Hildegarde

The Link

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5 Responses to 'The Link'

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1. I read that article a couple of days ago and thought, “Holy crap, that’s taking altruism a bit too far, isn’t it?”

   Those kids who go to private school have, in large part, NEVER been part of the public school population. There have always been two parallel school systems. The public one serves the full range, from challenged to gifted, of students with parents who can (or can’t ) pay their taxes and that’s it.

   The private school students too enter with a range of abilities, the difference being that for their money, parents expect these children to be educated to the maximum of their potential, while being protected from public school experiences like metal detectors at the doors and huge class sizes. Oh, and in some cases, exposure to *those* people, for various values of “those.”

   So I guess I’m puzzled by the author’s premise..is he saying that private school parents will be more involved AND effective in making changes to public schools than the current parent cohort, or are the sheer numbers of them supposed to be more effective?

   BTW, I went to http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=65 to find real data. The last year of hard numbers there shows about 10% of students in private schooling, with projected percentages of private enrollment DROPPING in the future. Home schooling seems to be running a little above 1%. So 10% of new parents involved are going to turn public schools around? Or is it because those parents are supposedly wealthier and more influential? I scoff. Most of those private schools are religiously based, and those parents are no more affluent than middle-class, if that.

   My conclusion is that this guy has his head so far up his ass he can see daylight, and yet, is unenlightened.

   

   Lymaree

   1 Sep 13 at 1:15 pm
2. Yes, I was intrigued by the notion that it was worth having two generations of children undereducated because somehow the parents of those undereducated children would insist that public schools be improved. (Including the parents who were that first undereducated generation?)

   It does assume that (a) we know how to improve public schools, and I doubt very much that my thoughts on the subject agree with the authors, and (b) that the present system has at least two generations. One of the many problems with our current rulers is that they imagine they will be in charge forever.

   I think any poly sci/Ivy League Law type under 40 would be well advised to study bricklaying or plumbing evenings. There’s a decent chance he will outlive his class’s rule in America.

   

   robert_piepenbrink

   1 Sep 13 at 6:05 pm
3. Snap. I read that a couple of days ago and my jaw nearly dislocated itself as it dropped. I live in Australia and was a private school kid as much by necessity as preference. My sons went half and half, primary public, secondary private, so I’ve had experience of both systems (which, in theory at least, are comparable to yours in the US). I think this article might be a finalist in the Most Stupid Blathering of the Year contest. (Unlikely to win, of course, the field being swamped by the Global Warming alarmists).

   Once again, the totalitarianism of the left is on display. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

   

   Mique

   1 Sep 13 at 7:08 pm
4. Mique, surely the MSB Award for 2013 will go to an article claiming that since Bashir Assad is a monster, it’s vital we kill someone else in Syria–teenage conscripts for choice–and critical that we spare Assad?

   An entire ruling class which couldn’t make Sergeant in a decently-run army.

   

   robert_piepenbrink

   1 Sep 13 at 7:41 pm
5. My parents were born about 1900. Their generation went through two world wars and the Great Depression. That generation built the TVA, rural electrification and the Interstate highway system.

   I was born in 1936. My generation has vague memories of WW2 and remembers the Interstate highway system being built. I remember when we did not have a refrigerator. We had an ice box with real ice delivered several times a week.

   For anyone born after 1960, highways have always been there, electricity has always been available, antibiotics have always been available and 10 soldiers killed in a day is a major war.

   It shows!

   

   jd

   1 Sep 13 at 8:19 pm

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