Or use private schools. Or charter schools. Or anything but the public school up the street from where you live.
"You are a bad person if you send your children to private school," claims Allison Benedikt. "Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad."
What we need to do is everybody just send their kids to school and even if things are bad or whatever, just get in there and fight to make it better. In a few generations, magically, schools will be better because we all stood up and agreed that good schools are more important than good parenting.
Or something like that.
What's surprising is the number of commenters who agree with her!
I would at least say she has her money where her mouth is if she, say, had ten biological children and raised them all in the ghetto and sent them to public schools. If she could do that, I'd at least respect her for having a valid opinion, even if it conflicted with my own.
(YES, I am saying you can't really have a valid opinion on "where to send your child to school" unless you have been a parent of a school-aged child for at least a few years. And YES, I'm also saying that to a certain extent, having older children who've been through it all or several children in total also bolsters your argument, because at that point you speak from experience.)
Anyway.
Some of the comments on the story were pretty interesting and I thought I'd share a few.
"The irony here is that Ms. Benedict is
lambasting private education with a writing style of an overconfident
7th grader who just signed up for Tumblr," says Ayla.
"I think there are some interesting points buried in the frothy extremism, but... that doesn't make the article good," Alexa writes.
Perhaps the best conclusion? This, written by DennyO:
"On top of the other outrages of this
article, it proposes one of the most inefficient plans imaginable for
actually dealing with the abysmal state of public schools: let's not
just sacrifice our own children, let's condemn the next couple of
generations to this travesty so that somehow, by stint of enough whining
parents, we'll finally achieve an acceptable level of public education
for our great-, great-grandchildren. Yeah, it's gotta be parody."
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Look Out, Dad!!
My father is the purple dot above the blue weather station. He's juuust outside Milton's evacuation zone. Well! My brother and I jus...
You have met up with the people of the Ood from Dr. Who, Progressive Persuasion. They think as one. I used to be one of them until I figured out I disagreed with about 90% of what they were saying.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days they and their brethren, the Oods from the opposite Universe of Conservatism, are going to realize the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I think that is where common sense resides, too.
Sometimes I just don't find a "label" for certain causes, though. I would like to think the writer is just being flippant and trying to incite people (starting off with "You are a bad person if" sorta clues me in), but maybe not.
DeleteI would vaguely agree with the point she's stabbing at, that our choices DO have an effect on others. But I could make a similar point by saying everyone should stop driving cars, and if we all DEMANDED walkable communities, it would happen.
Some people would starve first. Meh! So long as we get what we want in the long run, tho'.
Allison doesn't think for herself. She expounds the opinions of her husband which is obvious in her writings. Such is common for those who would rather drink under the bleachers than spend that time learning and researching for her own knowledge instead of blaming her own public school in the article for her lack of education. I bet plenty of kids at her school went on to graduate from college.
ReplyDeleteShe blames her lack of education solely on her school and the lack of the type of parents that send their kids to private school and she probably doesn't even realize that in a few months when Common Core is fully implemented, no parent will have a say in education anyway, so her point is invalid, but Allison is not they type to write her articles based on research and fact-just opinion-primarily her husband's opinion.
Fail.
I seriously have to consider a mental imbalance caused by a bad upbringing at this point. I was looking online for a little background and you're right... and not only that... she hates Israel because her husband does as well.
DeleteWhat a weirdo! I can respect someone with a different opinion, or even someone who says that most of the time, kids are better off in public school... but this chick is positively smoking the crack or something.
I sent my kids to public schools because that's what we could afford, also because we moved around a lot and it's easier to slot them into a new public school in a new state. Two of my grandchildren started off in public schools, but by grade seven both were in private schools because the education system was better there and the parents could afford it. They both did extremely well after the move. Three other grandchildren were in public schools, two are still there, one in primary, one in high school, the third is doing computer programming at a TAFE.
ReplyDeleteI should have mentioned that all my kids did well in the public schools and the grandchildren too, but the two who moved to private schools just were not challenged enough by grade 7 and were getting bored in class.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, some public schools do very well. Others are awful, even in the suburbs! I just think parents are better equipped to know which schools are best for their children, not this troll chick who decides everyone MUST go to public school. :)
DeletePS I went to public school in Australia - Gordon West Primary followed by Turramurra High School!
To each their own, I'll do what is best for my tribe and she can do what is best for her tribe.
ReplyDeleteExcept that trolls like this vote... yep.
DeleteAhhhh.. Ignorance is indeed bliss.
ReplyDeleteApplying her logic, I will dance around the room and sing, "I'm an evil Homer! I'm an evil Homer!"
ReplyDeleteThere!
Told ya!
(Sigh.)