Inner City Blues - Failing Schools
Posted October 22nd, 2007 by Da King
If you go to virtually any poverty-ridden inner city hellhole in america, you will find it is run by Democrats. If you go to virtually any inner city school board in america, you will find it is also run by Democrats, and has been for 50 years. Democrats pretty much have a stranglehold on our system of socialized public education. Teacher's unions are part of the Democratic base, and among the Dems largest campaign contributors. As a result of all this Democratic expertise, design, and control, we have inner city public schools where half the students don't graduate, and the half that do barely learn a damned thing. We have schools that are nothing more than day-care warehouses for the next generation of poor folk in america. It's a national disgrace, but Democrats try as hard as they can to maintain the status quo. They resist school vouchers, charter schools, and merit raises for teachers. They make it nearly impossible to remove bad teachers, they coddle bad students, they dumb down the curriculum, and there is precious little discipline. The Democrats keep calling for more money and more money for our schools, even though americans already pay more for education that any other country in the world. That money goes to the adults in our school system, to the unions and the bureaucracy, but it doesn't ever seem to improve the educational process for the students. Our national inner city public school system is an unqualified failure, and is just as responsible as the welfare state for keeping poor people poor. The next time you hear some fool talk in favor of socialized medicine, tell him to look at how socialized education has gone.
Since a large number of inner city folk are people of color, the tragic failures and wrongs of Democratic policy have fallen most heavily on them. Yet somehow, about 90% of black people continue to support the Democratic party. I wish I could explain this for you (propaganda, affirmative racism), but I really can't. The loyalty of minorities to the Democratic party is akin to Patty Hearst becoming a member of the extremist SLA group who kidnapped her. How in the hell can you be loyal to the people who implement the very systems that lead to your downfall ?
By any honest measure, private schools outperform public schools across the board. If anybody tells you differently, they aren't telling you the truth, they are presenting you with an agenda. Almost all the Democratic politicians who sing the false praises of public education send their own kids to private schools. They know the truth. They just think you are so stupid that you won't know.
There is an important vote coming up in Utah on school vouchers, and the largest teacher's union, the National Education Association (NEA) is waging a multi-million dollar campaign to get the Utah voters to reject school vouchers. Why ? Because school vouchers would allow families to get between $500 and $3,000 depending on income to send their kids to private schools, where the kids would have a chance at a better education. Why would the NEA be against children getting a better education ? Because the NEA's primary care isn't children's education, that's why. The NEA cares about the NEA and the NEA's members, and the Democrats genuflect in front of the NEA every chance they get. The NEA knows if they can win in Utah, a heavy Republican state, then they have a really good chance to destroy children's education defeat school vouchers all across the country. This must be another example of Democrats being 'for the children'.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Untrained parents do much better than education professionals when it comes to educating children. Homeschool kids do very well.
Unfortunately, the parents who teach at home are pretty lax when it comes to handing out condoms.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:35 am
Maybe the educrats can start a condom busing program for the homeschoolers, and pay for it with a tax on strip clubs
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 am
Da King is spot on.
The alliance of the Democratic Party with the self-interest groups in the education establishment, especially the teachers unions, is a true axis of evil. Working together, these two organizations hose the taxpayer for an inferior product — public education — while at the same time dumbing down the kiddies.
As to this latter point, much of the dumbing down is, sad to say, deliberate. And, it goes on not just in the inner cities but everywhere.
Look at how the Democrats and the education establishment work hand-in-glove. The schools stupefy millions of kids who, because of a lack of a decent education, must then turn to Big Government (i.e., the Democratic Party) to make a living while in return the Democratic Party provides political cover and a soft living for those in the education establishment . Nice, huh? And of course, the education establishment does everything in its power to elect Democrats. This is a vicious circle.
But it is the blacks [and Latinos] who are the most in need of a good education and who are the greatest hurt by the public schools. When the day comes that the scales drop from the eyes of African- Americans and they realize how the Democratic Party, in conjunction with the teachers unions, have committed what amounts to educational genocide on them, that’s the day the Democratic Party, as it is now structured, dies.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:23 am
Keep my vouchers coming. I do not want my kids in public schools. Although, I do keep them in a privatge school with a large enrollment, because I want them to learn social skills that they cannot receive in public schools.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:24 am
Sorry, regarding my above post, I meant that I want my children to receive social skills that thye cannot receive through home schooling. But, I do not want them in public schools.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
People have always, repeat, always, been able to send their kids to private schools.
Purposely weakening public schools is the job of conservatives. Taking tax dollars OUT of a district and handing them over to for-profit capitalists has nothing to do with giving our kids a better education. Ignorant are they who don't realize charter schools don't do any better than public schools.
No, attacks on public schools, as seen here in King's post and the comments that follow…is all about breaking up the public school system for fun and profit. Paying stockholders with tax money and defeating a strong Democratic Party support system in the teachers unions at the same time. That's the goal.
Supporters of the juvenile use of the word "choice" in these charter school and voichers discussions are simply not credible. The public school system in this country, overall, does a fine job. Disparities exist where poverty and social problems prevail.
Teacher's unions do need to deal with some internal policies but extremist privatizing talk is ridiculous and should be rejected out of hand.
Republicans, conservatives, for the most part, could give a crap less about anybody's kids but their own.
The public school system has been extremely significant in bringing America to where it is today. Any rhetoric to the contrary would simply be an attempt to revise history.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
"The public school system has been extremely significant in bringing America to where it is today."
Wrong.
What has brought America where it is 1) faith in God and 2) the free market, both of which are outlawed from the socialistic public school system.
The fact is that the ones who benefit most from the public education system are those employed in it, surely not the kids.
What those in the education establishment fear is the competition that vouchers would bring. School choice would throw them off the gravey train they're addicted to and force them, for once in their lives, to produce real results. No wonder the likes of the teachers unions fight vouchers.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Guys, I was a part of that public school system for 28 years. Now I have been out of it for 21 years but usually take umbrage at most of what is said about them today when it goes back to my day. My wife is still a part of the system and although she knows about the differences in now and the old days there are some things that few, if any of the detractors know about. For instance, my wife is a member of the NEA for the cheap liability insurance they provide. Now does that show anyone anything? When I taught liability wasn't anything we worried about. I say most of the problem here is that the courts have made all kinds of suits available to parents to get money out of teachers and it has not only weakened their discipline, it has also kept them from teaching kids in ways that work. I think that the NEA and other teacher unions are to blame for much of our problems but the courts and laymakers are just as much to blame.
My favorite story about Democrats and the NEA goes back to the year that Jimmah Cahrteh promised them a separate Cabinet position if they hepled them. The first thing he did after the first day of work as Pres. was to grant discharges to people like Jon Carry and the next was to ask for this Cabinet position.
The story goes to the group that was damaging Democrat jobbing of the people, the Americans Against Union Control of Government. It seems that the AAUCG, which I belonged to and gave quite a bit of money to, was against things like that Cabinet position. Now the NEA gave the man $4.5 million for his campaign. Wait up, this was before the present campaign rules. Anyway, it seems that the AAUCG gave some money to some dirty Republican to campaign with. The grand total sum of $250,000 and they were punished out of existence by the Carter appointed FEC. They had to pay the $250,000 to the government and also another $250,000 as a fine. They just couldn't handle that and went out of existence. The NEA was heavily punished also. They had to pay all their members back the money that they had given Carter without permission by the members. Most of the people I knew didn't go to the trouble to ask for their share. It was a grand total of $4.39 and I damned sure got mine just to spite the group.
I really don't think that we did such a bad job of educating in the 50s through the 70s. When I was finished with my stint I could still touch kids and today they can't be touched in any way. It is so easy to get accused of sexual touching just by touching in any way. I used to walk down the track with my arm around kids of either sex and never worry about being sued. I used to take hold of boys roughly when they needed reprimanding but you can't do that today. Lets blame the courts for at least some of the lack of education of today.
Let me add that I am against vouchers and not convinced that private schools are so much better. I guess this makes somewhat less than a good conservative Republican. I will admit that if this does that I am not a good 'un.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Roy is right.
Whether it's teachers, police officers or even judges, nobody is allowed to use their common sense on a case-by-case basis, these days.
There are so many laws, lawsuits and regulations that no one can take personal responsibility and everyone's a bureaucrat.
October 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
For Christ's sake.
We live in a country where we have agreed to settle disputes in court with attorneys rather than, you know, simply shooting our adversaries in the streets.
Now, nuts like those who left the above comments want to take that dispute settling method away and replace it with what?…..the Wild West again?
And to Ghost: Faith in God and the free market? But not education. Wow….no wonder you comment here.
America is a secular country governed by a secular contract called the Constitution.
The free market of capitalism gone wild has helped us and hurt us as a nation. Partisans only admit to one part of that sentence.
Teachers in public schools do a great job. Sure there are problems. But you don't usually throw out the baby with the bathwater….that is….unless you are a wingnut. The baby of public education is one of America's greatest strengths, so it figures that anti-American neo-conservative minded maniacs would want to dismantle it.
They hate everything about America except the fictitious revisionist part they find only in their tiny brains.
larry's call to "common sense" is the silly old stupidity by those who insist "common sense" is completely detached from empirical facts. Anti-education in a nutshell. It's just something you have or that you had handed down from your grandparents or somebody. It is stupidity in itself. Too many laws, too many court cases, too much bureaucracy.
Strap them leg-irons on and let's get back to those "common sense" days. If a teacher hurts your kid, don't sue or call an attorney, just kill the teacher. If a doctor hurts your kid, don't sue or call an attorney, just kill the doctor.
"Common sense". Please.
People longing for the good ol' days that weren't, is so unappealing.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Rev, I always get a kick out of the way you argue against things that nobody said. I point out the Democrat's stranglehold over education and the resulting failing schools in the inner city, and the next thing you know, you are talking about people in leg irons, the wild west, and Republicans wanting to destroy education. You are a laugh riot.
Roy, I knew you'd have something to say on this subject you know so well. I think things have changed for the worse since the 70's, when I last attended high school (1971). Back then, some discipline was still allowed, but no more. I also had the experience of attending both a private Catholic grade school and a public high school. Even though there was discipline in the public school back then, there was a lot more in the Catholic school. There was also a lot more teaching taking place as a result. When I arrived in public high school, for the next two years I was relearning things I had already learned in the Catholic grade school. I didn't even have to study, and that grade school I attended wasn't some ritzy private academy, it was an inner city school. That was my personal experience, and I know many others with the same experience. I ran into an old high school english teacher of mine several years back, and she told me things had gotten much, much worse through the years, that it was almost impossible to educate the kids anymore. That is really sad.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Well then, why even have judges Reverend? Just set up a community computer with all the empirical data and then let some robot put the data in and the computer can decide who gets to keep Junior after the divorce, or who owes who money because their lawn hasn't but trimmed in a year.
That kind of thinking has been one of the goals of public education from the start–locking kids up and making them sit still for 6 or 7 hours a day gets them ready to be placid workers. Unions simply finish the job.
If anyone questions it, we've always got automatons like the Reverend to yell "Tilt!"
October 30th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Larry, you have touched on the left's need to control: everyone and everything. That's why their solution to everything is ALWAYS more government (as long as it's leftist government). Every single perceived injustice has to be addressed by the government in their eyes. If citizen A makes more money than citizen B, these loons think they have to address that too. These are the people who are scared to death of freedom and individuality, scared to death of the founding principles of this country. They are the communists, the totalitarians. It's in all that they do and all that they say. They want to lead us into that Brave New World whether we want to go or not.