Take YOUR Kid Out of School Without Permission? Court Will Take Your Furniture...or Jail Term.

originally posted by: MOMof3

Well, now that I have the republican agenda figured out, not just for our kids, but for the whole nation, I am going to go throw up from terror.

I'm not sure your point. Lets say as an extreme example you want your child to attend a school that is 40 miles away. Today you can't unless it is private and you foot the whole bill including the travel. If you could be offered a voucher it would pay for the school but since it IS your choice to move your child to another school it is up to YOU to get them there.

How is this bad? Today you foot everything, or you have zero choices at all.... Nothing says you would need to move your kids, enjoy the local school, put you kids on the school bus then...I do. My local schools are great, but that is not always the case, now is it?

originally posted by: kaylaluv

So, transportation now becomes an issue. What if the closest "good" school is all full and can accept no new students? Now you have to travel further and further to try and find a good school that isn't booked up with a waiting list. And what if the good school is in the rich neighborhood (to make it more convenient for the rich not to have to travel so far), and the snobby rich kids pick on the poor guy?

It's the ability to have a choice where today you have none... Why is that hard to understand.

If we did have vouchers you would see a huge increase in private schools, that typically do better than public schools.

I'd rather try to make ALL public schools equally good so that the one in the poor neighborhood is just as good as the one in the rich neighborhood. Then you don't need vouchers.

Really? You think it is money that differs the schools? It is the kids that go to these schools, the families they come from, the neighborhoods create the schools good or bad.

So how do we make them equal when it is the character of the neighborhood that creates the character of the school?

a reply to: Annee

Fact is Fact.

You enroll your child in public/government school - - - your child is the marker for payment. No Marker - No Payment.

Fact is fact.

If you don't enroll your child in a school you go to jail.

Your logic would make sense if education wasn't compulsory.

Which, it shouldn't be.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: Xtrozero

Well, now that I have the republican agenda figured out, not just for our kids, but for the whole nation, I am going to go throw up from terror.

Boy, I wish this was part of the "republican" agenda (I think you mean Republican btw) but, it is sadly not.

For the last 40 years we have been genuinely attempting to make nationally socialized education work. I should note that I am not intentionally throwing "national socialism" in there as a jibe but, it is what it is. You should think deeply about that connection, it is no coincidence.

Each time we increase funding and enhance authority, we produce tremendous unintentional harm. It is time to stop digging the hole. Our children (and ultimately society) are the victims of this wholly political and irrational adherence to this now well established destructive policy.

We are currently spending tens of thousands of dollars per student which could be better used by parents to educate their children in the ways that they find most effective. Ways that are necessarily not the same for every child.

Temper tantrums will not make it better.

a reply to: greencmp

You lose me with the propaganda about the expense of education when we are at war continuously. I guess each party will have to show where its priorities lie.

a reply to: MOMof3

You want expense of education?

Today, most public schools spend well over $10,000/pupil, even the crappy districts like DC. In fact, DC public schools was pushing over $20,000/student in the inner city districts where parents line up around the block to signup their kids for voucher lotteries because the school suck that bad.

You do not need that much money. Most private schools which do a far better job at educating have better everything for about half that cost per pupil.

But the response is never that it might be systemic issues of the school or the family that cause the trouble. It's always that they don't have the funding ...

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: greencmp

You lose me with the propaganda about the expense of education when we are at war continuously. I guess each party will have to show where its priorities lie.

I have to admit that we spend about the same on defense and socialist policies and they both show little sign of effectiveness.

That said, neither can be summarily dismantled. At least there is a viable solution to socialized education which can be phased in. I have yet to produce an alternative to our military for our national defense that I could defend with a straight face.

a reply to: greencmp

Instinct tells me that no country can prosper forever on war. We keep neglecting our citizens, it is only going to get worse. Anyway, the republicans will probably win with their two level society. I am depressed, good night, will go hug my grandbaby.

I am off topic anyway. Except, if you want to destroy a town, destroy its school.

a reply to: Anneehow the blank are you straling from the goverment if you take YOUR CHILD ON VACATION ITS YOUR TAX DOLLARS THAT THEY ARE SPENDING. i have said it before this is what happens when you let bureaucrats control your lives . i live in America and i believe the correct English language response would be. to tell these jokers to sod off. see thats why you need a base ball bat instead of a crcket bat.

originally posted by: proteus33
a reply to: Anneehow the blank are you straling from the goverment if you take YOUR CHILD ON VACATION ITS YOUR TAX DOLLARS THAT THEY ARE SPENDING. i have said it before this is what happens when you let bureaucrats control your lives . i live in America and i believe the correct English language response would be. to tell these jokers to sod off. see thats why you need a base ball bat instead of a crcket bat.

Read the thread. It's been explained.

If you don't understand it, I cant help you.

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: Annee

I Understand there is a truancy problem..I can only surmise that Canadian schools have less problems with truancy?
Here it is whatever dollar figure per student based on total enrolment for the year..I think property tax ties into it via how many kids are in each household and how its divided among schools..daily attendance is not a factor at this time.
I was pretty bad in high school attendance wise due to family crap..I got kicked out in grade 9 and that was it.
I think the story in the OP is insane.

Thanks for a reasonable post to me.

I don't know how it all works - - the accounting details. I just know "they" don't mess around with attendance - - and loss of funding for an absent student is the reason.

Not only absent, but being late. Attendance is taken in the morning. If student is not there, they are not counted. Even if they show up 10 minutes after the count.

We, as parents (grandparent) are informed that child must be on time. And doctor's appointments are preferred in the afternoon, so student can be counted (kid you not).

There's little difference between truant and late.

We got some nasty letters and calls because my granddaughter was late too many times. We really had no control over her father bringing her to school on Monday, after spending the weekend with him. Numbers on paper don't care what the parent situation is.

I rarely post, but I'll say this: the fact you somehow deem this type of system as not only acceptable, but also as necessary is beyond any logical faculties of human experience.

Kids need to go to school. Truancy is an issue. Financing does play a role in the matter. The negative responses you've received have for the most part logically understood these things as obvious. What you don't seem to understand is the complete lack of common sense or humanity in threatening jail time for people going on vacation.

So, if the system is flawed, well people need to fix it. Is that your response? Good one. They should. Any system that deems it necessary to make an example out of people in the name of the 'good of the child' by placing his parents under arrest, or taking assets from the parents that the kid benefits from is essentially the definition of insanity as it does neither and actually does the opposite.

Your concern is a systemic one, by which kids need to attend school, or else the system collapses upon itself. Fair enough. You are right. Still, when the system itself is allowed to act in such a manner as to harm a child, through harming his parents, as to make an example of the parents in the benefit of the child, hasn't the system become one no longer worth funding?

originally posted by: Xtrozero


Really? You think it is money that differs the schools? It is the kids that go to these schools, the families they come from, the neighborhoods create the schools good or bad.

So how do we make them equal when it is the character of the neighborhood that creates the character of the school?

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education documents that schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because school districts across the country are inequitably distributing their state and local funds.

The analysis of new data on 2008-09 school-level expenditures shows that many high-poverty schools receive less than their fair share of state and local funding, leaving students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources than schools attended by their wealthier peers.

www.ed.gov...

originally posted by: Annee
Here we go again.

Schools work on a very tight budget. They are paid only if student is in attendance.

You take your kid out of school - - you are stealing from the government.

You don't want your kid in a government school - - then pay for a private one.

oh come now. you see nothing wrong with any of this? just hunky dory?

this is all bullcrap. if i ever have kids i do not need no damn permission to take them home.

they can take their permission and shove it.

Jude Jude Jude.....When will yooooo ever learn!

a reply to: kaylaluv

Here you go.

DCPS reported that it spends $18,000/pupil, and it LIED. It's actually more like $27,263/pupil. That is more than the yearly tuition will ever be at the private school I'll be using (almost triple), and I would bet just about anything my kid will get a better education than any of those kids in DCPS.

So what about equality? If I can find a place that can deliver a respected education for under $10,000/year even up to high school, then why can't DCPS do the same with their kids for much more, and if the school I'm using had equal funding ... what kind of education could it deliver? Oh, but, we aren't talking about private schools. But if the discussion is to be about equality, then shouldn't all schools everywhere be on the table? And that's what vouchers are about.

If a school sucks, it sucks, and no one should be forced to send their kid there through legal penalty which is what this article demonstrates albeit in a different way.

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon
If you don't enroll your child in a school you go to jail.

Nope, not in the UK as the story in the OP is from.
UK parents are free to home-school if we wish, choose a private school if we can afford it, or enter into a contract with the local education authority if we enrol our kids in a state school.

Part of the contract is authorised absence for holidays or a £150 penalty.
I always lied and said my son was sick so I could enjoy the cheaper flights/holidays during term time.
A friend of mine just fronts it and pays the school before he goes on holiday as the £150 is far outweighed by the savings on flights etc by going in term time.

This is a non story, everyone I know laughs at the silly penalty as it's so easy to avoid, and the parents in the OP are either stupid, naive, or media whores.

*Edit*
...and we can simply laugh out loud at the stupid penalty because we don't have roid-rage cops with guns enforcing the rules.
Land of the free here in the UK I reckon.

What was it that nice lady said about how we "need to look differently at how children don't belong to the parents but to the community". Indoctrinate them or else. This is socialism, this is also fascism. Just names for variations in the methodology of control but control all the same.

Is this freedom? Is this self-determination? Obviously not but yet another creeping infringement on our rights as people and parents. The only thing different this time is how they've managed to somehow persuade so many that all this control is for our own good. Meanwhile the rich get richer and poor get poorer and greed and control run rampant in a society that has forgotten what freedom means and is unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to retain it.

a reply to: Asktheanimals
Absolute rubbish.
Are you from the US?
...it would explain a lot if you are because you guys are well controlled by your killer cops who enforce the rules, while we here in the UK just chuckle at the silly penalties, tell a couple of lies, and chuckle about getting away with it.
Again, the parents in the OP are stupid, naive, or media whores.

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: Asktheanimals
Absolute rubbish.
Are you from the US?
...it would explain a lot if you are because you guys are well controlled by your killer cops who enforce the rules, while we here in the UK just chuckle at the silly penalties, tell a couple of lies, and chuckle about getting away with it.
Again, the parents in the OP are stupid, naive, or media whores.

I am a little mystified by the very common retort to revelations of the damage caused by bad policies, it goes something like this...

"Don't worry about that law, just ignore it and lie if you get caught because it doesn't matter. They can't or won't prosecute you anyway."

For a group of people who are absolutely adamant that new laws must be created to right existing wrongs, this is a very cavalier attitude that I cannot reconcile.

a reply to: ketsuko

Your article talks about ONE individual school district.

Don't try to tell me that the poor neighborhood schools who don't pay their teachers as much as the richer schools, or who don't get the technology that the richer schools get, or who don't get the latest text books that the richer schools get, or who aren't able to build proper expansions onto their school buildings, and have overcrowded classrooms are bad "just because they're bad".