Below are three responses to the subject message from subscribers to ReturnToExcellence.net that add to the discussion.
The first response provides a list that will challenge us all. It also points out that Belgium has one of Europe's most successful economies - the correlation point to me is that I saw Belgian students actually show pity feeling sorry for American students during an international testing program a few years ago.
The second response provides a good list of federal government departments to be eliminated - not a bad list @ all for starters.
The third response is from a parent who pleads for parental involvement in our education system @ this late date.
---Response #1---
The Left continues its myth that we need more education $. However the chart says it all -- there has been no positive correlation between education spending and test scores in the US. This is also true in Greece. Greece has 4 times as many teachers per pupil than Belgium, one of Europe's more successful economies. Source: John Mauldin's new book, 'Endgame - The End of the Debt SuperCycle' - great book about the current world economy.
Greece also has 3 times as many public employees than private. What a near socialist utopia! What about the US? Since the start of the Great Recession Dec 2007, as of a few months ago (last I checked), the US had more public employees in Spring 2011 than Dec 2007. One factor has been the $850 billion stimulus bill which paid back public unions for Democrat support- saving and adding public jobs the market will not support because there is no wealth creation with these jobs. Many of these public jobs the stimulus added or saved are being lost now.
Nevertheless BO and his Left cronies in Congress have been very consequential in their drive to create a near Socialist nation modeled after Greece. What insanity!
So what must free market capitalists do?
1 – Blog to sites dominated by the Left but with fair number of conservatives who will respond and further drive our points. Blog to NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times.
2 – Write to Leftist Congressional reps. Let them know we listen to their myths and will challenge them.
3 – Encourage our weak moderate and conservative representatives to challenge all economic myths.
4 – Be part of a grass roots movement to educate many who are not well informed. Is politics not appropriate at social gatherings? MOST APPROPRIATE in 2011. This is especially true if your friend or neighbor makes a comment supporting any of the Left economic myths. I never restrain and have challenged many friends, neighbors, even relatives – with some success!
Greece also has 3 times as many public employees than private. What a near socialist utopia! What about the US? Since the start of the Great Recession Dec 2007, as of a few months ago (last I checked), the US had more public employees in Spring 2011 than Dec 2007. One factor has been the $850 billion stimulus bill which paid back public unions for Democrat support- saving and adding public jobs the market will not support because there is no wealth creation with these jobs. Many of these public jobs the stimulus added or saved are being lost now.
Nevertheless BO and his Left cronies in Congress have been very consequential in their drive to create a near Socialist nation modeled after Greece. What insanity!
So what must free market capitalists do?
1 – Blog to sites dominated by the Left but with fair number of conservatives who will respond and further drive our points. Blog to NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times.
2 – Write to Leftist Congressional reps. Let them know we listen to their myths and will challenge them.
3 – Encourage our weak moderate and conservative representatives to challenge all economic myths.
4 – Be part of a grass roots movement to educate many who are not well informed. Is politics not appropriate at social gatherings? MOST APPROPRIATE in 2011. This is especially true if your friend or neighbor makes a comment supporting any of the Left economic myths. I never restrain and have challenged many friends, neighbors, even relatives – with some success!
---Response #2---
With all the Federal govt proposals out there do you notice not one of them talks about any structural changes? Structural changes like ending Dept of Education?? I would like to nominate the Dept of Education to be closed now. Other Depts. could include Energy, Interior and Agricultural.
---Response #3---
What a sad state of affairs. Public schools are funneling students through like cattle down the ramp to the slaughterhouse. These kids don't stand a chance at success. As I see it, the only ones who have any way of making it are those who are home schooled or whose parents are willing to sacrifice by paying tuition to private or parochial schools or those who are lucky enough to get into charter schools.
Also, there are always some who are truly self motivated and will let nothing stop them but the majority will end up at McDonalds or some other schlock job or, Heaven help us, dealing drugs or robbing banks. If something isn't Done soon to get the federal government out of the education business, this generation of students Will Be a lost generation. Schools need to be back in the hands of local control with parental oversight.
Doug
ReplyDelete**Not to mention the fact that the Federal Govt has NO business UNDER THE CONSTITUTION sticking its nose into education.. the General Welfare clause doesn't mean "Welfare check" or "we force you to educate other people's children to the detriment of your own."
***Christian Homeschoolers know that education is a GOD GIVEN right of the PARENTS, not the government. See the excellent book "The Children Trap:
Biblical Principles for Education" by Robert Thoburn, who founded a very successful Christian academy in Fairfax, VA...
***Also, did you know that the right AND responsibility of the PARENTS (NOT the state, NOR even the Church) to educate their own children is offically acknowledged by the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Officially anway. (Note: Published by U.S.Council of Catholic Bishops, this catechism is NOT the Baltimore Catechism, which is intended for a different purpose.)
To wit, Part 3, Chapter 2, Article 4, Section III reads:
2221: "The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. 'The role of the parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.' The right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable." (Sure sounds to me like one of the things our Government, AS DEFINED BY THE CONSTITUTION/DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, should be DEFENDING, not INFRINGING UPON. It's on this basis that I oppose the "no child left behind" act. If anything, the Federal government should declare ILLEGAL any infringement of a parents' right and duty to educate their OWN children...which is what public schools do via school taxes and truancy laws. Ah, instant property tax relief -- and I have better uses for that money -- namely, the education of MY OWN children and, God willing, grandchildren, among other worthy, well spent causes.)
2222: Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God's law. (as we well know, many public school evironments and rules do not back up the parents on this issue)
2223. Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity and disinterested service are the rule (Unlike the norm in Washington DC!) The home is well suited for education in the virtues. (again unlike DC!) This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all TRUE freedom (emphasis mine - self mastery results in True Freedom because you are no longer slave to temptation or vice - e.g, a person with self mastery and practiced in the art of self-denial and making good decisions can not be enslaved by an addiction to smoking/drugs/gambling.). Parents should teach their children to subordinate the 'material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.' Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them: "He who loves his son will not spare the rod...He who disciplines his son will profit by him." (Sirach 30:1-2) "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) --- (Judging by the mayhem in most public schools, including the one in my town, seems like neither school nor even the parents are following God's instruction in this regard - self-mastery isn't showing up as a common trait among the students. There are never consequences, even when the teacher ---or occasionally the principal ---imposes them, the parents and even the mayor force them to be rescinded. In our town, anyway)
ReplyDelete2224: "The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies." (Sure sounds like we should keep em out of public shools and most colleges too!)
2228: Parents' respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.
AND THE PIECE DE RESISTANCE.....THE RIGHT THAT CATHOLICS --- AND ALL AMERICANS --- ARE BEING DENIED...YET NONE DARE ATTACK THE "GOLDEN CALF" of "FREE" EDUCATION! WHY? Are we living "on the waterfront" here?????
2229: As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible, parents have the duty of choosing schoools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities ahve the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.
I'm not surprised that most non-Catholics, or those who abandoned their faith, do not know these tenets of our faith. But I'm very sad to find that most folks "in the pews" (and sadder still that even some clergy, and a few Bishops) have NOT read THIS Catechism....much less have the Chutzpah of an Archbishop Timothy Dolan or a Archbishop Charles Chaput to stand up for this article of our Faith. to paraphrase the great pro-life bumpersticker -- You Cannot be Catholic and Pro Abortion ---You can't be Catholic & PRO PUBLIC EDUCATION...or PRO BIG GOVERNMENT...or DEMOCRAT! (nearly the entire party platform, as stated in 2008, is totally at odds with the Catholic faith).
Well anyway, that's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. That & a $5 bill will buy me a gallon of gas!
After all, according to our "natural born" President, we are not a Christian nation anyway.
God bless you,