- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
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- 10,348
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- The anals of history
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- Political Leaning
- Progressive
Please. One Direction is so much cooler than New Kids on the Block.
They both suck?
Please. One Direction is so much cooler than New Kids on the Block.
That's not really what I meant by social stratification. In capitalism, some people rise to the top, and some people sink to the bottom. That, in itself, isn't necessarily bad.... so long as productivity is rewarded.
I think the issue with social stratification and privatizing of schools is that kids from poor families would only be able to go to the cheap schools, and kids from wealthier families would tend to go to higher priced schools (even more so than that happens today). So kids of wealthy people would have more advantages (than they already do) and kids of poor people would have even more disadvantages.
You seem to be confusing social stratification with meritocracy. I'm all for meritocracy, but not for having a system where it's harder (than it already is) for those at the bottom to climb.
Education should always be about the students, not the wealth of the families that they come from.
Please. One Direction is so much cooler than New Kids on the Block.
I believe that in order to make our country stronger, we need underperformers to not hold high achievers back.
I'm not interested in forcing an education down the throats of people who don't really want it, or aren't able/willing to do something with that education.
I would rather those resources be spent giving the best possible education to our best and brightest.
What? I was speaking much more generally than that. Although private schools don't exactly help to provide equal opportunity.
In what way are the strong harming the weak?
While we send the rest off to private prisons.
And private schools do that?
The strong harm the weak by judging the weak as "undesirable".
We send CRIMINALS to prisons.... which is exactly where they belong.
Our best and brightest will always achieve, at least if they don't get lost in a culture of failure. Regardless of that, we still need the vast majority of our citizens to be reasonably well educated (at least they should be able to read and do a little math), that is assuming that you don't desire to have an undereducated workforce which would hamper business growth.
Because they're not free?
One of the best ways to deter crime is educating people so they can become productive. If we fail, our society pays a price. It is necessary to better our schools for the poor, rather than further stratify them.
Again, in what way are they judging the weak as "undesirable?"
How about some specific examples instead of vague blanket statements.
If I had kids in private school, I would be absolutely against privatization of our school system. First off, I wouldn't want the "trash" from public schools invading my kid's private school (assuming that vouchers or something else made it affordable for them). If you took the student body from a failing public school and swapped them for the kids in the finest private school, nothing would change except for the name of the schools. It's not actually the name of the school, or the word "public/private", or the building that makes a difference, it's the families of the kids that makes a difference.
What would happen is that the price and thus cost of most private schools would increase (over the voucher amount) to effectively shut out those undesirable public school kids, and we would end up with pretty much the same system that we already have, except at a higher price.
I made my statements specifically to address your comment that you are against the notion of underacheavers holding the successful people back.
My problem is that I hold a very different viewpoint. Successful people should not be complaining about underachievers holding other people back. They should do everything possible to pull everyone up, to inspire everyone to work for the good of all.
They way I see it, we rise or fall as a group.
The great thing about private school is that you get to choose your school.
As with anything private, competition makes it better.
I made my statements specifically to address your comment that you are against the notion of underacheavers holding the successful people back.
My problem is that I hold a very different viewpoint. Successful people should not be complaining about underachievers holding other people back. They should do everything possible to pull everyone up, to inspire everyone to work for the good of all.
They way I see it, we rise or fall as a group.
That's why we offer scholarships to the brightest kids from poor families.
Being able to send your kids to a good private school is an incentive for people to work harder and be productive. I'm not in favor of removing that incentive. I'm in favor of pouring gasoline on it and ratcheting up the flames. We need more productivity, and less sucking at the government tit.
Only if you have the money.
If all employees today became 10% more productive and nothing else changed, then they would receive no more compensation for their efforts, as a matter of fact compensation would probably fall as employers would need 10% fewer employees.
Communism was always hanging over our heads then as a threat. But more Americans died because of terrorism than died as a result of communism in my lifetime.
Life was simpler back then. People were less paranoid. We had real fun.
Only if you have the money.