to their kids. So, obviously, we
bring in the state to inspect the home schoolers,
right? NOT!
The most successful home schoolers are doing things
that would NEVER pass muster - like letting the kids
decide if they want to learn something or play at the
beach all day. Turns out, those kids usually do the
best of all, and the homeschooling gurus, like John
Gatto, have virtually all consistently advised against
trying to emulate a school at home. Of course, people
are individuals, and every time some homeschooling kid
- or parent - does something bad, it makes big news.
The fact that they keep winning the spelling bees -
and the scholarships to the major universities way out
of proportion to their numbers - occasionally also
makes news, but we know that one good scandal can run
a lot longer than the most positive news.
No system, state or private, is going to save every
kid. And why should it? Why is that even desireable?
Kids are valuable. People are valuable. No
individual person is infinitely valuable. And we
don't and never will have infinite resources. So,
should we keep pouring money and resources into
finding and correcting isolated abuses - forcing
parents to behave like we or some authority thinks
they should, or would it be more conducive to
producing the maximum number and/or quality of kids
and persons to leave that money and resources in the
hands of the people directly involved?
We can't save everybody. People die all the time
because we don't have infinite resources. Is the
solution to collectivize it and make sure that
everyone gets the same allocation of resources? That
has not worked very well to date for a host of reasons
that have been extensively discussed here in the past.
In addition: As a totally separate reason, I don't
hold parents responsible for their kids, except in the
sense that they created them, and they effectively
sponsor them and assume liability when they take them
onto someone else's property. But if a parent wants
to abandon a kid, then I would never try to prevent
them. In a normal society, there will be no lack of
takers who will want to assume guardianship or foster
parenthood, and forcing someone who doesn't want to
care for them or can't afford to just makes for a
lousy parent/child relationship. The parents gave the
child LIFE! This is a huge gift.
Of course, if the child Trust system were in place,
then it would be truly stupid in virtually all cases
to simply abandon a kid. Rather, you would post a
notice that you as parent wanted to sell your rights
to some other guardian, who would then potentially
benefit from the trust shares they could claim as
reimbursement.
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