|
|
#51
11-11-2005, 03:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Decisions, decisions
[ QUOTE ]
Anything goes - as long as you don't aggress against another person. When someone picks chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, has he made the "right" choice? Should I worry about it? [/ QUOTE ] Come on, we are talking about the school curriculum, not ice cream flavor. You think I'd advocate anything but personal choice on a matter of ..personal choice? [ QUOTE ] It's not a utopia. [/ QUOTE ] Then you have to show some modicum of practicality in it. I'm not asking for a comprehensive blueprint, you understand. [ QUOTE ] There may be some of one [i.e. home schooling] and some of the other [i.e. community schooling]. [/ QUOTE ] Yrs -- and it is easy to define what happens with home schooling: Those at home decide, thank you very much. My probe has to do with community schooling. I said, let's assume that we have today your kind of society and that our town decides to have community schools. What happens with the kids that get sent there? What do they learn? Who decides about it? And with what method of decision making? [ QUOTE ] Each school can lay out its own curriculum and parents can choose schools based on the options. Perhaps some school actually will allow parents to micromanage every aspect of the curriculum. [/ QUOTE ] OK, perhaps some schools will achieve that kind of unanimity amongst parents regarding the schol curriculum. What happens to the other cases (which I claim are mathematically the cast majority)? How can we ever have schools where I, the "absolute freedom"-loving individual, send my kids and whereby I agree with everything that is happening at that school, from the curriculum to the cafeteria drinks ? H o w ? 
|
|
#52
11-11-2005, 03:35 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Decisions, decisions
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Anything goes - as long as you don't aggress against another person. When someone picks chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, has he made the "right" choice? Should I worry about it? [/ QUOTE ] Come on, we are talking about the school curriculum, not ice cream flavor. [/ QUOTE ] What's the difference? You have a preference, you buy accordingly. You might be really particular about how much chocolate you want in your chocolate ice cream - you might like 65.5% chocolate. Maybe your choices are a 60% chocolate ice cream for $5/gallon, a 63% choice for $8/gallon, and a 65% choice for $15/gallon. None of those really meet your criteria. You might pick the one closest to what you really want, or you might decide that 60% is close enough given the money you'll save, or you may decide not to buy any of them and make your own so you can get exactly what you want. [ QUOTE ] You think I'd advocate anything but personal choice on a matter of ..personal choice? [/ QUOTE ] And why is education not a matter of personal choice? [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] There may be some of one [i.e. home schooling] and some of the other [i.e. community schooling]. [/ QUOTE ] Yrs -- and it is easy to define what happens with home schooling: Those at home decide, thank you very much. My probe has to do with community schooling. I said, let's assume that we have today your kind of society and that our town decides to have community schools. What happens with the kids that get sent there? What do they learn? Who decides about it? And with what method of decision making? [/ QUOTE ] Why not avoid the question by not having community schools? Note that in my "some of one and some of the other" I did NOT mean "community schools" as you inserted. I was talking about home schooling on the one hand and private, not public, schooling on the other. [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Each school can lay out its own curriculum and parents can choose schools based on the options. Perhaps some school actually will allow parents to micromanage every aspect of the curriculum. [/ QUOTE ] OK, perhaps some schools will achieve that kind of unanimity amongst parents regarding the schol curriculum. What happens to the other cases (which I claim are mathematically the cast majority)? How can we ever have schools where I, the "absolute freedom"-loving individual, send my kids and whereby I agree with everything that is happening at that school, from the curriculum to the cafeteria drinks ? [/ QUOTE ] I guess the answer is "start your own school, or else select from the market alternatives." If you're looking for some fatal flaw that "proves" that AC isn't perfect, well, here you go. Of course, nobody ever claimed that everyone always gets exactly what they want 100% of the time in AC. However, more people get more of what they want more of the time in AC than in any state-dominated system. I don't get EXACTLY, 100%, absolutely, positiviely *everything* I want in a pair of boots. I find a pair that's pretty close to what I want. I might want them to be slightly darker, slightly thicker soles, and less ornate. I can pay $180 for a off the shelf pair, or I can go to a custom bootmaker and spend $500 or more to get EXACTLY what I want. Is this a failure? I don't think so.
|
|
#55
11-11-2005, 07:37 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Hurray for Kansas. A victory for liberals!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] It's too bad Democrats don't tout their history of smaller government. [/ QUOTE ] Huh? [/ QUOTE ] At least in the post-Reagan era, Democrats have actually much more ardent supporters of smaller government (read: less government spending) than Republicans (read: huge increases in defense spending).
|
|
#56
11-11-2005, 09:23 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Hurray for Kansas. A victory for liberals!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] It's too bad Democrats don't tout their history of smaller government. [/ QUOTE ] Huh? [/ QUOTE ] At least in the post-Reagan era, Democrats have actually much more ardent supporters of smaller government (read: less government spending) than Republicans (read: huge increases in defense spending). [/ QUOTE ] Tell me one year that Democrats in Congress or the White House have DECREASED spending. Smaller is not the same as "not as much bigger as the other guy".
|
|
#57
11-12-2005, 02:03 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Decisions, decisions
[ QUOTE ]
Who decides what is wrong and what is right, in each and every choice? If you respond "only the individual making that choice", then you establish total moral relativism -- and anything goes! If you respond (any kind of) "consensus", you will have to draw up some rules whereby the unlimited (by your reckoning) liberty of the individual is unavoidably ...limited. [/ QUOTE ] Which is more relative: the case where nobody gets to impose on anyone else, or the case where 50%+1 get to impose everything on the other 50%-1? One person changing their mind can swing (for example) a total free-for-all in drugs into a total prohibitionist regime.
|
|
#58
11-12-2005, 06:47 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Decisions, decisions
The US university systems curriculum is not determined by the government. They don't even impose standards. Thousands of kids go to these schools and not all families agree 100% with the curriculum. Yet somehow, they are the best in the world and tend to make pretty good decisions.
|
|
#59
11-12-2005, 10:01 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Foggy mountain top
[ QUOTE ]
At this point we have to ask what is supposed to happen nation-wide, because at some stage the interests of the whole country enter into it. (E.g. even if some folks decide not to teach their kids Mathematics at all, the country benefits from teaching the kids rudemintary math.) [/ QUOTE ] Why stop there? If we give people in Maine power over people in Florida, why not let people in Albania vote on the curriculum, too? [ QUOTE ] Therefore, accepting the state means accepting that it wlll play some role in the kid's education [/ QUOTE ] That's a huge leap.
|
|
#60
11-12-2005, 03:07 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Decisions, decisions
[ QUOTE ]
The US university systems curriculum is not determined by the government. They don't even impose standards. Thousands of kids go to these schools and not all families agree 100% with the curriculum. Yet somehow, they are the best in the world and tend to make pretty good decisions. [/ QUOTE ] If this weren't the case, our universities and colleges would be practically empty and our students would all be enrolled overseas. There's good reason we have such high enrollment of non-US-citizen students.
|
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
