Quote:It'd be a problem for many.  I certainly don't want my kids exposed to creationism at school.  


And here's where the problem comes in:


School A doesn't teach creationism.

School B does.


School B produces more people who graduate despite being illiterate, while School A has a much better literacy rate.  School B gets more funding, while School A gets less.  Education is basically turned into a profit-based business where parents are customers.  They choose based on a variety of factors, and the better schools fail to get funding, and go out of business despite being, objectively better schools.  Schools would  have to appeal to the parents, rather than focus on educating the students.  Educating students should be the primary goal of a school.  Not profit.  Because it's easy to attract parents.  It's hard to actually educate students.  And the bottom line would be all that matters in the end.


I mean if Creationism was actually a science, then I'd say "Yeah, they should teach it."  But it's not a science. Religious values should be imposed by parents, and (if the parents so choose) their church, not schools. 

 

The basic problem with you analogy is pretty simple, you inherently truncate the amount of choices possible when the whole idea of school choice is to increase the options available to each parent when making the decision on where best to educate their children.  If the crux of your argument is that the population at large, the vast majority of which were educated in public schools, are too stupid to make decisions for their own children then that puts a pretty big dent in the argument for continuing the state run monopoly.  

 

Quote:I'm not against stimulating thought.  But Creationism is a religious concept, not a scientific one.  Teachers may (and should) provide scientific critiques of evolution.  But they should not teach creationism.  An Intelligent Designer can neither be proven nor disproven by science.  


Creationism could be talked about maybe in a class like Comparative Religion.  But it has no place in a science class.  And most people don't take Comparative Religion.  

 

Just as an aside, the opposite of Creationism is not evolution, its abiogenesis.  It always makes me chuckle a little when those who croon the most about scientific accuracy continue this popular mix up.  Its even funnier when most learn the difference between general evolutionary theory and the concept of abiogenesis that they are measures less hostile to people of faith.  

 

First off, contrary to your thinly veiled accusations people of faith can read.  I don't know why you saw the need to drag a conversation about school funding into a debate about religion or creationism, it seems more than a little alarmist and frankly insulting in the way you categorized people that disagree with you and if no one else points it out then i will, that's pretty unacceptable.  

 

In part you're right.  It would be incumbent on parents to make good decisions about where to send your kids.  Also, there would undoubtedly be a myriad of institutions that wanted to cater to a niche of one ideological or spiritual leaning or another, and that's a good thing.  If you want your kids educated in a more or completely secular environment then that's your personal choice, i am not going to use the force of the state to force them to go to seminary any more than i would want you to compel my kids to have to go to an institution that demeans my beliefs as you have above.  

 

The idea that glitz and glamour alone would attract parents to schools that don't teach is just plain not credible. 

 

1.) you have a system now in which teachers know that no matter what students and their paychecks are going to show up next year.  That offers ZERO incentive to innovate!  the tenure and public sector union system is so bad in some places that in New York City you literally have teachers getting paid to go to a room and make paper planes because their sex offenders who can't be around kids but they can't get fired!  Does that make any sense?

 

2.) No matter how glitzy a schools PR people may be at some point the parent is going to interact with the student.  If the student isn't performing and growing academically then the responsible parent isn't going to put up with it and a motivated student will make sure to bring it to their parents attention.  And if your dealing with an irresponsible parent and an unmotivated child there's nothing that the current system can do to save that child either.  

 

3.) It amazes me that after everything that the 20th century taught us that we still have to argue so hard for the freedom of choice and have to continually demonstrate the inherent and systemic inefficiencies of government monopolies.  

 

4.) Heaven forbid that at some point in a free system that some educators might figure out that it doesn't make sense to waste as much time as we do with electives when kids will find creative enrichment on their own anyway and actually offer a more streamline focused academic curriculum that wouldn't need a full four years of college after 13 years of being in the school system to produce a bachelors level student.  Just sayin'!

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