Comments on: A Christian Argument for Progressive Taxation

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:47:23 +0000

Irrelevant. Adddress my arguments.

By: ando

ando — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:39:10 +0000

The preceding comments brought to you by the NEA

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:23:26 +0000

First, Milwaukee isn't the nation. Second, you assume that private schools
are superior by definition, ignoring my legitimate argument that such schools
do better because they screen and work with the students and the families they
come from -- something public schools simply cannot do on a consistent basis.
Third, as I have already indicated, a family already has to have some money in
order to attend such a school in the first place. Bottom line, your argument
is flawed because these realities aren't being addressed. (Now, who's the
ideologue?)

By: ando

ando — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:50:22 +0000

You have little to know understanding of the way school choice works,
at least in Milwaukee. To compare many of these schools as swanky and
exclusive? Puh-leeze. They're almost 100 percent low income. Kind
of blows your misguided view of school choice. Perhaps you should
take time to actually read up on the facts.

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By: A Christian Argument for Progressive Taxes

A Christian Argument for Progressive Taxes — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:31:13 +0000

[...] Butler Bass writes that as a Christian she enjoys paying taxes. Wednesday morning, at 9 a.m. sharp, I took my tax payment to the local post office. When I [...]

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:53:12 +0000

Does that mean that the Obamas don't want "undesirables" to be in
their daughters classroom?

I won't speak for the Obamas, but chances are that their schoolmates' parents might object. And also consider that the tuition is probably so prohibitive anyway that even a voucher won't help much.

As it is, you completely miss my point: Exclusivity makes anything attractive. Comparing urban schools to swanky prep schools that can and do keep people out represents the proverbial "apples and oranges." The only way to have true "school choice" is for the schools to accept all students and the government to pay 100 percent of the cost of tuition. And that's just not going to happen because the schools -- and the students' parents -- simply don't want that. Civil rights? Puh-leeze!

By: ando

ando — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:18:16 +0000

Does that mean that the Obamas don't want "undesirables" to be in
their daughters classroom? You are opposed to school choice based on
your ideology; I favor it based on civil rights. Big difference.
Public schools have been a huge failure to hundreds of thousands of
poor children. This despite billions of dollars poured into the
system. Time to tame the beast.

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:19:36 +0000

If that were any other issue, conservatives would call that "class envy." The reality is that, as I tried to say before, wealthier people don't want the poor in their schools because they're seen as "undesirable." Truth be told, the attraction of a private education is that not everyone can get it.

By: ando

ando — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:23 +0000

I know full well about the test scores. It doesn't diminish the fact
that a lot of low-income parents want the same power that the Obamas
and other wealthy people have in choosing what school to send their
children. I would think that Democrats, of all people, would want to
give poor people that privilege. But then, they would sell out to
their power base. Just like the Republicans...alas

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:46:33 +0000

Perhaps you hadn't heard that about Polly Williams, but I did. (I wish I
could remember just where.) And in fact, two reports were released,
the first (that I didn't mention earlier) showing no real difference in test
scores between public and private schools.

By: ando

ando — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:21:22 +0000

the teacher's union is hardly a non-partisan entity. They have a
vested interest in the status quo. BTW: I have never heard Polly
Williams say that. And in fact, despite a Democratic governor since
2002, the program is increasing due to popularity. This inspite of
powerful opposing interests such as WEAC, which has taken a lot of my
money to use for political purposes over the years. Seems that
parents want their kids in a safe environment where character and
moral development are as important as academics. Again, it's a civil
rights issue.

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:19:38 +0000

And she said later that she felt she had been used. In fact, when a
consulting firm determined that the original experiment was successful, the
teacher union cited so many errors in the survey data that it had to retract
it.

By: ando

ando — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:50:53 +0000

The Milwaukee School Choice program has been a model for the country.
An African American legislator, Polly Williams, was instrumental in
getting it through the legislature in the early 1990s.

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:55:31 +0000

It's not entirely true that African Americans and Latinos in the big cities support school choice, especially after they weigh the pros and cons. For openers, in my city until fairly recently almost all the private schools were predominately white and few parents would be willing to send their child to a school where racial harassment would be a given. Then, to be able to send your child to a private school you have to have quite a sum of money up front because the vouchers don't cover even a majority of the cost of tuition; for
that reason, most of the minority parents who do support them are actually middle-class and up. Remember, the issue is not so much about getting into the school but paying for it. (To have real school choice 100 percent of tuition must be covered — and that's just not going to happen because it would defeat the purpose of what I've already described, not to mention drive up taxes.)

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:49:04 +0000

It's not entirely true that African Americans and Latinos in the big cities
support school choice, especially after they weigh the pros and cons. For
openers, in my city until fairly recently almost all the private schools were
predominately white and few parents would be willing to send their child to a
school where racial harassment would be a given. Then, to be able to send
your child to a private school you have to have quite a sum of money up front
because the vouchers don't cover even a majority of the cost of tuition; for
that reason, most of the parents who do support them are actually middle-class
and up. Remember, the issue is not so much about getting into the school but
paying for it. (To have real school choice, 100 percent of tuition
must be covered -- and that's just not going to happen because it would defeat
the purpose of what I've already described, not to mention drive up taxes.)

By: ando

ando — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:52:01 +0000

Research in the 1990s showed that there is little correlation between
money spent on education and performance outcomes. The reality is
that many African Americans and Latinos in the big cities support
school choice. Why not give parents that tool? I don't understand
the opposition, and I'm a public schoool teacher in a low income
school. I deal with "crap" all day long. Blame the educational
establishment for the problem, but don't blame parents who want their
kids to get the best education possible. It's a civil rights issue.

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By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:59:29 +0000

This is not at all about disagreeing with the Democrats — I already do when it comes to abortion. The reality is that school vouchers in the long run only serve to get good students out of public schools to make them look worse than they actually are, and public school teachers already understand this. The real answer to the education issue is to stabilize poorer families so that the adults have the time and energy to rear their kids properly — but that takes more resources than folks are willing to spend.

By: ando

ando — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:09:19 +0000

Blue Deacon has a hard time on certain issues, because he finds that he may have to disagree with the Democrats. Evangelicals and Catholics, of course, don't support vouchers for any other reason than guilt. Or perhaps they want to see parents have the same choice in education that they get with reproductive “freedom”. You're right about Democrats….they get huge support from teacher unions, so they cannot do anything but kowtow to their political base. This to the detriment of poor families nationwide. Democrats really don't care about the poor anymore than Republicans or others, they just like to pay lip service more.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:48:29 +0000

Simple reasons — talent and fewer distractions. It's not a “system problem.”

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:47:03 +0000

And I sincerely doubt that the other 75% of the costs were raised at fundraisers and donations.

Trust me that they were. One reason that Catholic schools were so cheap (indeed, originally free for parish children) was because nuns were the teachers and received no special salary from the parish. Plus, in the schools I attended the students were already better and came from stable homes.

But you know what? The schools I attended didn't have music programs, which I certainly could have benefited from. Those type of amenities were available only in suburban school districts.