From: nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle)
Subject: Re: Chelsea's school ...
Organization: Psych Department, Indiana University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:58:14 GMT

wbralick@afit.af.mil (Will Bralick) writes:
>nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:
>| The values school children carry into the classroom have 
>| a definite tendency to reflect the values that the parents display at 
>| home, and I'm not convinced that unmotivated kids are going to be any 
>| better students in private classrooms than they are now in public ones.

>So _all_ the kids are bloody well just going to have to suffer together.

    Well, that's effectively what we are all eventually faced with when 
we live in this society. The unmotivated kids grow up into unmotivated 
adults, but they are still our fellow citizens. We can learn to live with 
them now, or we can learn to live with them later, but we have to learn 
to live with them sometime.

>With school choice, the motivated kids will not have to suffer at the 
>hands of the unmotivated kids.  The parents who care will not have to try 
>to undo the damage done by being forced to put their kids into such an 
>environment.  

    IMHO all that school choice accomplishes is to delay the time when 
the motivated will have to "suffer at the hands of the unmotivated". 
Parents are free to try to shield their kids from that sort of reality, 
but I'm not sure they're doing their kids that much of a favor.

>|     I'm sure it would go a long way. I would imagine that the gap between 
>| public and private schools would become even more pronounced, and with the 
>| departure from public schools of the last students who really care I would 
>| imagine that the peer group values in public schools would become even 
>| worse than they are now. I certainly can't argue with the fact that it 
>| would result in change, but I'm not sure that I would call it progress.

>Ah, yes.  We want everybody (except the rich and powerful) to have the 
>same abysmal education.  Thus everybody (except the rich and powerful) 
>will be equally well (?) educated.  

    Believe it or not, it *is* possible for motivated learners to go to 
public schools and become educated. It might be more of a challenge, but 
the system is working for a lot of people.

>Every child taken out of that kind of environment will benefit.  It is
>not clear that harm done by leaving those students who care in the
>environment you prefer for them is actually helping those students who
>do not care.  

    Would you care to elaborate on how students are harmed by being left 
in public schools? If you want to dwell on the drugs or the violence, then 
I would agree wholeheartedly that we should get rid of the drugs and 
violence, but I'm not convinced that the way to get rid of those things 
is to shut down the public system. Drugs and violence are impediments to 
the public system, but not inherent components.

>Policies are, after all, more important than people, eh?

     Well, you said it, not me. Personally I think that people are able 
to fend for themselves pretty well if you just leave them to it. The answer 
to poor conditions in public schools is not necessarily to throw money at 
every parent who wants to place the kids in private schools. It might be 
worth the time to simply clean up the system we already have in place.

--
Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
Psychology Department               Indiana University
nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu      nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh