4 ms·

The line should be drawn wherever parents, teachers, and librarians choose to draw it. Politicians should not be involved. Top-down meddling has destroyed publi

The line should be drawn wherever parents, teachers, and librarians choose to draw it. Politicians should not be involved. Top-down meddling has destroyed public education in USA, and this is just more of that. At some point we should stop making public schools worse.

crackercrews 4y ago
Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. Bad assumption. That's a fundamental POV difference between "I pay taxes to fund the public education system" and "I pay taxes to pay for kids to go to some school". The notion that those tax dollars belong to the parents and not specifically the public school system depends on which of those you think is, or should be, the case. For my part, if the money's not exclusively funding the public school system, I don't want to pay any taxes toward schools. Talk about bottom up! [EDIT] FWIW I'm actually for allowing districts to experiment with this, because I doubt mine would do it and I think the results would be hilarious, but would prefer not to have to move to another state to avoid it, so would rather the red parts of my state not impose it on my district.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  I live in one of the most rural counties in Missouri, where libraries could actually close as a result, and I doubt I could find one parent in ten among my neighbors who wants the legislature to waste time on this cynical grandstanding. The problem with our libraries is not that there is pornography there. One notes that both of the execrable politicians quoted in TFA represent suburban districts on the Kansas border. I'm sure there are people in the Ozarks who agree with them, but overall we've got different priorities. The unwarranted assumption you make in this comment is that legislation in USA reflects the will of the population. That is very rarely the case, and this is a perfect example. No one in this state woke up this morning worried about porn in an elementary school library. I support vouchers, because even imperfect improvements are improvements. If a child isn't being served by a school, even poor parents should be able to do something about that. We can imagine a world in which the public schools offer enough options to help every child, but we don't live there yet.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  > Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? Indeed. I think jessuastin probably meant something like nationalized identity-driven politics. It's a valid difference. > If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. I like choice but not vouchers. There are basically two issues with vouchers. The first is that they're usually implemented in a fashion that is simultaneously regressive (on income) and re-distributive (on geography). Ie, they're often implemented as pure grift. The second, and more important, is that we already have experimented with a hybrid public/private system where some public funds flow to private options! The result is runaway spending and the market driving emphasis toward a bunch of bullshit cost disease stuff instead of actual learning outcomes. No matter how bad our public K12 system is, you will never convince me that our higher ed system is better, and that's what an American public/private hybrid system would, empirically, end up converging to. I could get behind a voucher system that (1) gives each kid the same amount of cash and also (2) caps all tuition and fees for any school receiving even a dollar of voucher cash. I'd also be okay with just not providing state funding for education at all, but it'd be a sort of terrible world for most families and I genuinely wonder how many people realize how bad things would get for most families...
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Well.. to that I would say that parents HAVE drawn a line and teachers and people without children, perhaps such as yourself, are pushing back. Parents, IMO, should be the ones to draw the line. Not the teachers, not the state, and not third-parties that are fighting a political war. As for top-down meddling, I agree with that. The Department of Education has been the worst thing for America's education system, not to mention half-baked federal policies on healthy eating. The issue is that teachers and the administration are the government in most places. So if we are to have less meddling it would be to empower the parents to make decisions - to draw the line as you say - and force the schools and the teachers to follow that line.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  Parents have some measure of authority in their homes, although sometimes the law acts in the interests of e.g. abused children. Public employees on public property don't take direction from parents, nor should they. Public school employees are managed by an elected body called the school board. Since school boards meet in the actual communities they govern, they are often somewhat democratic in nature. If parents don't like this situation, they can keep the children home where bookshelves, if they existed, would contain nothing but bibles and the "Left Behind" series. (Too bad about algebra and English...) State legislatures are mostly not democratic. Rather than implementing the will of their constituents, state legislators spend their time campaigning and representing for those who fund their campaigning. TFA is just another example. "...to draw the line as you say..." To be clear, you introduced this banal cliche, and I used it once in response.

crackercrews 4y ago

Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get.

yamtaddle 4y ago
> If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. Bad assumption. That's a fundamental POV difference between "I pay taxes to fund the public education system" and "I pay taxes to pay for kids to go to some school". The notion that those tax dollars belong to the parents and not specifically the public school system depends on which of those you think is, or should be, the case. For my part, if the money's not exclusively funding the public school system, I don't want to pay any taxes toward schools. Talk about bottom up! [EDIT] FWIW I'm actually for allowing districts to experiment with this, because I doubt mine would do it and I think the results would be hilarious, but would prefer not to have to move to another state to avoid it, so would rather the red parts of my state not impose it on my district.
jessaustin 4y ago
I live in one of the most rural counties in Missouri, where libraries could actually close as a result, and I doubt I could find one parent in ten among my neighbors who wants the legislature to waste time on this cynical grandstanding. The problem with our libraries is not that there is pornography there. One notes that both of the execrable politicians quoted in TFA represent suburban districts on the Kansas border. I'm sure there are people in the Ozarks who agree with them, but overall we've got different priorities. The unwarranted assumption you make in this comment is that legislation in USA reflects the will of the population. That is very rarely the case, and this is a perfect example. No one in this state woke up this morning worried about porn in an elementary school library. I support vouchers, because even imperfect improvements are improvements. If a child isn't being served by a school, even poor parents should be able to do something about that. We can imagine a world in which the public schools offer enough options to help every child, but we don't live there yet.
thwayunion 4y ago
> Aren't politicians involved whenever the will of the voters is being enacted? What if most parents in MO support what the politicians are doing? What if they called their representatives and asked them to take action against libraries? Indeed. I think jessuastin probably meant something like nationalized identity-driven politics. It's a valid difference. > If you oppose top-down meddling in public education then I assume you support vouchers? That's about as bottom-up as things get. I like choice but not vouchers. There are basically two issues with vouchers. The first is that they're usually implemented in a fashion that is simultaneously regressive (on income) and re-distributive (on geography). Ie, they're often implemented as pure grift. The second, and more important, is that we already have experimented with a hybrid public/private system where some public funds flow to private options! The result is runaway spending and the market driving emphasis toward a bunch of bullshit cost disease stuff instead of actual learning outcomes. No matter how bad our public K12 system is, you will never convince me that our higher ed system is better, and that's what an American public/private hybrid system would, empirically, end up converging to. I could get behind a voucher system that (1) gives each kid the same amount of cash and also (2) caps all tuition and fees for any school receiving even a dollar of voucher cash. I'd also be okay with just not providing state funding for education at all, but it'd be a sort of terrible world for most families and I genuinely wonder how many people realize how bad things would get for most families...

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Well.. to that I would say that parents HAVE drawn a line and teachers and people without children, perhaps such as yourself, are pushing back. Parents, IMO, should be the ones to draw the line. Not the teachers, not the state, and not third-parties that are fighting a political war. As for top-down meddling, I agree with that. The Department of Education has been the worst thing for America's education system, not to mention half-baked federal policies on healthy eating. The issue is that teachers and the administration are the government in most places. So if we are to have less meddling it would be to empower the parents to make decisions - to draw the line as you say - and force the schools and the teachers to follow that line.

jessaustin 4y ago
Parents have some measure of authority in their homes, although sometimes the law acts in the interests of e.g. abused children. Public employees on public property don't take direction from parents, nor should they. Public school employees are managed by an elected body called the school board. Since school boards meet in the actual communities they govern, they are often somewhat democratic in nature. If parents don't like this situation, they can keep the children home where bookshelves, if they existed, would contain nothing but bibles and the "Left Behind" series. (Too bad about algebra and English...) State legislatures are mostly not democratic. Rather than implementing the will of their constituents, state legislators spend their time campaigning and representing for those who fund their campaigning. TFA is just another example. "...to draw the line as you say..." To be clear, you introduced this banal cliche, and I used it once in response.