From: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Subject: Re: Education, deficits, morals: you can't have it all
Followup-To: ne.politics
Reply-To: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 04:15:04 GMT

Barry, I'm sorry; I'm going to have to respond after all...

murph@buscard.fidonet.org (Brian Murphy) writes:
>We had one guy in here who suggested that we should go so far as to spend time
>and money teaching kids how to tie their shoelaces in school if they didn't
>get that education at home!  Gimme a break!  Give the taxpayers a break!

Hello.

And I stand by it.  And you omitted the second part of my recipe.  And we
both are avoiding sharpening up the definition of the second "we".

I usually try to avoid this: addressing issues under someone else's terms
of reference (I'd say value system, but Murph's system seems value-free).
But here goes.

Your very existence on this planet, Murph, is dependent on an incredibly
complex nexus of people functioning together in a society.  Your life is
enriched by the productivity of others.  You say that, if a child is
dysfunctional, and is afflicted with uncaring parents, the child should be
abandoned to some unspecified awful fate.  The result is, probably, a
potential loss of productivity: an individual whose net contribution to
society is zero (it can't be negative; you'd rather have them die and their
body rot in the street than pay a single compassionate penny out of the
public purse).

I'd rather (a) teach him to tie his laces -- it has to be a boy, as Harriet
has slip-on shoes, right? (b) given the resulting improvement in self-
esteem, teach him to be a productive member of society (c) for the same
reason, assure he will be a good parent, and we can skip a, b, and c in the
next generation, saving lotsa MUNNY.

Now, I say that this approach is pure good investment: a few hundred bucks
now will produce a multi-thousand dollar contributor to the common weal.
Someone who can, say, invent the self-tying lace.

I don't believe any of the above reasoning.  I present it as an argument
that might appeal to the bottom-line bottom-feeders, the cost-of-
everything, value-of-nothing brigade.

>THAT is greedy!  Greedy people wanting MY tax money and I'm tired of it.
>Intolerant people who think that "Ozzie and Harriet" family values are quaint
>and old-fashioned.

I don't.  I want your tax money so that my agents can teach these values.

>Does having the Democrats control congress for three times that time count
>for anything?  Do they have any burden of responsibility to bear here?  Does
>failing to adhere to the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction package point to
>gutlessness?  Does failing to pass an amendment to the _Constitution,_ no
>less, to require balanced budgets tell you anything?

Does the fact that, every year between 1983 and 1988, Reagan sent to
Congress budgets that had bigger deficits than those eventually passed,
tell you anything?  And now he and his lapdog are calling for Mommy
Constitution to wag her finger and tell them to do what they have no clue
how to do.  Can anyone on this newsgroup spell "hypocrisy", or is
"cynicism" easier?

>Yes, in fact, I am a "more money" advocate BUT where will that money come
>from?  Certainly not from raising the already confiscatory taxes.

Huh?  Where else would "more money" come from?  Whittier telecommunications?

>ABSOLUTELY!  A thousand times YES - and loudly!  I've been chanting "voucher
>system" in this group for two weeks now and, strangely, not one person has had
>anything to say on the subject.

Barry Shein has.  "What he said" -- there's two.

>  I value a strong basic education, as you can
>see.

One thing you've never explained, by the way, is how "reading, writing, and
basic computation" are the beginning and end of what is needed to turn
children into Economic Contribution Units.  How, for example, is the
ability to read text at, say, Hemingway's level, more important in this
regard than basic nutritional information (an E.C.U is better if properly
fed), or the physics of the internal combustion engine?  And what value-
system is smuggled in with either of these?

Another thing: I quite simply don't recognize the public schools you are
characterizing in all of your tirades.  As a parent (one kid spent grade
11-12 at a private school; one is entering 12th and one 8th) who has
actually attended school committee meetings *and* worked in the schools, I
simply don't see the importation of value systems that you charge, and
maybe that's why I'm having a hard time understanding your anger.  The
public schools I know are full of mightily conscientious people who strive
to balance contradictory demands between the factual, ethical and moral
dimensions of what they do, and generally do a damned fine job.

>Now I KNOW you're a new-comer to this group.  Welcome!

Maybe I should let her say it, but Terri has been here longer than you have.


-- 
David Brooks					dbrooks@osf.org
Open Software Foundation			uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
Five more months!  Five more months!