It's unfortunate...

[A Black Falcon]

*sigh* You never get it. You never read between the lines.

If you take all the money now wasted on public education and instead used it as voucher money for private schools, even if taxes had to be raised a bit to cover the extra money, then profits would not be a problem because many children are being paid for by the government. It comes as a simple replacement of the system that already exists. The difference is that the government is paying for the tuition, but not for the schools themselves.

I know that entire paragraph will be ignored in your coming response, but I tried.

I've already responded to exactly that question.

Sure, schools with more money do better. However, take your average inner-city public school. Even if you sunk extra money into renovating the building and improving the curriculum, that money could not fix the other major problems, the violent atmosphere, the guns and drugs and violence that go a much longer way towards destroying inner-city schools than lack of funding.

You underestimate the effect of better funding. Its not just a building. Its having enough teachers. Better curriculums. After-school programs. Extracurricular activities and encouraging people to participate in them. And working to fight atmospheres of drugs and violence. None of that can be done with Republican funding levels.

There have been programs not only to inflate grades, but inflate SAT scores as well, and it is quite widespread. Standards across the board are dropping all the time.

Slightly, but its hardly a big problem.

Nintendarse says that schools should not be the arbiters of a children's morals. I somewhat disagree with him on the matter, but what does sex-ed and multiculturalism do? Nothing you learn in those classes will prepare you for your future in the workforce. They don't even teach you any skills (except apparently how to properly use condoms). They are worthless classes, and a waste of taxpayer money. Schools should be teaching students skills to survive in the world, not teaching them about getting laid as early as the age of nine! If those classes were replaced with infinitely more useful classes, such as computer programming or introductory business courses, students would benefit to a much greater extent.

'but'? That should be 'because'...

And school isn't just for what will immediately become useful in life. Its for learning things, important and less important to your work or life... its for LEARNING.

Oh, what do you mean by "multiculturalism"? I don't really understand what you mean by it...

As for sex ed, its a very important class. Sure it might not help a lot, but its VERY important to have the class... and it doesn't just teach you how to use condoms.

Sure everyone hates it but that doesn't mean it should go away, or that it has no use. It does.

Think of all the money public schooling would have if tax funds weren't wasted on silly environmental protections, anti-tobacco lawsuits, and welfare waste?

It's not our fault, bud. And like in all the programs mentioned above, even if the money were there, it would be laundered and wasted anyway, as it has been for much of the last twenty years.

Uh... yeah. Right.



*backs away slowly*

The nice men in the padded van will be here soon...

And the poor kids get left behind.

Exactly!

Absolutely not. Do you think all parents would get vouchers? I favor the sliding-scale idea, where parents pay a higher percent of the tuition depending on their income. That would take some of the burden off of the government as well, which could be used for even more voucher money. When schools are a private interest, there will be a much higher incentive to keep them in top shape. And of course, since the government will be supplying a lot of their tuition, it would have supervisory roles to keep them in line, without directly controlling them.

Ever heard of the idea that public education should be free? I think it makes some sense... saying that people have to PAY for their children go to school -- and if this is private school the bills could be quite high -- is both insane and would be a disasterous idea to implement.

As would be turning over all schooling to private schools, for all the reasons that we have mentioned... most of which you don't address... probably because you have no answer.

Now, I don't think it's the school's prerogative to teach kids about sex, especially at the young ages that the programs start (my first sex-ed class was at the age of nine). The school has no obligations to tell a kid anything about sex. It is up to parents to educate their children on that matter.

Parents? Do you live on Earth or Fantasy-land? That's absurd. Parents should do something but usually don't do enough early enough... it makes sense since its a touchy topic...

No, you can't rely on parents. The schools must do something. Sure kids don't take a lot out of it but if they didn't have that they'd have ONLY rumors to go on, and that'd be a even bigger disaster than the current state of the issue! THINK!

Well, in my opinion schools should teach morals, because morals are not universal. There are certain things society accepts and certain things it does not. I know children need to have their own values, but they also need a base to start from, and if they start with no morals, they'll never acquire them on their own.

What morals? Most of the ones you're probably thinking of adding to curriculums aren't universal...

From my experience, sex-ed classes basically scared the crap out of you sexually, basically telling you that sex is Russian Roulette and if you hit wrong you'll end up with a myriad of colorful venereal diseases (accompanied by colorful, detailed images). And yet, I guess they aren't working because teen sex is always rising.

Sure it could/should be better but its many, many times better than your non-solution to the problem.