Tea Party Candidate: Abolish Public Schools

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Absolutely spectacular post, there's nothing more I can add other than a job well done!

reply to post by Mr Headshot


The trick is not to let an education get in the way of learning. For those who want to learn, they will do so regardless of what the government provides or doesn't provide. The biggest problem with public schools is not how it fails those who don't really want to be there, but how it fails those who do. Too often, that failure is due to a bureaucratic system that functions as a wall to education, rather than a bridge to it.

Keep fighting the good fight, and have fun learning.

Originally posted by SimpleKnowledge
reply to post by Misoir

 

Exactly people need to become self suntanning in every category grow food for their kids, educated their kids, teach their kids skills. I don't know why weaklings fear freedom and self suntanning people.

"Self suntanning" . . . does that mean people who have are naturally dark who don't need to sunbake to turn black or brown?

I appreciate the respect you show for the dark-skinned races, but I doubt we can all change our melanin production to become like them.

reply to post by SeventhSeal


I never understood why a country built on the understanding that Government and the State are inherently evil allow that very Government to control the education system and thus the shaping of a young persons views upon what the role of Government is in their lives.

Public education is one of the worst failed experiments this country has undertook. We dump billions of dollars into the system from the Federal level down to the local levels and what do we have to show for it?

- Students get inundated with a diluted education to suffice the grooming of a good Government drone.
- Students no longer fail classes
- Students that exhibit problems are referred to undergo 'behavior modification' via drugs
- Students learn more about drugs within the public school system via the DARE programs
- Social issues are more important than reading, writing and arithmetic.

Now, I would be more in favor of abolishing the Department of Education, relinquishing oversight of education back to the State levels and community levels. In this format, states only provide the guidance to the private school systems on minimums that children must adhere to. Teachers must be held accountable as well as the students.

But I guess this is one of the 'extremist' views people keep talking about. Requiring people to be invested not only in their own lives, but their child's lives as well.

All I hear anymore is how it's wrong to let people who cannot provide for themselves go without the basic necessities of life. Yet is it not evolution that all but specifies survival of the fittest? If you can't provide for yourself, how are you yourself fit to survive much less provide for your offspring?

Not that I'm against some social programs but those programs should only be the helping hand to get by for the moment not a way of life.

Now, as for doing away with public schools, why not? Let parents put their money into where it's needed: the education of their children, instead of forcing everybody to pay into something that is mediocre at best? It's been shown that private school students test better, on average, than corresponding public school students. Sadly, even though parents may put their children into private schools, they're still taxed to pay for public schooling.

Even people without children pay taxes to fund public schools... people buy lottery tickets that provide funds to public schooling.... There is an obviously disproportionate infusion of money injected into a system that is not working.

Tell you what, let's have an option: pay taxes to get public schooling OR don't pay taxes and pay for your child(ren) to go to school. Public schools only have the money they receive from voluntary contributions just as private schools only have the money they get from voluntary contributions, both based on where to enroll your child(ren).

reply to post by SeventhSeal


Sir i am sorry but the education system sucks. Think of it as this...

Teachers go to school to collect a check and deal with kids who cannot even respect themselves non the less the newly graduated teacher (which in our generation's case, mind you I'm young) happens to look amazingly gorgeous. These kids are put into ESE classes left to right because they have no interest in learning stuff they are not going to be good at! The education system is an assembly line made to create the same minds. I am not going to make this hard for everyone... think of school being like Harry Potter. Instead of Magic, they can be teaching you about really cool stuff like how to build Alternative or Free Energy motors. You can teach kids how to actually build stuff instead of just struggling through life suffering such frustrations because of their forced reality.

Teach kids spirituality, bring out the real truth on all these suppressed technologies. Teach kids how to build green house's for their backyards! Teach kids how to plant a tree that sprout fruits in the public, so when they fall into the public grass others can eat them at will. Let kids have the option to move around different subjects that interest them!

Let's face it, we understand what the education system does! We all can't be superman, some of us have to feel discouraged and left behind. Here's a clue... you need a successful population who is brave enough to make it through school, college, and a university to buy mom and dad a house. Then you have what could have been brilliant geniuses on the other side of the population but decided to give up on school. One successful university graduate might have dinner with his entire family, while another dropped out, started selling drugs, and got locked up because of the failed war on illegal substances. Now his son is selling drugs and is in a gang and that family gets luck if the mother is strong enough to raise a family on her own.

My friend, the education system is made to whip out you're average psyche! You think these "wise" public servants of our think drugs are bad, i went to school with kids who were taking drugs left to right in high school! Guess why they were taking drugs for? Studying useless material for hours non stop. All this for what? So mommy and daddy can be away from them and not teach them anything about life? So they can become this stupid... and depend on others services to do things for them?



Lets face it, there are a lot of broken homes because of the broken education system we currently have. I graduated high school and looked into college. If i thought math was over, yeah right! Right back at you, they keep you on an assembly line through out your entire life and program in you're head that education is absolute. Come on man... this is a terrible way to go. We are entitled to a fantastic education where the kids are able to learn what interests them. There should even be classes on how to not fall for advertisements or the corporate world. These kids need real change... these kids need to live in a world where they are not forced to buy books through out their public school years for grades! These teachers are fed up having to teach the FCAT and the boring standardized testing they have to try to teach correctly through the entire year to make sure those kids pass the test and move on.

School isn't fun... people don't like to fail! So why put them in a system purposely making them fail and continue to rob them of their dignity with uniforms and less freedom of expression.



That is another program that can be reduced if the drug war and the education system fixed themselves all together. That is another story however. Listen, the Tea Party doesn't wanna shut down the public education system, i think they just want to fix it. Calm your ass down and stop instigating on the Tea Party.

reply to post by drkid


Hey drkid, you might like this:

reply to post by The Sword


Surely you jest, over worked and underpaid...............with the job they are doing I'd say they are very highy paid. Drop out rates climb, literacy goes down.......I don't know, in my profession I have to produce, not have my union make excuses and demand more and more for my underachievements. Not all teachers of course are like this, but maybe ya look into the teachers union sometime, they care not for the kids, but all about the money.

Some may think this is outrageous, but it really is not. One of the problems with public schools in the USA is that what school you attend is decided by your zip code. You do not find that in other nations around the world. In other places, they have a choice, and by having a choice you force schools to provide better education so that parents WANT to send their kids to YOUR school. Sadly we do not do that here. Instead based on your zip code you can attend a school that dont give a crap and continually scores very low. Even if a much better school is down the street. And what if you want to send your kid to that much better school? You better move.

Stop and think for one second how much better schools would be if they had to compete for you to send your kids to school. If you had a choice, do you think you would have horrible teachers employed? No you would not, they would be fired and replaced with a teacher who can do a good job. It doesn't matter if you move, because another family will move into your old place and be forced to send their kids to the school you just left. The way our system is, schools have nothing to lose. There are no consequences to a job poorly done.

I have some concern for events in the States, but what this gentleman standing for election said is a well reasoned opinion. What surprises me most is that those who identify as 'liberals' or 'Democrats' are so often for the maintaining of the status quo. Among them I see no original ideas, merely the desire to expand the federal government's role in every aspect of the lives of U.S. citizens.

The decision to demonise the Tea Party movement by the Left in the States is a catastrophic blunder. Ideas need to be engaged by opposing well-reasoned ideas. Simply calling Christine O'Donnell, by way of example, a "nutcase", a "crazy woman", a "mean woman", or a "lunatic" does more to help her candidacy than to hurt it.

I have watched over the course of many, many, many years as the level of education in the USA has declined. At first I thought it had to do with the effects of the terrible pollution in the States that many of you would not recall as you had not been born then. Now it looks almost deliberate with the loss of real nutrition in the food USAmerican children eat as well as there exposure to complex chemicals leaking from containers into their food. There is also the deleterious effect of fluoridated water upon the developing brain. Usually, US citizens I meet do not allow themselves to discuss such things. They have already been brainwashed by Monsanto and the minions of hell who are their corporate and political allies.

The actual education of children in the public schools has been in decline since Reagan was governor of California and instituted many of the practises that are so corrosive and destructive upon an educational system. It is, of course, what the Ruling Class in the USA wanted. The dumber all of you are, the easier it is for Them to contain and control you.

reply to post by ghostsoldier


You have just... oh man! THANK YOU!

OK. I'd just like to say this about that. It's not a bad long-term idea. My school district wants to build a new school. It will cost just shy of a BILLION dollars. The problem is that it must be as GREEN as possible, otherwise there will be pressure groups of one sort or anoher that will express "concerns." Did I mention this was an elementary school?

Point Two. My grandson has been labeled "developmentally disabled." The reason is that he has an accent. When he was relly young he got VERY sick and nearly died because of an asthmatic reaction. IMO some of his brain cells died, so he speaks like Elmer Fudd. He's a whizz at math (better than me), but his "verbal" skills have lagged behind.

The bottom line is that he is in an online school, "home schooled." And he's doing wonderfully. The point is that the whole idea of "school" is changing with the Internet. We don't need to have a "plant" of physical schools that cost and an arm and a leg when we have internet resources that can transformn education as we know it. The online school has certified teachers and plenty of accountabilty that is far cheaper than the current model.

The bottom line is that we are spending a lot more than we have to for education based on an old model. It's worth thinking about an alternative model.

Once you leave it to the parents to provide education, kids in little communites, such as the isolated sawmilling town I spent much of my childhood in, where the parents are not educated and don't value education, will miss out completely. Because there was free education, many, such as myself, could escape that environment and get good employment in the ourside world. Others that stayed were able to be promoted at the sawmill or learn other ways to bring in an income, transforming this sad little town into a community worth living in with a thriving tourist trade.

I hear Americans complaining online about their taxes funding education for other people's children, but rarely hear them complaining about the much larger amounts spent killing people, including fellow Americans, in unnecessary wars. Why would you rather kill people than educate your neighbours' children?

Education is a way to look after the future of the whole of the country, and stop it turning into a hole of a country.
The more educated people are, the wealthier the country becomes, and that puts butter on everyones' toast.

I do agree that the school system needs an overhaul. The (government) highschool I attended in the 70s was influenced by the current experiments in open learning, where kids didn't have to attend class and were nurtured, inspired by teachers who loved their subjects, and teachers devoted their free time to organising clubs and other free, optional activities. Being a government school, the aims had to be moderated, and we still had some pretty awful teachers, but I consider myself pretty lucky to have attended there.

At home I was being maltreated and sexually abused, and my parents would have prevented me getting any schooling if they'd had the option. Since then my education has benefitted many other people, not just myself, and enabled me to pay much more in taxes to repay my country.

Kids need education to have more practical learning time, so they can learn to do things for themselves and make the things they need.
Kids need better history and geography taught, in meaningful ways, so they can learn about the world, past and present.
Kids need maths and science taught by people who love their subjects, who can make lessons fun and interesting.
Kids need plenty of time outside, getting their daily sunshine, getting fit, and learning self-reliance and survival skills.
Kids need the opportunity to try a wide variety of arts and crafts, so they can develop their own ablities to express themselves, instead of being told to adulate the few who sell their work for absurd prices.
Kids need teachers who they can respect, people who have worked in the outside world, not bigger kids who have been to school and then teacher college, and don't have a clue about the world outside.

Kids need education that works.

And we all need to pay for it, as good education benefits the whole country.

Originally posted by Kailassa
I hear Americans complaining online about their taxes funding education for other people's children, but rarely hear them complaining about the much larger amounts spent killing people, including fellow Americans, in unnecessary wars. Why would you rather kill people than educate your neighbours' children?

Your personal story aside, you are correct here. The amount of money spent on the Department of Defense dwarfs the Department of Education.

Kids need education to have more practical learning time, so they can learn to do things for themselves and make the things they need.
Kids need better history and geography taught, in meaningful ways, so they can learn about the world, past and present.
Kids need maths and science taught by people who love their subjects, who can make lessons fun and interesting.
Kids need plenty of time outside, getting their daily sunshine, getting fit, and learning self-reliance and survival skills.
Kids need the opportunity to try a wide variety of arts and crafts, so they can develop their own ablities to express themselves, instead of being told to adulate the few who sell their work for absurd prices.
Kids need teachers who they can respect, people who have worked in the outside world, not bigger kids who have been to school and then teacher college, and don't have a clue about the world outside.

Kids need education that works.

Our current system barely covers everything you listed above, yet you advocate for it.

And we all need to pay for it, as good education benefits the whole country.

At the Federal level, excluding individual state expenditures on education, $59,210,061,000 was proposed in 2009 according to the Department of Education (SOURCE) spent. How is that not paying for it?

Should we continue to fund it more and more? Just throw money at it and maybe things will get better? That is the old way of thinking about it. We have done that ever since the Department of Education came around...just needs more funding.

With all that money we have seen a steady decline in math, science, music programs, arts, even physical education. Yet we seen a steady growth in declining grades. We see drop out rates that are staggering. We cannot freely choose the schools we go to, yet we fund them with our tax dollars. Asinine "Zero Policy" rules that strip common sense out of situations such as the little boy that brought a obvious toy gun to school and is being expelled and recommended to go to a "school for troubled kids."

But yes, things would just get better if we keep feeding the beast with more and more money, eventually it will be satisfied and begin doing what we want it to.

Great topic but I think the OP misses the point of the Tea Party. The whole purpose is to bring back limited government and the principles that made that made the United States the greatest nation in the world, not to end public education.

As someone who was schooled by both private and public educational institutions I can tell you there are major differences in being schooled in a public institution.

The first and probably the most important is the fact that you are just another student among a larger sized class of 30 to 35 kids. You are being taught the same information as the class before you and the class after you. There is little to no room for individuality or creative thinking.

Second is the fact that average students and above average students are mixed in the same class. This means the course work is designed for the average student which result in no challenge for the above average. An unchallenged mind is an idle mind.

Lastly is the Federal Department of Education itself. It sets the minimum standards for material that must be taught for a student to graduate in a public school. Sure, there are Regents programs but sadly, most teachers and students are happy to skate away with only having taught or learned the minimum the Feds prescribe.

I still fondly recall my experiences in private school, small classes (20 - 25 kids tops) , teachers who knew our capabilities (and weaknesses) and challenged us to better ourselves. Course studies that actually were interesting and revolved around what we wanted to learn as a class. Sure it cost my parents money but they invested in my future and I can never thank them enough for that.

My public school experience, ehh, I spent most of my time skipping school to read the paper and drink coffee at a nearby restaurant. I would show up often enough to see how far the class had progressed. If I did go to class I usually read several chapters of the text books or slept. When it came time for exams, I usually aced them. Yes, I was far ahead of the class going from a 'gifted student' in private school to being just another 'mind to mold' in public school.

The funniest thing after I got out of school was how the corporate world put an emphasis on "thinking outside the box" and all those "brainstorming sessions." Clearly, most people's public education failed them there.

From my perspective, the public education system only provides the minimum amount of knowledge to keep up with the rest of the sheep. Nothing more, nothing less. This is one of the reasons the United States is lagging in producing critical thinkers today. Public education teaches us to simply remember and regurgitate information long enough to pass a test.

Obviously, TPTB do not want an informed public. Critical thinkers are ostracized as 'conspiracy theorists' or some other such rot only because they do not blindly accept what the media feeds them as truth. Don't those people know who is on "American Idol" is more important than what is happening in American politics?

In closing, one of my favorite quotes on education: "In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college." ~ Joseph Sobran

Originally posted by ownbestenemy

Originally posted by Kailassa
Kids need education to have more practical learning time, so they can learn to do things for themselves and make the things they need.
Kids need better history and geography taught, in meaningful ways, so they can learn about the world, past and present.
Kids need maths and science taught by people who love their subjects, who can make lessons fun and interesting.
Kids need plenty of time outside, getting their daily sunshine, getting fit, and learning self-reliance and survival skills.
Kids need the opportunity to try a wide variety of arts and crafts, so they can develop their own ablities to express themselves, instead of being told to adulate the few who sell their work for absurd prices.
Kids need teachers who they can respect, people who have worked in the outside world, not bigger kids who have been to school and then teacher college, and don't have a clue about the world outside.

Kids need education that works.

Our current system barely covers everything you listed above, yet you advocate for it.

You are right, the current system barely covers everything I listed above.
I am not advocating for the current system.

Educationalists are mired in the paradigm of entrenched expectations as to what a school is.
We know now how important exercise and sunlight are to health. We know how important good health and exercise are to learning. We know the important role play has in learning. There are so many changes that could be made to make education more useful, more relevant, and more interesting for children.

It does not have to cost any more to educate kids well than to educate them badly. However it does take a revolution in our attitudes to how children learn, and what a child needs from school.
I wouldn't mind betting, Ownbestenemy, that you and I could agree on a lot of changes in schooling that would be benificial to kids.

And we all need to pay for it, as good education benefits the whole country.

At the Federal level, excluding individual state expenditures on education, $59,210,061,000 was proposed in 2009 according to the Department of Education (SOURCE) spent. How is that not paying for it?

Should we continue to fund it more and more? Just throw money at it and maybe things will get better? That is the old way of thinking about it. We have done that ever since the Department of Education came around...just needs more funding.

With all that money we have seen a steady decline in math, science, music programs, arts, even physical education. Yet we seen a steady growth in declining grades. We see drop out rates that are staggering. We cannot freely choose the schools we go to, yet we fund them with our tax dollars. Asinine "Zero Policy" rules that strip common sense out of situations such as the little boy that brought a obvious toy gun to school and is being expelled and recommended to go to a "school for troubled kids."

But yes, things would just get better if we keep feeding the beast with more and more money, eventually it will be satisfied and begin doing what we want it to.

Your obvious frustration with the present system is shining through, and I share it. I homeschooled two of my children when the local schools messed them up, and then shopped around carefully, (as one can do in Australia,) to find better government schools for them. And I've always taught them at home, even when they've been at school, to make sure they had a thorough, well-rounded education.

Throwing money into the same system won't cure everything, although some more money would help the more run down schools. We have schools in outback aboriginal areas so underfunded they don't have clean running water and don't even have enough seats for the children.

However the big difference needs to be in planning and attitude. Sometimes doing things badly costs more money, especially in the long run, than doing things well.

Originally posted by abecedarian
All I hear anymore is how it's wrong to let people who cannot provide for themselves go without the basic necessities of life. Yet is it not evolution that all but specifies survival of the fittest? If you can't provide for yourself, how are you yourself fit to survive much less provide for your offspring?

Are all conservative Christians so pro-survival of the fittest or is it just the ones that make it to a microphone? In the immortal words of Tea Party favorite, Jesus Christ "Tough luck, kid. You are on your own."

Sorry but to keep seeing the Christian right talk about social justice in the context of societal evolution just cracks me up.

how about we create a 21st century school??

provide computers and internet to every person in the country...
place the entire curriculum....k-12, plus the college level courses on-line, in the form of lectures, reading material, and work assignments and testing...
and well, scheduled testing throughout the courses to make sure people are learning what they are supposed to be learning.
then all we need is a building for testing, some people to watch over those being testing to make sure they aren't cheating, and well, maybe some will volunteer to provide rides for those who have no way to the center to be tested....and maybe a few schools from hell for those kids that just flat out refuse to sit in front of the computer long enough to learn anything.
and well, upon completion of the proper courses, one would recieve their high school diploma, or college degree...
much cheaper than what we have now, the kids would probably learn more, and it puts some of those very talented computer programmers to work doing something more constructive than just coming up with more violent shoot em up video games...

I would like to point out that during the time of "enlightenment" abigail adams taught her daughters at home, her son, ya, he was sent to a very fine school...the daughters, nope, couldn't afford to send them all to school....

I'm sure some of those tea partiers would like to send the women back to the 18th or 19th century also!
they want cheaper labor, they NEED cheaper labor, and illiterate, uneducated kids provide cheap, really cheap labor!

reply to post by Curiousisall


Jesus also didn't say the government should do it....
He wanted people to help eachother, hence, charity.

reply to post by Mr Headshot


The last time I checked, the people elected to office were also still people. How does being a politician exempt you from being people?

Also, the last time I checked, the person I was asking was not government. Why would asking another poster have to apply to government? Read what I responded to and it should become a little more clear.