I keep thinking she can't get worse. Short of shouting "n----r, n----r, n----r" (sorry, too white to write the whole word), how much lower can she go?
Why did I ask?
Patience, children: I've been taking condescending bitch lessons from Barbara Bush. Plus, having been born in 1969, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1977, I have a wealth of experience that gives me perspective you fools lack.
That was quick: Here's what some genuine libertarians think about stuff.
Is the surge working?: While I feel a need to pretend to care about the deaths involved in this war thing, ultimately I trust the military.
"Bonus" quote:
But if the falling body count doesn't vindicate past policy, it should guide policy going forward. If Iraq is calming down, to me that probably makes the case for a unilateral immediate withdrawal less compelling.Bigger, stronger, more ...national: Expecting the Federal government to do anything besides provide me roads to ride my bike on is socialist, and foolish, because the profit driven open market is totally better equipped to feed and clothe the poor.
Climate change or acid rain?: I know less about science than I do about my own ass, but I think my ass has a valid point here.
Improving education: Based on this one quote I think it's clear paying teachers more won't solve the educational crisis that exists solely because of our teachers being poor, unprofessional types. However, I think we can solve this crisis by paying them more through a new, massive Federal program of the kind I was dismissing as impractical two posts ago.
Mustn't say the V-word: ... This one is a doozy. Gonna take more than a few lines to properly mock.
To begin, can anyone find the actual question in this ... fragment?
The more interesting question is why should all of the parents who don't have the choice to send their kids to a private school, or move to the suburbs?Fortunately, the rest of Megan's thinking is far more coherent, and involves getting mad that the people quoted in the article she's responding to don't see a voucher system as the cure to the illnesses of the DC schools. Megan doesn't explain how a voucher system would do this, because it's so goddamn obvious. You see, with vouchers everyone can escape bad inner city schools, except, of course, for those students the good schools don't accept because they don't have room. Fuck those kids. That a voucher system wouldn't magically create more space in good schools, and that class size is a major part of the problem, is irrelevant.
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3 comments:
This is the entire problem with the voucher system which libertarians, of all people, miss. There is a limited supply of private schools. All you do with vouchers is drive up the demand, thereby raising the price to the point where the voucher will buy the same amount of private education for a poor inner city student as prior to the voucher. Private School A all of student received a 10 fold increase in the number of applicants.
Being that it is Private, it is typically going to charge more when demand goes up. It is as simple as that. And even if, suppose Private School A decided not to raise tuition, and to use some sort of lottery system to let students in, how many can these schools realistically take in? A few hundred, maybe a thousand additional students, tops?
So that means you will create a market for new schools. But alas, this is not going to suddenly cause some tree-lined campus in a shaded suburb to pop-up. This is what defenders of the voucher system want you to envision when they bring up the idea of the private school. You know the drill – they want everyone to imagine Phillips Exeter Academy. But in reality, most of these private schools are not what you or I would ever expect. In fact, many are quick, fly-by the night operations built using temporary buildings, and run by people looking to make a buck. Sure – there very well may be a few decent charter school. But people – most charter schools are substandard and crooked.
Hell – I do not have kids nor am I a teacher. But I do know this – Private schools (i.e. – the Phillips Exeter variety) work right now because most of these schools have a tireless commitment to quality, and they charge for it. It is very expensive to go to an elite private school, which automatically means most of the applicants are not coming from disadvantaged areas.
But once you start to institute policy whereby ALL students essentially have vouchers to leave the public school system – you are asking for trouble, corruption, and stories such as what you hear about Blackwater in Iraq will be staring at you while reading your Sunday morning paper.
Finally – at the end of the day, it is not the schools or teachers which are broke. It is the neighborhoods that are broke. This discussion always takes place arguing about an effect of the situation these kids are in, not the cause. An apt metaphor is someone who blames their shocks and struts on their car for the problem caused by out-of-balance tires.
Not only do private schools along the lines of Phillips Exeter & the like charge through both nostrils, they have large endowments of stocks, bonds or whatever from their wealthy alumni, & the parents of their current students. I don't know anything about Phillips Exeter beyond its reputation, but I attended one of the best prep schools (allegedly) on this side of the Mississippi, & besides whatever endowment & the like it had, The Mothers Club (a collection of fascist old biddies, believe you me) had an annual rummage sale for extra stuff (I don't know what, maybe it was athletic equipment) for the school. This sort of thing is just not going to come from poor parents, no matter how committed they are to their children's education.
The L. A. school district hasn't had too much luck w/ the charter schools here either.
I think it's safe to say that our heroine was born in 1973 & will remain 34 until 29 January.
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