Best line of all the debates so far: "Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run 4 years ago."
Scare tactics. Vouchers are what 9000 poor people line up for when there's 1000 vouchers available. They want OUT of your pet system.
This makes no sense. They spend $10K/student in the public schools. It costs $5K/student in a Catholic school where almost all the kids graduate and actually learn to read (as opposed to age appropriate sex education).
I'm not sure why you feel this is invoking Oliver Twist. In every era, including the current one, privatized systems price a number of people out of services. For some services, that's fine. Not everyone should be able to eat in fine restaurants or buy pricey cars, if they can't afford it. Some services many of us consider essential, like education and health care. Those should definitely be socialized, in my opinion, so that everyone has access to them.
I agree we shouldn't steal money from the rich and give it directly to the poor. But I do believe, as a society, we have a moral obligation to provide for people when times are hard. I think we have a moral obligation to help people with their health problems. My dad worked his way through college, and worked for 35 years. In the past year, he has lost his house, lost his job, and is living in a homeless shelter all because the health insurance company refused to pay for his treatment, even though it was covered in his health insurance plan. You are not going to convince me that that's fair. Obama is providing the right plans to help fundamentally strengthen America. You can work hard for all your life and end up not having anything to show for all your hard work.
You do realize a voucher pays for things, right? That's the whole purpose of "the voucher system". Sure, the poorest of poor may not be able to afford the top notch private school...but it could certainly level the playing field for an average middle class family who wants to send their child to a private school that is a step above what they are currently sending him/her to. And even the poor will be able to step up and get into a better school. In my opinion, many of the schools are nothing more than glorified babysitting services. When you bring CHOICE into the picture and a real stake in a child's education rather than some "free shit to pass the time while the parent's are working", it becomes more valuable.
Don't you know, its patriotic to do so. Everyone who eats at a nice restaurant should give their appetizers to people at fast food establishments!!
Simply amazing. They give vouchers to students to go to Notre Dame and the same people who oppose K-12 vouchers applaud that. On the other topic, if they're going to redistribute wealth then they should just do it. Tax the rich, write a check to the poor. Cut out all the govt. bullshit layers in between.
Where does it end though? An illegal immigrant who lives and works here can be denied all of these things even in an emergency, yet the work that they do stimulates the economy. There is a lot of gray area on this issue.
Well, healthcare reform is important. Its a stupid system right now and needs reform. Not universal coverage. Look, your dad had coverage, but it sucked. That is what may happen if we nationalize or universalize healthcare. Ever try getting anything from the government? You take the exisiting system, then add EVERYONE in the country to it or have government control it and assume its going to get better? its a large beast, but I don't think providing coverage is the job of the government. They should regulate companies from bad business practices and foster an envirnoment in which a fair system is enacted.
Since a lot of school funding mechanisms are tied up in property taxes, it's got a whole lot less to do with earned income taxes and cascading tax rates than you'd think. More affluent neighborhoods have higher property values and hence more dollars to put into their school systems and usually more dollars allocated for actual educational purposes instead of siphoning off money to deal with remedial education, security, and having to deal with recruitment of new teachers to replace those who burnout. The real issue in schools as far as I can see is that parental involvement in poorer neighborhoods is usually pretty abysmal, while parental involvement in richer schools is usually pretty good (PTA, volunteering, holding their children accountable, teaching their kids to read before arriving at kindergarten, etc.) It's not a money issue, it's a personal responsibility/involvement issue ... at the very least my father and Aunt who are both school teachers see it that way (one a teacher at a private school in Burbank CA, the other a teach in a very poor school in in Springfield OR).
Yeah, but I'm sure there is some casual correlation between tax rates and property tax rates, in general. And as a former high school teacher, I agree with your second point. Parental involvement has more to do with one's success than almost anything else IMO. That and one's attitude. Postitive attitude towards education = success in education.
some will, some won't. sometimes the administration is too ass backwards. there's also the increasing threat of safety in bad school districts. gangs, drugs, race wars, etc. Its a whole fucked up system...which is why people who want to really succeed should get vouchers and choose where they want to. The losers can go to trade schools to learn how to fix a car or unclog a toilet, both profitable careers.* *not saying plumbers and car mechanics are losers...they just don't really need a whole lot of history, math and what not....no need to waste a bunch of time with that shit.
i'm not sure that i can agree with that. if they care about their kid's education, they get involved regardless of the state of the school. edit - and to me the most important parts of parent involvement are simply making the kid go to school, making sure they do their homework, knowing when projects and things are due and making sure they are done, making it so if the kid is getting in trouble at school they are in trouble at home as well, and so on. none of which have much at all to do with anything the parent would physically do at the school(like pta and volunteering and thing which are nice, but i don't feel are as important).
If you oppose school vouchers, I suggest you take a trip into the ghettos of the big cities like Washington, DC and Baltimore and look at the kids who are being short-changed and disadvantaged because of all the bullshit bureaucracy. Time after time states and cities with high tax rates give money into these city schools with no improvements. Regardless if you want to blame the teachers unions that have the system by the balls, or the cities that don't know how to spend it properly, it's a disservice to the taxpayers, the parents, and the students. Until somebody comes forth with a comprehensive plan to revamp education, so that African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities in these inner cities can receive the same quality of education as everyone else, school vouchers must be an option.
They get involved to the point they realize how messed up the system is, that they can't get the bad teachers fired, and they realize the teachers don't care if the kids get an education at all.
