From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Aug 25 2001 - 00:59:04 MDT
From: "James Rogers" <jamesr@best.com>
James Rogers wrote
> So tell me again how public education and the government helped the
> poor people.
Olga replied
<<Gladly. Public education does not sanction discrimination based on
religion, ethnicity, class, and what have you (that is to say, it has truly
become more democratic lately - if only in the last few decades - and, in my
view, the bulk of good it does by this very fact alone puts it ahead of
private education).>>
At the risk of being an intolerant asshole (again!)
As it happened I went to a public high school, primarily because
my parents had (for sound economic reasons) moved to a locality
where affordable private religous schools were not available.
Thankfully the "damage" had already been done. I was already
educated by the time I went to "secondary" education. I spent
my elementary years in self-paced highly individualized Baptist
Xstian ed. It was not discriminatory on the basis of class, but
had a MASSIVE religous bias. Since most of it's student
population was drawn from the church population or from
parents who were highly motivated for their children to
receive a certain sort of education.... it was also very
monoethnic.
Public education DOES sanction discrimination, I never had a
principle who couldn't speak English properly (i.e. correct grammer
and pronunciation) while attending the "intolerant" private schools,
I was never assaulted by a gang of toughs in a private school, and
saw the matter regretfully ignored by the administration. It's
called "Equal Opportunity"...and it's awful. For everyone.
You should look into the disparity in performance on teacher's
examinations and the effects of EO and teacher's unions for
an eyeopener there.
Insofar as education has become more "non-discriminatory" (the
official version I mean) and "democratic" it has commenced to suck
more and more. This is only my opinion and experience speaking.
If you honestly believe that not discriminating based on "religion,
ethnicity, class and what have you" is worth having nearly illiterate
persons wandering about the Republic, well to be extremely nice
about it..I'm split between feeling pity and revulsion.
Discrimination based on religion, and class is very useful. And
frankly letting private schools discriminate on any other basis,
including race should they chose to do so, is a wonderful idea.
If they are at serious odds with reality... then they won't suceed
in educating as well as those who are more realistic.
Fortunately we have a growing homeschooling movement in
this country (oddly enough largely populated by those same sort
of intolerant discriminators (usually on the basis of religion) that
you believe are trumped by the public school system). While
much of the Xstian faith is utter nonsense, it does have a habit
of turning out people who are (assuming they hold to their
own values) hardworking and fairly moral citizens.
If you think public education is all that... wait 20 years and look
at the number of homeschooled kids who become professionals.
Vs. the criminal farms we have now.
/r
brian
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