Bad Idea

Posted on 10/15/2008 at 11:37 pm by Bob Cesca

School vouchers and charter schools are great — if we want to slowly privatize our schools and funnel much-needed public school funds to private corporations. While we’re at it, why don’t we privatize Social Security and the military. Blackwater for schools!

I’m glad Senator Obama enumerated how he’s voted against the Democrats. It was an effective counterpoint to this tired, phony McCain attack. But it also reminded me about a couple of issues that I disagree with Senator Obama about. Vouchers, charter schools, clean coal.

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  • jane

    Ahem, Kat, DP, Pecos, other NC peeps- “charter schools” is a big deal to McCrory (NC Gov). As is, apparently, garbage and private landfills.

  • kansasdem

    Speaking of privatization, it’s been several weeks ago but AARP did a Q & A with both Obama and McDouchebag and Bags was totally full of shit!He insisted that he didn’t support privatization but did support letting younger workers divert some of those funds into private accounts.You can’t have it both ways!He is more of the same – actually worse!

  • http://www.clusterdouche.com Elvis Dingeldein

    All I know about vouchers is that Leo McGarry’s hot, hot daughter thought Sam Seaborn supported them because he was assigned to do opposition research on the issue, and they argued and argued like Sam and Diane, and then Sam finally broke down and admitted that — AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! — he was just teasing her! Schools should be palaces!Mandy was a frigid bitch, but Sam should seriously have tapped that ass.

  • theo

    Mandy was awful, Elvis. But I really miss Leo’s daughter Mallory. Lord she was cool.

  • http://www.ieatgravel.com Alaska

    I’m not sure what’s going on in America, but all of the charter schools in Alaska are publicly funded. They’re basically the same as the public schools, except different teaching principles are applied.My son attends a charter school. From what I can gather, the difference is teaching approach, not the curriculum. For example, they have year-long themes, and all of the classes are integrated. So say the theme is Astronomy for the year. In PE, they’ll do exercises to songs that are about astronomy, in reading class they’ll focus on books that deal with astronomy and their spelling words will be astronomy related, their science classes will take them on field-trips that give them a chance to experience astronomy, etc. Overall, it seems to spark their imagination and cognitive abilities more so than a typical text-book/lecture education technique.I’m guessing the charter schools problem in the rest of America has to do with something different? Privatization?

  • http://livefreeordie08.wordpress.com LiveFreeOrDie08

    The only astronomy lesson I ever got at school was when the Nuns would smack me in the back of the head and I’d see stars for a few minutes.

  • El Mystico

    This election is making me crave West Wing…I think I’m going to curl up with my Bartlett for America cocktail napkin tonight.

  • http://www.clusterdouche.com Elvis Dingeldein

    Look, smartmouth, “Mandy” was as close as I could get given the massive amounts of The Maker’s Mark Fine Kentucky Bourbon Elixir I had IV’d directly into my liver last night, so suck it. And yes, Mandy was god-awful. Which is why they ejected her ass with no explanation.

  • camel54

    I’m with you on disagreeing with Obama on his education plans, but I believe that his commitment to public education is far better than what we’d get from the alternative. Plus, the odds are good that he would appoint Linda Darling Hammond as his Sec. of Ed. and that would be a very, very good thing.No such thing as clean coal. Hate that nonsense.What the hell was McCain talking about with his Troops to Teachers program proposal? Bringing troops home and giving them teaching jobs without having to get those ridiculous certifications or, you know, diplomas. It’s the most assinine thing I’ve ever heard. They want to call our current teachers unqualified; they want them to be highly qualified and provide more professional development when teachers are already required to complete ~30 hours of additional professional development every year. Then he turns around and says he’d like to put troops in the classroom without any training. WTF?Republicans don’t seem to understand that teaching is not just being good at something and then telling other people about it. Pedagogy, classroom management, those are not easily mastered skills. And you may be a great drill seargent, but that shit doesn’t play with 10-year-olds.

  • camel54

    @Alaska, I’m sure your kid’s charter school is great but how much of the ACT or SAT is comprised of astronomy? And the real problem isn’t that or the possibility that someone may open a school with a butterfly theme that might be entertaining as hell but completely worthless. The REAL problem is the next step is to say, “At our school, the theme is Jesus,” and BAM you’ve got public funds for a religious school so you can circumvent that dirty old constitution.And with regard to vouchers, let’s just take a quick look at some physical logistics. If you have 30,000 students in a city and you have 100 schools. You rank them 1 to 100 based on their “succeeding” or “failing”. You can only fit 300 kids in each school. So the first 300 kids show up with their vouchers and they fill up the best school. Now you have 29,700 kids who still need an education. You can’t put all 30,000 students in the best school in a city. Eventually, the last 300 kids to show up are going to be in the 100th ranked school.What if those kids couldn’t get to the first-come-first-serve counter of school distribution because mom has to work two jobs and dad was killed in Iraq? Does that kid deserve to go to the worst school in the city?I guarantee you that if you put the same undisciplined, uncontrollable maniac children that are in our “failing” schools into our “best” schools, the rankings would change in a hurry.

  • http://www.ieatgravel.com Alaska

    @camel54″but how much of the ACT or SAT is comprised of astronomy?”Well, I just used astronomy to illustrate a point. All of the lessons they learn fall in line with ACT and SAT assessments (well, if they took them in elementary school, which is what this one is.)You still learn math if the word problems have to do with astronomy. You still learn to read if the books are about astronomy. You still learn how to play music if you’re playing songs about astronomy. Etc.I understand how a religious theme for a school could be a tragedy. But, at least up here in Alaska, our charter schools are public schools and they don’t teach religion in public schools.

  • camel54

    @Alaska, it sounds like you guys are lucky. And I do think there are plenty of good charter schools out there. I just worry about the ramifications of schools funded with public money but not necessarily accountable to public standards; and of course I worry about the religious aspect of it. Deeply.It bothers me that McCain mentions New Orleans and New York as his examples when the programs he’s referring to are still so new, they haven’t shown statistically significant data as of yet. And all the while there are charters in Texas where the kids are not being granted their diplomas because it turns out they didn’t actually learn what they needed to know for college or to meet any semblance of a national guideline.

  • http://www.ieatgravel.com Alaska

    @camel54″I just worry about the ramifications of schools funded with public money but not necessarily accountable to public standards”I think we’re a whole different ballgame up here. We actually have to exceed the public standards to keep our charter current.

  • cjo30080

    “Clean coal” is pandering from both sides for the benefit of the voters in Kentucky and West Virginia. In fact, it’ll never happen.We need to be completely off of fossil fuels by yesterday.

  • violadefacto

    @Alaska – My hometown (in Indiana) has a charter high school, and it’s not a private either.However, I still have a problem with it (and vouchers). This crap about improving all schools by inciting competition is not viable. It may spur competition, but that doesn’t mean people will choose the improving schools. My own high school – the most “inner city” of the five public highs – recently began offering the International Baccalaureate diploma. But does anyone know that? No. Though it is one of only two schools in southern Indiana that offer IB (the other being that damn charter school), its nasty reputation from decades past precedes it. It doesn’t help that the local newspaper loves to nail it with negative news. So no one has any clue that it has excellent and enthusiastic teachers, and that its students really take pride in their school. Stereotypes are tough, though. No matter how much any school improves, it takes something tangible for that to come across. Like, say, funding.