Striking out everywhere else, let's take a swing at education

When the new Congress arrived in January they had two mandates as they saw them.  The first was to cut spending.  We were told over and over that it wasn't a revenue problem but a spending problem - not that statements like that make a whit of sense but it is a nice soundbite.  Although the ultimate in low hanging fruit on the logic tree and that with the corporate tax rate (effective not listed) in single digits instead of middle 30s, the richest not paying the upper 30s listed but roughly half that...and 1 in 6 wage earners unemployed or vastly under-employed...well I guess that might make a revenue problem.

The second biggie was creating jobs.  Corporations are recording record profits but the jobless rate stinks.  Congress hasn't done much about that probably because the only way people are going to hire people is when the work overload gets so huge that they need production/service help.  It is cheaper to grind productivity out of workers with the threat of unemployment rather than hire a new person so corporate profits mount and the workforce accommodates output.

I won't mention that congress has worked on 3-4 abortion bills and a lot of rollbacks and underfunding of Health care but hasn't done squat in the area that it promised. Nada.  Now they are taking after schools.

Charter schools are not magnet schools. They are private schools of sorts that fall outside the local system, are operated generally for profit but not always. and they, like most schools have resource limits (e.g.  seats, staff, rtc.).  Charters are an intermediate between public education and private schools......The Archodiocies of RobPeter to PayPaul High School type of thing.....

Let's be clear. Public schools work off the tax base. Charters get tuition dollars plus a bit to operate. Private schools get nothing except some busing and resource access which is fair as these aren't educational tools but general use outside curriculum type of services and they are tax supported. It isn't an ideal situation but it is fair.

Now the argument is that charter schools out perform public schools so people should be handed "vouchers" so they can go to a charter school if desired.  If they can't get into a charter school then they should be able to use these vouchers to attend private schools - religious or not in origin.  The argument continues that private schools have better graduation rates than the public schools and more of the private school kids go on to better colleges than the public school kids.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone who has the general family wherewith all to attend private schools has a better than average chance at educational support in the home than the kid from the projects. It may not be accurate but dollars to doughnuts it is the way it is.  The basic fight, however, is as old as the hills.  Years ago, my kids moved into a school system that was coming to grips with electricity and non-dirt floors. The alternative was the local catholic schools so we enrolled all three at full tuition paid up front.  It was our choice..nothing short of it...so we felt our responsibility to pay for it.

Being good parents we went to our first PTA meeting and encountered one family, with a daughter friends with out daughter, who had 8 brothers and sisters so a total of 9 who went. The motion on the floor was that 1 family paid but 1 tuition and the other 8 went free.  Now I admire the catholics a lot for any number of things but their ability to reproduce in great quantity isn't one of them and then to ask for a tuition break as a result of far too frequently breeding...well, no dice.

Seeing an opportunity, I arose to say what was good for the goose was good for the gander (Lutheran) and I should pay but one time as well for my 3 kids.  NO NO NO. You see, the church supports the school through the Sunday contributions to the Offertory and since I didn't cough it up on Sunday morning this was just a way to make me pay my fair share.

I said, "fine...just remember that when you want public tax dollars to go to support your school".  That made no sense but it made them mad as I was told right then and there that this was money being taken from them to the educational support of others and they wanted what was theirs.  Oh my.

This is a no win logical argument as there is such a built in inequality between public/semi-public/private schools as to never have a level playing field and certainly no level yard stick.  The first day of my high school my class assembled in the auditorium in two seatings as it only held 1200 and we have about 1450 coming in.  We were told to look around (the A-Ks) as half would be gone by age 16 and only 40% would walk at graduation.   They were right. We graduated 612 that June evening.  The 7 catholic high schools in town did far better and the kids who went off to Exeter, Cranbrook, etc., ...well they all finished as their classes all finished...so it went.  It was what it was.

The long and short is that a degree isn't for everyone and the public schools, where anyone and everyone can start and perhaps not finish is different - a far different animal - than anything cooked up by congress or private interests.  Better that they (congress) gets to the business of job creation than meddling with a social fabric it appears to know nothing about.....

What am I saying....like they know anything about anything?