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Proposition 1
Last year, the Idaho Board of Education spent 6 hours proving the sad state of our public schools. Click here for more. They used this evidence to try to conclude they needed more money. While we can all agree that our public schools are seriously failing, Proposition 1 is not a well thought out solution! Simply throwing more money into the mix has never solved the problem! Click here for more.
John Stossel of 20/20 recently did a report on how poorly American schools compare internationally, and how Teachers Unions and Government Control are the heart of the problem. If you missed this report, check out the following video clips:
Stupid in America
Unhelpful Unions?
Making the Grade
It seems every year the IEA (Idaho Education Assoc. - teachers union) has some new plan for how to fix our failing schools, which seems to always include a need for more money. I would support these plans if they could point to other schools that had used such a plan successfully!
Until they can show clear examples,
I'mVoting NO on Proposition 1!
If we are serious about improving our children's education, we need to look at the examples of schools that have solved these problems! (see New Zealand article below):
The following is an example of how to fix our schools without more expense!
New Zealand – A Model for Improving Idaho’s Public Education System
New Zealand students were scoring about 15 percent below average on international tests. Today, they score 15 percent above average. How did this happen? More...
Essay:
The Inherent Problems
of a government run school system.
1. Government Controlled Curriculum.
When the Nazi party took power in Germany, an important part of their agenda was a controlled indoctrination program. They ran a radio station, and outlawed all others. They ran a newspaper, and outlawed all others. And they ran the schools, controlled the curriculum, and outlawed any other alternative. They made it illegal to run a private school, or to even homeschool your children. More...
Curriculum free of government control is a threat to a dictatorship, because it promotes independent thought and freedom.
How dangerous is such Curriculum control in America? Recently in California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed two "sexual indoctrination" bills, one of which would have required "integrated tolerance training" be inserted in history and social science curriculum, and would have forced students to advocate for homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism. One former state assemblyman said he had never seen anything "even close to the destructive decadence" of these bills.
Years ago, our courts decided to act as if they were the House and Senate, by creating laws which banned the 1 1/2 Century long traditions of bible reading and prayer in our public schools. This in direct violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. Could the last 50 years of schools which are not allowed to teach morals and values have anything to do with the tremendous rise in violent crimes in our public schools?
National curriculum control or influence is a dangerous thing. We should return this power completely to the local level.
If you were schooled in the Government schools, here is a little quiz for you: What form of Government was our nation founded upon?
- A Democracy
- A Republic
- A Democratic Republic
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A Socialist Democracy
(Click here for the answer)
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2. Economics.
An economist once taught me there are three types of spending:
- Spending your money on something for yourself. In this case, both price and quality are important.
- Spending your money on something for someone else. Here, price tends to be the main deciding factor, while quality may suffer.
- Spending someone else's money on something for someone else. Here, neither price nor quality play much importance!
Government spending is always the third type of spending! No wonder our public schools cost more and produce an inferior product!
Our schools would perform better as a private entity. Oh wait, we already have that, and our private schools do out perform the government schools. (generally at less cost!)
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