From: best@anasazi.com (Mike Best)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: Public Education (Was: Re: Family Leave)
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:22:07 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA

In article <qe610es@twilight.wpd.sgi.com> coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.175925.9328@anasazi.com>, best@anasazi.com (Mike Best) writes:
>|> In article <CGYQBCT5@cc.swarthmore.edu> mwertz1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Melanie Wertz) writes:
>|> ...
>|> >> organization.  School choice would, in effect, open up competition and
>|> >> result in better schools.  
>|> >
>|> >NO.  School choice fails to solve the basic problem facing many inner city
>|> >schools today.  Bush's proposals in his America 2000 "strategy" do exactly
>|> >this:  they reward the schools that least need it, and punish the schools
>|> >that are suffering from poor facilities, teachers, and programs.  Such a
>|> >meritocracy system would just push inner city schools further down and make
>|> >public schools in rich white areas better.  You can argue that school
>|> >choice gives schools "incentive," but what good is incentive without access
>|> >to good teachers, decent facilities, funding, even basic physical safety? 
>|> >Inner city schools don't *want* to be hellholes; they are hellholes because
>|> >the economic and social environment under which they are forced to operate
>|> >systematically denies them.  Raising the stakes on bad schools in a game
>|> >which is already stacked against them won't do diddly to help education in
>|> >America.
>|> 
>|> I think you have well argued the socialist side of this issue, that equality
>|> is the just goal.  What this really means is that to be equal we need to 
>|> bring the bottom up and, this is the important point, bring the top down.
>|> There is no other way to acheive an average, and in the end your scheme
>|> has produced just that - average schools.
>
>Mike makes six assumptions and/or statements in this paragraph. Five are false.
>
>First, he states that improving public education is a "socialist" theme. 

I said no such thing, you are putting words in my mouth.  I said that the
goal of equality instead of excellence has produced schools which are
worse than they could and should be.

>Second, he assumes that the goal is equality. Wrong. The goal is improvement,
>given the current wretched state of our public education system. Of course, 
>it could be *his* goal, but I don't know that to be true. It is certainly 
>not Melanie's goal.

Improvement is what you think you are aiming for but what you are 
sacrificing is the potential for excellence.  Improvement is fine but as
long as some school somewhere is in difficulty we cannot allow anyone 
else to succede.  This is mean spirited and foolish.  The condition of
_some_ inner city schools is not indicitive of the majority of schools.
Do you really believe that we would allow inner city schools to sink
under this proposal?  They will not be ignored but the potential for
the children should be released, not held hostage.

>Fourth, he claims that we must lower the capabilities of our best schools.
>This is so absurd it hardly merits response, but I'll give one - after a
>couple more paragraphs.

Truly absurd, how many student can find the US on a globe these days??
The absurdity is that the schools cannot get much worse.  Recently there
was a Math competition involving students from various countries including
the US.  We came in _last_.  However, when asked how they felt about their
math knowledge we came in first in confidence.  The upside is that if we
can teach kids to feel good about their math skill then maybe one day we
can teach them math too :)

>Mike expends a lot of effort criticizing his own assumptions. They have
>little or nothing to do with what Melanie has mentioned - in fact, they
>totally ignore her main points. The technique is called "building a 
>strawman", and is (next to spelling flames) the last Net resort of the
>incompetent. 

What you call "building a strawman" I call a philosophical argument.

>Mike, if you want to argue with yourself, go do it quietly somewhere
>where you won't take up other people's bandwidth. If, however, you wish
>to join in an actual conversation, please pay attention to what you're
>responding to. You haven't done so to date.

Your refusal to engage in the philosophical argument but to, instead,
make sophomoric points shows that a conversation is not what you
are interested in either, sorry.

>|> Your argument is an important side issue but what about the point of this
>|> approach by Bush?  That is, giving individuals the freedom to choose the
>|> destiny of their children.  Is the Pro-Choice movement limiting it's 
>|> definition of what choices are availabe?  Need I point out that the
>|> Constitution is a document about individual liberties?  I think that
>|> giving parents the choice is more honorable than your version of
>|> government coercion.
>
>Buzzwords, buzzwords, no content. 

It is full of content.

>The issue is the quality of public education in this country. If choice of
>school could help improve that, I'd be all for it. But choice alone, even 
>when combined with a putative $1000 tax credit or voucher, will do nothing
>to improve quality. It will only magnify inequality.
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^
There's that word again ;)

>Bush's "plan" is simply another ploy to give the rich and the haves another
>government teat to suck from, by pulling it away from the needy. It does 
>*nothing* to improve public education, and positively assures the death of 
>quality education for the poor and the disadvantaged. Melanie has told you 
>why and how, but you've ignored her and continue to act as though your 
>Proof By Repeated Assertion is valid. What a joke!

"rich" and "needy" ... 

buzzwords, buzzwords, no content

or were you being sarcastic? It's so hard to tell on the Net.

>Of course, that quality of reasoning does explain why you continue to
>support a president who thinks that flag-burning and the capital-gains
>tax are the two most pressing domestic issues this country has ever faced,
>and that Dan Quayle has been a good Vice-President. :^)

Let's just assume that we disagree.

>You, Mike, are the first person to mention busing in this thread. Don't
>try to pillory Melanie for words that you've put in her mouth. I realize
>it's a tried-and-true Republican ploy, but Lee Atwater's dead now, and
>Jim Baker is working for George Bush, not you, so you're on your own in
>that effort. Frankly, you're far too heavily outnumbered and under-armed
>to do it in this forum.

Sorry Don, I didn't know that I get to you the way I do.  You've made
my day - really !

Regards,

Mike Best

PS. I _was_ trying to engage the conversation on the basis that the
    philosophical premise from which one procedes determines the
    direction one takes.  
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc