Whatta you expect from one of the most political courts in the land? Remember, the one that their own DEMOCRATIC chief justice accused of making up law during the 2000 election crisis!! It's a gift to the teachers unions. Makes me laugh when the, after that accusation, the Dems accuse the US Supreme Court of partisanship. Oh, and BTW, I am not impressed with voucher programs either but that doesn't change my opinion of the court and its decisions.....
It was a good decision, and one that makes me miss Florida with each passing day.... Religion and government don't mix there, and people seem to realize that. Oh wait? Wasn't that supposed to be part of our national stance on the separation of church and state? Or are only some states now still aware of that wise decision on the part of our founding fathers?
Nice try... I think the figures in Chicago are pretty evenly split between secular and non-secular schools. This is, flat out, a sop to the teachers unions. You know the same group that fights competency testing for teachers. Like the one that showed that 30% of the takers in Chicago did no better than 15 year olds......
My own experience is that some public schools are so bad that violating that kind of uniformity would be a good thing. Oh well. Jack
Most of our founding fathers went to Christian Based Schools, not to mention this also includes vouchers for artsy fartsy type schools, Military Academys, Academic Specialist schools and the such. The public school system sucks and alot of people dont want to face that. I have a pair of nieces that wen to a Catholic School for K-8. When they entered a public High School they could not place them in a BIOLOGY class!!! Imagine that, and 8th grader in a catholic school has a higher grade science education(in biology no less) and the public school cant place her 4 grade levels higher. And this is only a violation of church and state if the state mandates a religous school or excludes certain types of religous school. Freedom of religion not freedom from. There is reason the the people who actually wrote the Constitution elected a chapel for the congress... I would personally abolish the whole dept of education day one as president, but im a libertarian. What a total failure and an excellent example of how the federal govt should let states run their own show. I really dont understand why peolple are so against vouchers and would like to understand. Why would anyone not want a child to get the best education possible??? If you dont force people to pick a school based in faith, but the can choose a school in faith, how is that bad??? It sounds like its religion people are against and not the vouchers...
You are right. It is the religion that people (like me) are against, especially when guised as true education and supported by my tax dollars. That's not saying that I'm so stupid as to think that religious schools don't have a place and don't provide a certain level of quality education - I just don't think they have a future in a post-nuclear world where we need to think objectively, learn tolerance, and an acceptance of ambiguity. I'd be loathe to think that religious education is the BEST alternative to the trash coming out of our public schools these days.... there has to be a better alternative, like allowing local schools to set their own standards as in the "bad old days" when we were producing Nobel prize laureates out of small town high school graduates (who subsequently went to great colleges) on a much more frequent basis that we see today. Just to be completely fair... the other two enemies of our educational future are (1) the No Child Left Behind Act (which actually means "All Children Left Behind" in Bushspeak given the way it has been implemented) and (2) the teacher's unions - they should be outlawed, pure and simple. But... teachers should also be paid a living wage, and in fact mandated and supported at a certain level by the federal government as a subsidy to local communities. That way we might actually see subject matter experts back in the classroom instead of the education degree drones who couldn't find another job if they tried that flock to the teaching profession these days. Yes, those dronesy are good at filling out forms and studying "pedagogy", but they can't tell you anything meaningful about cause and effect of slavery, race, and the Civil War (for example). Our kids are being taught by a bunch of paper pushers and small-minded martinets! Oh I sound like an old curmudgeon today don't I????
I think everyone wants a good education for the kids. People are our most valuable naturall resource and you have to cultivate it properly, thats why racism and sexist are stupied. Why would you exclude a sizable portion of your natural resources..Unless it oil in an artic-lifeless wasteland. I think religion definatly has its place in people lives, and in how we run our lives, but i understand that some dont care for it and thats is there choice. If people, not nesecarrly you carl, are against religion then be uniform about it and dont target just christianity. I think the spirit of "No Child" is absolutly right. You have to reward success. I think this really raises an important very basic question. What is our goal? To bring people up their potential or have everyone be equal and very "average" or mundane.. Most liberal education policies, IMHO, the idea that everyone wins and is the same. That is complete and total bunk. Ever see these schools now that dont keep score for sports? What does that teach kids? How does that promote solid growth and what happens to them when they get kicked around by the real world? Think Columbine. I have meet people that could sit in front of a calculus book untill doomsday and they are not gonna learn it. We are not equal. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Most leftest approaches SEEM to pull down the gifted and intellectual for the sake of the less gifted. I understand the nobility of trying to help the less fortunate, but you dont do this at the expense of the compitent. So the end result is no one with the skills, instead of a select few with excellents skills and intellect you get none, so are net loss is 100%. I have seen this is alot of public middle and high schools. It produces total garbage. I also think the Teachers Union is total crap. Tenure is crap, It is, IMHO, a typical govt job that does care about performance. Isnt that funny that its always the case when people are spending our money and not theirs..
Re: Re: Florida Supreme Court says no to school vouchers Anyone notice the circular reasoning? Because it does what legislators set out to do, it's unconstitutional. Yup - this Floridian set of bohunks is an anti-competitive monopoly protection organization. Obviously, the Supremes will have to strighten out these yahoos again, because this decision tramples upon the Supreme's decision that affirmed the legality of vouchers in Ohio to begin with. This Fla bunch of would defend mediocrity until the US goes completely down the tubes. Flush this bunch first! -Orson
