The New York Times reports today that an important new study comparing public schools to private and religious schools is being hushed up by the Bush Administration. For starters, the report was released on a hot/hazy/humid Friday in the middle of summer, when nobody was paying attention. In addition, the NY Times points out that the report was issued "without a news conference or comment from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings." Fascinating, eh?The reason for the silent treatment? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the report found that "children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools." Even more so, perhaps it has something to do with the report's conclusion that "students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their counterparts in public schools on eighth-grade math."
As Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Assocation, pointed out, if "the findings showed that public schools were 'doing an outstanding job' and that if the results had been favorable to private schools, 'there would have been press conferences and glowing statements about private schools.'" According to the NY Times:
"The administration has been giving public schools a beating since the beginning" to advance its political agenda, Mr. Weaver said, of promoting charter schools and taxpayer-financed vouchers for private schools as alternatives to failing traditional public schools.
Unfortunately for the Administration, its own report indicates that public schools are as good or better than private schools or conservative Christian schools. Whoops! Once again, it seems that the facts - those pesky things! - contradict an important part of right wing canon. In this case, it's that private is always better than public, and that religious is always better than secular. Not true, according to the Education Department. Simply not true.
No wonder why this report was considered "bad news to be buried at the bottom of the news cycle." Just like simliar reports on so many other topics that have been buried by the Bush Administration because they were politically incorrect to their right-wing base. Hey, when was that report released about how invading Iraq would transform the entire Middle East into a land of milk and honey? Ha.
Now Bush is having problems with Ms Spellings.
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". . . buried by the Bush Administration because they were politically incorrect to their right-wing base."
It's time to start confronting the right with the concept of political correctness. They practice political correctness more stridently than any on the left.
Not that it isn't an important subject...
one reason I didn't bother to post about it
details of this were readily available before the NY Times story -- discussion at least last several days in educational circles.
Good grief -- this is the lamest attempt at Bush-bashing and Christian-bashing you've posted in a long time. The next time you want to set up a straw man to knock down, get some tougher straw.
Where is the Bush and/or so-called "Conservative Christian" policy against public schools, and in favor of private schools? Who says that private is always better than public, or that religious is always better than secular? Please post a link to these authorities. I'm one of those scary "Conservative Christians" who happens to have three kids in public schools, but I wouldn't attempt to deny other parents the choice of private school or homeschooling, or ever denigrate those choices.
Funny -- I've never heard my friends make the asinine claim that private/religious is "always better" than public/secular. It's only the far left, anti-private/parochial/home school crowd who say that one is "always" better than the other.
The problem here is that the NEA has a huge chip on its shoulder. It can't stand the fact that school choice exists, and its leaders get downright giddy when there's any news that can be spun like this one.
Mr. Weaver's statements and opinions are being presented here and in the NYT as if they're gospel, and he's being allowed to speak for the administration. Very, very shoddy journalism, and dishonest blogging.
For now, I'm going to just let it hang out there as unworthy of response, because it's so ridiculous.
Maybe if you Google long enough and hard enough you'll find somebody out there (who you can claim speaks for all Christians and all conservatives) who said something remotely similar to your stupid claim above.
Calling this "conservative orthodoxy" is beyond laughable. Seriously... you sound extremely uninformed and borderline stupid on this thread.
No, my sole reason for reading and posting at RK is call bullshit when you make asinine statements, and this entry of yours is a classic example.
So much so, in fact, that you still haven't defended ANY of your inane remarks concerning what Christian conservatives "always" believe about private/religious v. public/secular schools. (Of course you haven't defended it, because you can't -- it's a flat-out lie.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0717-03.htm
I remember when bush was governor and he imposed the testing nonsense on the schools, particularly the schools in poor neighborhoods. The drop-out rate increased drastically. Nothing like shaming kids who already doubt themselves. Meanwhile the affluent schools had swimming pools and advantages. The poor schools just had more drastic statistics. But the plutocracy must guarantee their servant class.
"I support vouchers" does NOT mean the same thing as "private/religious schools are always better than public/secular."
Even arguing that those are synonymous is silly.
For example:
I am an evangelical Christian. (Episcopal)
I believe homeschooling is a great choice for many people, and we homeschooled our children several years ago. For some, in fact, it's clearly the best choice among all options. Relious schools and other private schools may be the best choice for many families. It's not my place to decide for them.
My children attend public schools, primarily because Henrico has the best public schools in the state, and our children have opportunities to participate in accelerated programs, gifted magnet schools, and specialty high schools.
Therefore, as a staunch advocate of vouchers, homeschooling and school choice, I strongly believe that public schools are the best for my children... despite Lowell's attempt to ascribe particular beliefs to me.
I thought that the rationale for requiring school vouchers was to provide parents/students in underperforming schools an opportunity to go elsewhere. The presumption beneath the argument is that the private/religious/charter schools paid for by these vouchers provide a better education. The Education Department report indicates that this presumption is generally untrue, although there may be a few exceptions.
If we agree that private/religious schools are NOT always better than public schools, then what is a reasonable basis for choosing to provide students that go there with publicly funded vouchers, thus pulling our tax money away from good public schools like the ones your children attend in Henrico? As I see it, the issue is not so much whether parents should have choices about where their children are educated, but about where we are willing to send the money. If school systems everywhere were awash with cash this might not be such an issue, but they are not.
And over and over again a native bigotry peeks through when minorities become closer to majorities in a certain school district, and the "white" kids are pulled out when their parents either move to lily white suburbs and/or demand vouchers to help pay for private schools for their kids. So, vouchers really were designed as an aid for white folks' budgets to help them get away from those colored folks, even though the vouchers have been dressed up to pretend they allow colored folks to get out of bad inner city schools, too, to be blunt about it. The same goes for the tricky test-to-the-rule programs of No Child Left Behind: stated motive sounds great, reality is subversive.
I notice I. Publis' children are in Henrico schools, not Richmond City schools, by the way. It wasn't so long ago that Virginia closed public schools, white people sent their kids to private (mostly religious) schools, and blacks had to make do. I do not disagree that public schools are in touble in many areas, or that the professional teachers' bureaucracy has to share some of the blame. More of the blame should fall on the shoulders of school boards, politicians, and voters.
Now that we no longer have a military draft, the only extended contact different socio-economic and ethnic groups have with each other is in public schools, where they are under circumstances forcing them to learn to exist together on a level playing field. In other words, public schools become the nursery of later adult democracy in a pluralistic society. When that is dissolved by vouchers and other Bush policies, we have no system for bringing us together politically in a viable society. We are balkanized, or should I say Iraq-ized?
PS - I myself attended public, private, and religious schools (of a religion not my own), and both public universities and a private religious university (again, of not my own religion). And, I had a private tutor one year, too, so I've personally experienced it all.