-----Original Message----- From: Arlo Bensinger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:56 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [MD] Dynamic Development at all costs?
[Krimel] There is a kind of cosmic justice being played out in life and asking society to step in and interfere is somehow wrong. [Arlo] Spot on, Krimel. These are the advocates of Social Darwinism. "Gods and Clods", as it is parodied on South Park. Poor people are poor because they are stupid and lazy. They are "moochers" (to use Platt's latest descriptor), parasites who are at their lot in life because they are either too stupid to become Bill Gates, or too lazy, and either way deserve nothing but they worthlessless we attribute to them. It is Scrooge to the Nth degree. It is why it is of no real concern to any of them that "privatizing" education will result in the rich having access to better schools, better educations, and better potential. The belief is that any "poor kid" worth a salt will somehow "rise above" and "find a way" to attend these better schools. Those who do not deserve nothing better than a life of asking "Can I Super-Size that for you?", and so we don't need to concern ourselves with the low-quality education they will receive. They deserve it. And if a poor family has a smart kid they "can't afford", then it is (as Krimel says) Karmic Retribution to punish that kid for the sins of the parents. [Krimel] It is certainly true that some do rise above their circumstance and excel in even the poorest of schools. The issue is why should they have to 'rise above' why should excellence be the norm? This whole privatization voucher crap is just a right wing ruse to destroy public education. Charter schools are an example from my neck of the woods. They get public funding but are exempted from most of the things that drive up the cost of public education. They can throw kids out if they misbehave or perform poorly. They don't have to accept special needs kids, that kind of thing. We have another deal called magnet schools were they spend extra money on a few schools in really crappy neighborhoods. The idea is to attract the rich kids in from across town so they can bus the neighborhood kids to the suburbs. Much of this arises from strings attached to federal money which tends to add costs. When my children were young we intentionally move to the area that had the best schools in the county and our kids did extremely well. Since I am an admitted arrogant asshole I can tell you that we had one kid make the All State band six years in a row and another score 1600 on the SAT. They were smart enough and got the support at home to 'rise above' whatever their circumstances. We wanted to make sure they rose above the very best and they did. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
