Speaking about Catholics, I was raised a Catholic by my conservative Catholic dad (my mom being a conservative Hindu, still happily married). When I expressed an interest in science, the first books he bought me were books on natural history.
I didn't know that there were actually people that didn't "believe" in evolution for religious reasons until around middle school probably.
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
Originally Posted by Think
I went to a Catholic school from 8th-12th grade.
The shit they "forgot to tell us" in history class was insane. I was hearing about all this crap when I took history in college, and it was retarded.
Catholicism has killed more people than the holocaust.
Most other large, organized religious have also done the same.
In addition, these same religions have also had a pacifying effect that prevented people's deaths, so it's not easy to tell how many deaths have been prevented from this vs. how many deaths were caused by religion.
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
I really wish Catholicism had a movement inside of it to destroy the Papacy, but that'd kill Catholicism. Considering that the Catholic Church had a hand in so many things during World War II (Croatia under Pavelić, supporting the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, the actual Vatican City state being created by Mussolini, Nazis fleeing to Argentina, Paraguay and Spain, Charles Coughlin in the USA, etc.), I don't think they minded the Holocaust much since back then they still were condemning the Jews for "killing Jesus."
As it stands though, it seems that religions go from progressive to reactionary depending on things. The Reform movement was progressive up until, well, it still is in a way but it never really had mass influence. Protestantism was progressive and fought against Catholicism (The Know-Nothing movement, etc.) which back then was condemning secular education and abolitionism while Protestants called for public schooling and secular laws in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then Catholicism came back post-60's with Liberation Theology (Which the Popes have condemned, FYI) while Protestantism becomes more reactionary.
The federal government has pretty much unlimited business in establishing what should be taught in schools because education is a national issue and it should be pretty obvious that creationism is bullshit, ergo it should not be allowed.The federal government has no business establishing what should and should not be taught in schools.
Last edited by Husein; 10-06-2008 at 04:13 AM.
1. This is based on the assumption that the state ought to have any influence on education. Other than requiring some form of education (which would be best managed with permits the way that carbon dioxide emissions are), no government ought to determine what is and isn't taught in schools, much less an over-reaching federal government. There's no constitutional authorization (except liberal interpretation of the Commerce Clause.) The states are capable of determining which information is most vital to its residents far better than the federal government, if someone outside the market has to decide.
I support education being opened to a free market, so there's no real need to continue this discussion.
This makes no sense. Education is education. There isn't "Georgian education" where anarchism works or "Texas education" where legal theory as we know it is incorrect and instead consists of my penis.The states are capable of determining which information is most vital to its residents far better than the federal government
No, you support giving individual states the ability to choose what teachers can teach, which makes no sense since education is the same for everyone. If a state fucks up education, the entire nation suffers from either a stupid modification or an inefficient/wrong one. Not to mention that states rights has also been used as a way of keeping reactionary laws in place (which is why it died about 60 years ago) and assumes that the state itself is evil, but individual small states are totally awesome and free, which makes no sense.I support education being opened to a free market, so there's no real need to continue this discussion.
Ironically, you'd probably favor the USSR system more where it was a Union of independent Republics which at times had their own semi-independent foreign policy within said Union. It was much easier to leave the Union, too (as evidenced by 1991) and there were awesome things like "National Communism" (basically an Islamic and evidently nationalist version) that the Bolsheviks had to encourage in the Central Asian SSRs because secular education was seen as evil.
As a note about the constitution, wouldn't education fall under the general welfare principle of the preamble? Never heard of it having to do with the commerce clause.
Last edited by Husein; 10-06-2008 at 05:41 PM.
The purpose of education is to improve the productivity of workers. While some disciplines may improve productivity universally, some states have economies that lean heavily on one industry, and more advanced training for that industry would be more beneficial. The states ought to determine this, not the federal government. There's no point in training farmers if your state is filled with factories.
Likewise, some states can train certain professions at lower marginal cost than others. It is more efficient if they focus on training those professions than others. The current system has deadweight loss.
If the federal government makes a stupid modification, the whole nation suffers. I'd rather have those close to me make the decision than a large government far away.
Creative logical fallacy, there... maybe if you blame states rights for enough other things, you'll undermine this one.
How is that ironic? Or even related. I support free-market education.
Everything falls under the commerce clause.
Bullshit. I didn't study math for years and years so that I could be a better cog in the corporate wheel. If I wanted that, I would have studied business, welding, or some other trade. I studied math because I enjoyed it and because it was a good intellectual exercise. You seem to be conflating "education" and "training". They are different words for a reason.
Yeah, I see your point, but on the other hand, exposing kids to some amount of agricultural education is good, otherwise
1) They won't have any idea where the food in the grocery store comes from
2) They'll never have the opportunity to discover if they really would like farming, even if it means they'll have to move elsewhere to pursue it
That doesn't mean that every school in the country has to have a 100 acre farm and a charter ag department with it, but offering some amount of ag to all kids isn't a bad thing.
The point of education isn't to be as efficient as possible in getting jobs for students. It is to offer students opportunities to do what they want with their lives, and to enrich themselves intellectually. By your logic, no school should offer any arts or music, since almost nobody ever makes a living at them. And forget about athletic programs, or even PE classes.
Yes, which is why you would hope that the federal rules would have the flexibility to adapt to local conditions, and why you try to incorporate only the best curricula you can at that level.
Edit: But your second sentence is curious - why do you prefer to be fucked over by someone in your own town, instead of someone from another town? Why does proximity imply benevolence?
If it applies to everything, then it applies to nothing. You might want to reconsider your own logical fallacies.
Last edited by sasquash; 10-06-2008 at 09:28 PM.
Well yes, I'll agree with that and was actually considering showing it as an exception, but I'm pretty sure no one is going to be opposed to a state controlling this aspect. Also we're talking about science.
What is more likely to fuck up science in this case? The federal government, which I'm going to assume has more contact with 'concerned officials' (scientists, etc.) or a state with a strong creationist/'alternative medicine'/whatever lobby?If the federal government makes a stupid modification, the whole nation suffers.
Maybe if states rights wasn't such an idealistic concept I wouldn't have to undermine it.Creative logical fallacy, there... maybe if you blame states rights for enough other things, you'll undermine this one.
Also, a state or the state makes little difference except in efficiency and foot-dragging. Look at Quebec, a province in Canada which actually has some legitimacy towards their separatist arguments and is bigger than I'm going to assume most US states. The whole "WE SHALL FREE OURSELVES FROM YOUR TYRANNYYYYYYY!!!!" falls flat when people realize it wouldn't last long as an independent state.
Not relevant, but lets see what the USSR did. The USSR developed the economies of each SSR to an extent that they could viably declare independence. That is why every single SSR that was in the USSR came out as a fully independent state in 1991. (Granted, I know a Republic isn't the same as if the USSR was a bunch of huge states)
Last edited by Husein; 10-07-2008 at 01:33 AM.
I in theory agree with less government control, but the problem with basic education not being government funded is quality and type. You seriously believe that some public schools would opt to not teach science and only teach creationism, while some schools teach science, and some in between, people from different parts of the country would be arguing with each other moreso than now, education must be controlled. You can't just teach kids whatever the fuck you want to. As soon as someone with the wrong agenda gets in power, than all of the sudden there is a school teaching that the holocaust never happened, and that the KKK are hero's.
Of course once you out of highschool than education is free market for the advanced stuff, because they can self-regulate due to people with a basic education knowing the difference between a crazy school and a real one.
Well, from a theoretical standpoint, having education more locally controlled has (at least) two benefits:
1) More different pedagogical approaches get tried out and evaluated in different places, and you might discover something that really works well that never would have been a first choice nationally.
2) You can cater to local populations. A curriculum that addresses the needs and local personality of some hillbillies and coal miners in West Virginia might not be suitable for street thugs in LA. And neither's curriculum is likely to maximize the learning potential of a bunch of rich snots in an exclusive neighborhood of Connecticut.
And I'm not clear exactly why you make an arbitrary cutoff between high school and college. Couldn't you just as easily claim that once you're out of middle school, you know which high schools are run by crackpots? Of course, we don't get as much choice in high schools as we do in colleges, and even if we did, any high school that is local enough to attend is likely to be under the same guidelines as any other school within range. But even colleges have to get accredited, and I'm willing to bet that that fosters some level of uniformity even on the college level.
BUT, practically speaking, these benefits are mostly outweighed by the fact that there are still a lot of scary fuckers out there who want to control local school systems, and they can do so a lot more easily if the schools are less centrally controlled. There are still places in the South that have prayer in the schools - and this is, what, 40 years after that was explicitly declared unconstitutional? Every now and then you hear a story on NPR about some new biology teacher in Alabama or rural Utah getting called into the principal's office and questioned about his or her religious beliefs, and told that the Bible is the only textbook that's really necessary. Do you really want to trust Cletus with deciding what gets put into your kid's biology or geology curriculum? Christ, I had a physics teacher in high school who had never even had calculus. That's a little like teaching Shakespeare without ever having learned anything about poetry. (Well, that's a bad analogy, but I'm tired, so cut me some slack.) And a free market only works if there are good options available. A little southern town with one school, no nearby alternatives, and a populace that doesn't much care to be told how to teach their young 'uns about the world really isn't an ideal marketplace. Hell, the entire state of Kansas almost adopted an intelligent design curriculum, because some fundies got onto the state board of education. Even a whole state can end up with backwards policies. So yes, as patronizing as it is, sometimes folks in some places need a little kick in the ass to nudge them into the 21st century. Or at least into the latter half of the 20th. And that requires some external oversight.
And there's the issue of the kids' rights, as well. It won't be the kids who decide what school to attend, or what beliefs to be indoctrinated with. It'll be their parents who decide that, either based on their beliefs, or based on what's most convenient to them. We don't let parents keep their kids out of school entirely (they must at least homeschool), we don't let them deprive their kids of necessities like food or medical care, and we don't let them abuse their kids, why would we let them send their kids to some crackpot school run by Scientologists, militants, or fundamentalist Christians who just teach that Jesus is coming back by the end of the year (or next year at the latest), so there's no point in learning anything other than Bible verses? Part of the point of mandatory education is to ensure that every kid in the country gets some basic level of competence in reading, writing, math, and critical thinking, so that he won't be a drain on society, and so that he can learn and make decisions for himself, rather than just being brainwashed by his family and community.
Further, if we're going to provide public education for every kid in the country, and require that every kid either take advantage of it, or get a private education instead, shouldn't there be some effort to make sure that every one of those kids - all across the country, not just on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis - gets some minimal level of competence in that education? This implies at least some rough guidelines on a national level that every school must follow. It's hardly fair if every kid from Kansas is at a disadvantage, because their schools had to teach thinly-disguised creationism.
My favorite bit in this whole thread, though, is Atmosfear decreeing that since he supports free market schools, no more discussion is necessary. I got quite a kick out of that. (Yeah, I know that's not a charitable interpretation of what he wrote, but it still made me giggle.)
Last edited by sasquash; 10-06-2008 at 09:11 PM.
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