This one really steams my shorts. The Right has been talking for years about “school choice” or vouchers to help them poor colored kids in the inner city. How can you Liberals leave these poor things in failing schools? Oh, the humanity!
Okay, when I was a kid, there were two kinds of public schools in the American South- White kid schools and Black kid schools. “Separate, but equal” was the absurd claim. Absurd as witnessed by the way the White schools got new textbooks and the Black kids got the old used ones from the White schools. There is enough evidence of the profound inequalities that I’ll leave it there.
So then along comes Brown v. Board of Education and everyone has to go to school together- red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight- and so obviously the White (Christian) parents had to pull their kids from the public schools full of them nasty heathen coloreds to send them to Liberty Baptist Academy (oddly all white).
Wink, wink. It’s fer them coloreds, right? Wink.
School vouchers and school choice is a cynical, racist ploy to the base of White (Christian, racist, but I repeat myself) voters.
3 comments:
Jeff, to be honest, the entire system of government schooling is based on the concept of slavery. Things like "vouchers" and "school choice" are mere political games that don't really solve the fundamental issue of whether the federal government ought to dictate how all children must be raised, schooled, and assimilated, or whether parents should have the liberty to educate their children according to their conscience.
the huge difference between inner city public school and other public schools is really sad
and there are many reasons for this
studies show that the number 1 element that aids success in the school environment is : parent involvement. the PTA is what makes suburban schools college bound student producing while the city schools are wastelands of frustration.
Anyone who has money in the city can afford to send their child to private, and as for the religious, who claim to have family values and what to instill them in their children (but not the neighbor's kid) choose to either home school or move or go private
This really bothers me
the proper handling of funds will never happen in a city school with out the costumer (the parents) being involved and advocating for what is needed.
the other issue in all this is the underlying racism of the educational system,
culturally the school environment is white, and the successes are white valued successes, so that these children not only have to learn to read but they have to learn to adapt to a foreign environment in order to learn to read
Ben;
Clearly, the problem of the "liberty" of parents to educate their children according to their consciences is that the haves can do it as they please, while the have nots are severely limited.
This engenders a widening gap between the haves and have nots, and leads eventually to social chaos and destruction. The American ideal has always been one that included the have nots in a merit based system....our modified version of meritocracy and capitalism. That is what made America the greatest land on earth, and the greatest system in the history of the world.
To live in that environment, and enjoy it's fruits and then to denigrate the principle of an inclusive educational system is both myopic and self centered.
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