Some concerns regarding Ron Paul's plans for education. by Analysis
(statist)
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Dr. Ron Paul has proposed some changes to the education system he will try to pass if elected president. Most of them involve limiting the central government's involvement on issues dealing with the education system. I have some concerns regarding these new changes and some of Dr. Paul's ideas regarding schooling.
The congressman is in favor of vouchers and promotes "parental choice" to where they want their child to go to school. These include private, parochial and religious schools. Giving vouchers to a parent to send their child to a religious or parochial school is cutting close to the establishment clause and church and state separation since the tax credit will help fund such schooling. I am concerned about the repercussions this might have on the separation of church and state we have enjoyed.
Furthermore, while the vouchers may help some families, but it will leave others behind who can't pay for the rest of the tuition or may be inconvenienced by transportation to the school of their choice. Is the 3000 dollars in tax credit (as proposed by the Ron Paul for President Website) enough to pay for the schooling of your child if you want him to go to a prestigious private school? The tuition for private schools here in San Diego can reach from 9500 to 13000 dollars. New York City schools are even more. What about the ones who can't afford to bring their children to better yet less convenient school almost every day? I am sure Dr. Paul means well, but I am concerned that this "choice of schooling" will only privilege those who can afford it.
I am generally in favor of the "No Child Left Behind" act (H.R. 1). I think it may need some revisions, but overall it appears to be having some success. For instance, 8th grader math levels reached an all time high in 2007. The National Report Card shows impressive results in the reading levels of nine year olds since the NCLB act was introduced. Academically at least forty-three states have improved according to the National Report Card released October 2005. I am concerned about getting rid of the Department of Education and H.R. 1. I believe our efforts should be working on the act to achieve even greater results rather than doing away with the entire project.
In conclusion, I am concerned that some of Ron Paul's academic plans may only privilege the wealthy, cause problems with church and state and get rid of some programs we might be better off with.
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Posted By: Kevin Houston
Date: 2008-03-25 10:36:56
Really, a school voucher is no different than a charitable-gift tax deduction.
In both cases, the individual taxpayer is directing his/her own money to a religious endeavor in lieu of sending it to the state.
This whold idea about school vouchers going to religious institutions being a violation of separation of church and state is a bunch of hogwash.
The real crux of the matter is to make certain that no taxpayer receives more in vouchers than they would have otherwise paid in taxes. If a family only pays $200.00 / yr in federal taxes, then it is wrong to give them a $5000.00 voucher, regardless of what kind of school they send their child to.
So long as they are spending their own money, and not someone else's then there is no conflict with the constitution.
I will cover the No Child Left Behind Act part of your post, as I have vehemotely spoken against it.
What H.R. 1 has succeeded in doing is not what it was inteded for. It's lowered the standards, disrupted critical thinking, abandoned artistic programs and ultimately gives the power of the schools to the federal government.
Sure, you wouldn't have a problem with that, but you know what? My government can't seem to do very good with any of the tax money I give them already. So why should I believe that they can do any better with my child? No thanks. I'll home school or fit the bill for a private school.
I think you need to research Ron Paul's positions a little more closely. He is a strong proponent of tax credits for private education and for homeschooling, but he is against vouchers, since they would likely come with government strings attached.
We will never have freedom or an optimal education system until the government is completely out of it.
Posted By: patrick henry
Date: 2008-03-25 11:58:52
1st off your understanding of the "seperation of church and state" is severely flawed. Jefferson wrote copious amounts on the topic advocating a "wall be built between the church and state". Yet in our current Constitution, the 1st Ammend states that the Congress shall make no law abridging the right of people to freely practice there own religion. This is in no way similar to what you are proposing as the point of conflict. The Federal government stating people cannot attend a religious school would be a more fitting example.
As far as inconveniencing you to travel farther thats up tou you not to attend if inconvenient.
the NCLB Act is nothing but a further attempt to dumb down our society. By teaching for a test the children have no opportunity to gain understanding which greatly decreases their ability for cognitive creative thought. The "studies and tests" that say our children are doing better comes from the Department of Plenty, which is in fact more doublethink which is meant to influence our "choices".
This trend started in the 60s with the devaluation of the dollar causing mothers to leave the homes in order to make ends meet. This was an "opportunity" to have the state help us out with child care. This caused Americans to willing give their children to the state. Now they bobard us with the "fact" that our children are undereducated compared to the rest of the World. If this be the case tell me one country that produces as much innovation as the US? This is quickly coming to an end as the war on the middle class continues. Read 1984 for more insight.
Bootom line: Who knows better whats best for your kids than you? The Benevolent government? Get real and smell the boiling frog.
So lemme get this straight you believe the Federal Government is capable of creating a curriculum on which our children will thrive. Well sorry history seems to be against you on that, most states that already have open enrollment programs are seeing increases in the test scores. But how is a test score a real evaluation of a childs actual retained knowledge of the subject. without a decent system to actually grade our childrens knowledge then it requires Parents to be involved with their childrens education. (sound familiar)? It should back in the day parents not only care about their children but cared for them. In today's day and age you have more tv's and video games and microwaves caring for kids. Less the parents. Lets not get started with the economic crisis that is going on tho. Despite that a voucher system would practically mean that any child any where in the country can go to any school their parents want as long as they pay the rest of the cost out of pocket. But an open educational system would result in the privatization of education due to the increased likelihood of private schools offering competitive prices, better education and higher teachers pay. Competition genernally leads to better quality with lower prices. The business aspect creates an idea that if they are going to charge more the schools have to be self promoting. Something you will never see in the public or state system. It is so backlogged right now with going through and just updating the out of date material that a private investor would be able to create school that could rival most public schools rather easily. The fact is that if you take your money and spend it on a school instead of the government taking your money giving it to the public school and that leaves our children at the mercy of whatever the government decides is a good education . That should be left up to the parent since they are personally responsible for their childs upbringing.
Sure the kids are doing better on tests, that's what they're being trained to do. These children, I have 2 in public school, are constantly tested and their education is dominated by doing well on the EOGs. The schools that fail are repremanded by the government by withholding funding which, of course, usually means poorer districts get less funding than wealthier ones. The wealthier students have access to better resources, such as tutoring, and a better defacto education as they come from families more likely to be educated than their poorer peers. In the last school district my children attended the NCLB system was implemented and I was appalled at it's arbitrary nature. Grades could be fudged easily by teachers looking to improve their standing and I found that it took more power away from the parents. If I could have afforded to send my children to private school I would have. Just a side note, not all private schools are religious so I think your fear of losing the barrier of religion and state is unfounded.
I think HR1 is a great idea. I know that when I went to private school, my parents had a hard time with the tuition payments and even though neither me or my brothers were in public school at the time, my parents had to pay into a system we weren't even using. I find it asinine that people have to pay into the public school system even though they dont, have never, and/ or never will use it. Why not let me put my money where I could use it best?
I think that for people against vouchers they think that schools will be short funded from them, but really it should want schools to want to step up their standards so that they dont lose all their students to the better school down the street.
Being able to have freedom in where you send your kids to school should be something we should be promoting not fighting against.. Unless maybe you're involved with the beauracracy where the most of tax dollars for schools goes right now..
A baloo is a bear. Skulch is Junk. A wuzzle is a mix.
Those are examples of answers for comprehension, memorization, and matching questions from the standardized testing I was given in the 80's and 90's. You can of course see how important it is to know those words and how useful they will be to me in later life. Fill in all your bubbles completely and fully and use a #2 pencil.
When you have standardized testing, then teachers and administrations teach to the test...not to comprehension, not to understanding, certainly not for creativity, and damn sure not for the creation and synthesis of new information. The real reason that school choice is so often considered wrong (or right by its advocates) is that it breaks the monopoly of the state, and because it so obviously shows its flaws. Obviously choice in education cannot be allowed if our children are not all fed into the machinery to make perfect carbon copies of learning...all children must be perfectly interchangable little parts for our factories and check-out aisles or we will have failed them (SARCASM ALERT).
Chad_Underdonk, you are perfectly right: it's not possible to have an effective teaching / learning process when what is evaluated is the product and not the process. Pupils are not sausages. Skill acquisition involves learning to execute with the minimum effort to achieve *predetermined effects*.They must be skilled, but they also have imagination, creativity to be expanded and they must acquire knowledge so that they can really *be*.
I'm not american and I'm surprised to know that, in what concerns education, it's happening *exactly* the same in the USA as in many european and south american countries, where teachers are manifesting against this situation and in many cases the parents too.
The Federal Department of Education is a waste of money. It does nothing but control education and takes money away from those that fail to meet test standards, especially the very schools it supposedly is helping. Secondly the idea that the DoE can collect and store for research everything about our children is rather frightful. NCLB has done nothing but divide teachers and parents with each blaming the other and both asking for more money (which we don't have).
I like the idea of being able to choose not only the schools but the classes as well. Classes you don't need you simply should not have to take. I like the way the community colleges are run, paying a small fee for classes and those from out of state pay full price. We waste a lot of money having our children take classes they will never need. If your child doesn't want to be a rocket scientist forcing him/her to take those classes is a waste and doomed to failure. Maybe your child is more motivated in music or something else.
On June 27, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Cleveland’s school choice program in the most important education decision since Brown v. Board of Education. The court’s ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris removed the federal Constitution from the legal arsenal of teachers’ unions and other school choice opponents and opened the door to full vindication of Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity for all.
The average cost per child per year in the United States for public K-12th grade is over $9000.00. In San Diego its probably more because ... well its California. So whatever the average cost in your community would be is what the voucher is worth to any school. Public or Private. So the schools would need to compete in order to keep their classes full. The voucher program would level the playing field, and benefit less well off children, because the best schools will be competing for their voucher money.
I don't consider the distinction between tax credits and vouchers to be as significant as some of the other commenters do. But I would like you to explain why you, the Congress, and the Supreme Court feel that providing aid to parents sending their chldren to St. Anne's or Hillel Day School or Sumter Christian school would be establishment of religion, while providing grants and guaranteeing loans to send later to Notre Dame, Presbyterian College, or Yeshiva University would not.
My guess would be to discourage parents from sending their children to non-public institutions that the state and fed have no control over the content of the education. I don't think state or fed can force those schools to teach the state agenda or take tests, I believe they are required to obey only if they accept public money.
This is not going to fix problems with the educational system.
About fifteen years ago, when the hitech industry was going strong, companies like Apple, IBM, and MicroSoft were offering teachers with only four year degrees $60,000 dollars to join their ranks. The ones with the most ambition and talent took the offers. The ones who were more comfortable with the security provided by tenure making it not neccessary to be creative or compete for a living remained. This, of course, as it does in any socialist economy, led to a poor product. Teachers with Masters degrees are still not making that much money. Instead of raising pat level, even universities that are supposed to have the brightest people in the country working for them are, instead, taking advantage of H1-B foreign worker visas to fill their ranks.
Education did not respond to this corporate raid on its talent with better opportunities with higher pay in order to retain their talent. Instead of whining in their socialist wombs, they need to get with it and we need to support them in their resurrection instead of burdening them with budget cuts.
I am sorry I haven't been able to respond to your comments. I am usually busy during the week. I have read them though and they did give me a better understanding of the topic. I will try to research more about it when I find the time. Thank you.
You should thank the H-1B visa workers for paying into our social security and medicare, for which their visa will run out before they will ever see a dime. I would think it would be obvious to most why companies and the government want them here.
"Furthermore, while the vouchers may help some families, but it will leave others behind who can't pay for the rest of the tuition or may be inconvenienced by transportation to the school of their choice."
What people need to do is get off their duffs and make more money. Don't try and say that is not possible or plausable and the "state" needs to help all as I went from $9-12 to over $30 an hour after applying myself. If you are not making money in the USA then you are not trying.
The fed needs to get out of education. The DOE is top heavy and really does very little.
I don't understand your reasoning concerning the separation of church and state that we have "enjoyed." How is the government not taking our money, and in fact giving it back to give families a choice in education anywhere close to a breach of separation of church and state? Freedom of religion is part of what this country was built upon, and here you are saying how awful it would be if we were allowed to choose to send our kids to a private school rather than a state "school."
I'll never understand why statists exist in America. A statist believes in everything this country wasn't. Slowly but surely, those of the mindset that the government is the be all end all of their lives are ruining this country. Because why look for the best for yourself and your kids when you can rely on the government to do it for you, am I right? We've become a nation of lazy schmucks who perpetually have their hands out stretched to the government. How about instead of demanding handouts, we don't give the money to the government in the first place? It gives us freedom of choice, more money in our pockets, and independence from the grasp of an increasingly ridiculous governing body.
