theinvisibleheart
New member
Another support for privatization? Quick summary: superintendent Edgar Hatrick pulled gay penguin family book from the school library shelves in Loudoun County, Virginia after parents complained that the book has a gay agenda.
YouTube video "Stupid in America" supporting privatization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw
BTW, you should be asking yourself 2 questions:
1. what is the educational value of gay penguin/gay penguin family literature for elementary school education?
2. is there a literary/scientific/educational merit for the book? It's my understanding that gay penguin is not representative of penguin population.
A naive elementary school student might interpret this to mean WOW, in natural world, most penguins are gay and have 2 moms or 2 dads and somehow, magically, have little baby penguins to raise. Maybe, families who have a mom and a dad are not normal since they don't have 2 dads or 2 moms like the gay penguin family in the book.
Link to FOX News article about gay penguin indoctrination article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330956,00.html
Children's Book About Same-Sex Penguin Couple Causes Flap in Virginia
Sunday, February 17, 2008
_______________________________________________________________________
LEESBURG, Va. — A children's book about two male penguins that hatch a chick together has been pulled from school library shelves in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Parents complained that the book has a gay agenda and have called for its removal. But supporters say the book's removal is censorship.
The decision by Superintendent Edgar Hatrick is being criticized by many parents and gay rights advocates. They say the school system shouldn't have allowed one complaint to limit children's literary choices.
The 2005 book is called "And Tango Makes Three." It draws on the real-life story of Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York.
A spokesman for the Loudoun schools said Hatrick thought the book's content might not be developmentally appropriate for some students.
_______________________________________________________________________
According to Stupid in America by John Stossel, until 4th grade, US students rank competitively with other students in the world, including Europe and Hong Kong/Singapore/Japan. However, after 4th grade, US students fall further and further behind (i.e., get dumber and dumber on comparative basis). According to Stupid in America,
1. the reason why students in Europe does so much better than US students is due to prevalence of vouchers. Due to vouchers, public schools compete against private schools and need to perform, otherwise they lose students and go out of business. When vouchers are used, education dollar tracks the student, not where the student lives. It forces public school to be accountable towards the NEEDS and WANTS of the parents and the students.
2. in one example, commercial educational services provider accomplished in couple of hours what public school failed to do in 12 years after spending over $100K on a functionally illiterate high school student: teach basic literacy. It's amazing what free market can accomplish, given the chance.
In my personal experiences, I've witnessed undergraduate engineering students drop out of the program due to their math deficiency. I've also witnessed people with graduate degree in non-mathematical subject treat mathematics like other non-mathematical subjects....i.e., it can be learned by conceptual verbal explanation w/o solving large number of problems. Most successful math programs like those in Asia emphasize problem solving...not learning mathematics conceptually. Once you reach graduate program in mathematical fields in most major U.S. universities, it looks like UN in that most of the graduate students are from foreign countries where they do not try to teach mathematics conceptually w/o large amount of problem solving.
I've also seen Hispanic students do poorly due to lack of English proficiency stemming from bilingual program (alternative method of immersion is a much more effective and proven method).
Whether public education is controlled at state or federal level, without market forces, it's doomed to mediocrity. It's a shame that country like France and Belgium allow market forces to operate in the area of public education, while US, the world leader in free market, lags behind so deploringly.
Trying to fix public school education is like trying to fix US Postal Services as it is w/o privatization and competition. In Washington D.C. inner city ghetto, children from disadvantaged single parent family was randomly selected and sent to private school that cost 1/3 to 2/3 the cost of public school (the cost of vouchers was privately funded). Suddenly, the children started to do much better and also, the dropout rate was much less. BTW, the children were selected on random basis via lottery drawing.
BTW, most parents who don't seem to care today would care if they had the power of choices. Even highly disadvantaged and dysfunctional family like inner city ghetto family in Washington, D.C. started caring when they were given the POWER OF CHOICE.
Most people, independent of income and education, does not choose to keep on patronizing a services provider who keep on furnishing substandard goods and services if THEY HAD THE CHOICE. Vouchers/school choices allow the parents to send their children to the school that serves the best interest/needs of their children. Parents like most people exchange information with other parents. Right now, most parents doesn't have the power of choices since the public school in their district gets the money no matter what. Most lower and lower middle class parents cannot afford to pay twice for school tuition which is what happens when you send your kids to private school.
Same population of children (disadvantage, inner city family, mostly single parent) can be taught to learn at much more cost effective basis (at fraction of public school cost) if vouchers are used here like it's done in Europe.
Good resource for public education vouchers:
Friedman Foundation For Educational Choice
YouTube video "Stupid in America" supporting privatization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw
BTW, you should be asking yourself 2 questions:
1. what is the educational value of gay penguin/gay penguin family literature for elementary school education?
2. is there a literary/scientific/educational merit for the book? It's my understanding that gay penguin is not representative of penguin population.
A naive elementary school student might interpret this to mean WOW, in natural world, most penguins are gay and have 2 moms or 2 dads and somehow, magically, have little baby penguins to raise. Maybe, families who have a mom and a dad are not normal since they don't have 2 dads or 2 moms like the gay penguin family in the book.
Link to FOX News article about gay penguin indoctrination article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330956,00.html
Children's Book About Same-Sex Penguin Couple Causes Flap in Virginia
Sunday, February 17, 2008
_______________________________________________________________________
LEESBURG, Va. — A children's book about two male penguins that hatch a chick together has been pulled from school library shelves in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Parents complained that the book has a gay agenda and have called for its removal. But supporters say the book's removal is censorship.
The decision by Superintendent Edgar Hatrick is being criticized by many parents and gay rights advocates. They say the school system shouldn't have allowed one complaint to limit children's literary choices.
The 2005 book is called "And Tango Makes Three." It draws on the real-life story of Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York.
A spokesman for the Loudoun schools said Hatrick thought the book's content might not be developmentally appropriate for some students.
_______________________________________________________________________
According to Stupid in America by John Stossel, until 4th grade, US students rank competitively with other students in the world, including Europe and Hong Kong/Singapore/Japan. However, after 4th grade, US students fall further and further behind (i.e., get dumber and dumber on comparative basis). According to Stupid in America,
1. the reason why students in Europe does so much better than US students is due to prevalence of vouchers. Due to vouchers, public schools compete against private schools and need to perform, otherwise they lose students and go out of business. When vouchers are used, education dollar tracks the student, not where the student lives. It forces public school to be accountable towards the NEEDS and WANTS of the parents and the students.
2. in one example, commercial educational services provider accomplished in couple of hours what public school failed to do in 12 years after spending over $100K on a functionally illiterate high school student: teach basic literacy. It's amazing what free market can accomplish, given the chance.
In my personal experiences, I've witnessed undergraduate engineering students drop out of the program due to their math deficiency. I've also witnessed people with graduate degree in non-mathematical subject treat mathematics like other non-mathematical subjects....i.e., it can be learned by conceptual verbal explanation w/o solving large number of problems. Most successful math programs like those in Asia emphasize problem solving...not learning mathematics conceptually. Once you reach graduate program in mathematical fields in most major U.S. universities, it looks like UN in that most of the graduate students are from foreign countries where they do not try to teach mathematics conceptually w/o large amount of problem solving.
I've also seen Hispanic students do poorly due to lack of English proficiency stemming from bilingual program (alternative method of immersion is a much more effective and proven method).
Whether public education is controlled at state or federal level, without market forces, it's doomed to mediocrity. It's a shame that country like France and Belgium allow market forces to operate in the area of public education, while US, the world leader in free market, lags behind so deploringly.
Trying to fix public school education is like trying to fix US Postal Services as it is w/o privatization and competition. In Washington D.C. inner city ghetto, children from disadvantaged single parent family was randomly selected and sent to private school that cost 1/3 to 2/3 the cost of public school (the cost of vouchers was privately funded). Suddenly, the children started to do much better and also, the dropout rate was much less. BTW, the children were selected on random basis via lottery drawing.
BTW, most parents who don't seem to care today would care if they had the power of choices. Even highly disadvantaged and dysfunctional family like inner city ghetto family in Washington, D.C. started caring when they were given the POWER OF CHOICE.
Most people, independent of income and education, does not choose to keep on patronizing a services provider who keep on furnishing substandard goods and services if THEY HAD THE CHOICE. Vouchers/school choices allow the parents to send their children to the school that serves the best interest/needs of their children. Parents like most people exchange information with other parents. Right now, most parents doesn't have the power of choices since the public school in their district gets the money no matter what. Most lower and lower middle class parents cannot afford to pay twice for school tuition which is what happens when you send your kids to private school.
Same population of children (disadvantage, inner city family, mostly single parent) can be taught to learn at much more cost effective basis (at fraction of public school cost) if vouchers are used here like it's done in Europe.
Good resource for public education vouchers:
Friedman Foundation For Educational Choice
Last edited:
excuse me?