Bob Riley wants to expand government schooling
Posted by BrianSometimes I am surprised he is a Republican.
Gov. Bob Riley told business leaders here Saturday he will push for voluntary preschool for all Alabama youngsters as the next priority to move state schools forward.
Riley led off the conference, telling 200-plus business leaders that while Alabama’s economy has never been better, the state must embrace change in how it educates its children, how it maintains its roads and bridges, and how its politicians behave.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have to build a pre-K program that allows our children to have as much of the advantages as every other state,” Riley told the group.
Riley said Alabama has made progress in how it teaches students to read, write and do math and now is the time to begin investing in pre-kindergarten schooling.
“Unless we allow them to have that early education, we will never achieve that level of greatness our children deserve,” Riley said.
State school Superintendent Joe Morton, a long-time supporter of pre-K, said a fully implemented program would cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Great. The government is going to jack up our taxes to fund some “voluntary” school program, but the tax increase will make the program a de facto requirement for all of us who struggle to make ends meet. I personally want some measure of control over how my children are educated. I might well choose to send them to a government school if I happen to live near one of the good ones, but I don’t want to be forced to send them to one because high taxes give me no option.
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August 14th, 2007 at 9:25 am
It may be worth considering that what many refer to as America’s “Greatest Generation” grew up before pre-K was even a gleam in a future politician’s eye. Indeed, most of them never even went to kindergarten classes. My own father — the son of a German who, after suffering abuse at the hands of a superior in the German army, deserted, stowed away on a cattle boat, entered America LEGALLY at Ellis Island and eventually became a poor farmer in Pocahontas, Arkansas who had to struggle to support his family — my father only had 4 years of formal education. Yet, through his own efforts, he became eventually a business owner and employer of others and successfully provided for a family of 6 children, none of which ever was guilty of criminal conduct.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I homeschooled my kids for a few years and am no great fan of public education. It’s a disgustingly bloated bureaucracy, and sometimes, I think nothing can improve until it fails altogether and can be rebuilt from absolute scratch.
But I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to return to the way things were in the early 20th century, Don. My own grandmother dropped out of school after 8th grade because her father died and the family needed her income. She went to work in the accounting department of a large department store. Even if they didn’t have computers now to do what Nana did in 1916, I’m thinking it would be hard to get that kind of a job these days with an 8th grade education—even if, like her, you read reasonably well and were competent at basic math.
I don’t have numbers to back this up, but the picture I get of that time period in America is that there were a whole lot of kids who weren’t expected to get much of an education at all. This sector of the population grew up the best way they could, and ended up working at a job that didn’t require completion of three years of a foreign language and Algebra I & II. Of course, now we have our famous Information/Service Economy with its fast-disappearing blue-collar jobs (the ones that pay anything, anyway) and want ads that once required only a high-school diploma are looking for a B.S. So,=… every kid is expected to finish high school, if not college. I personally refer to this as the “every kid a rocket scientist” plan.
The general idea seems to be that the sooner the schools can start these future rocket scientists (i.e., get them away from their parents for a large block of time each day) the better the chance of success with this plan. This absolutely incenses me. And then I see some mama whipping her fifteen-month-old with a hair comb in the Wal-Mart, no more idea of how to raise a kid than Carl, and I want to open my wallet and say, tax me more, please.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I started homeschooling my daughter this year. I had a gut full of public school bullshit and NCLB. The schools are nothing more than an extension of the government and police. It is really a disgusting thing. I should have pulled my daughter out 5 years ago.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Del, as usual, I think Loretta said it better than I could have.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
As an actual rocket scientist, I second Loretta’s thoughts.
Both Del and Don raise some good points. Public financing of education is probably one of the most virtuous, least objectionable forms of wealth redistribution. The major problem, IMHO, is that people have lost sight of the core intent: to make sure every child is educated (or is at least given that opportunity). Instead Americans have been duped into thinking that the education must be provided by a union dominated government monopoly.
People like me - you know, curmudgeons - would be a lot more amenable to the situation if parents had some measure of control. Kids should not be forced to attend a particular government school based solely on their address. That is grossly unfair to people who can’t afford to live in an expensive neighborhood. People with moral, religious, or philosophical objections to the materials and methods used by the government should have a choice in how THEIR children get educated. We need to refocus on publicly financed education, not strictly government provided education.
I really could go on about this subject. The way that congress has diluted the college graduate pool by sending too many people without the proper intellectual capacity into our post secondary schools. How numerous government regulations increase the cost of living and labor until it is a self fulfilling prophecy that blue collar jobs go overseas. The scariest thing is that across the country the government is pushing to “educate” our children for more hours during the day, starting earlier in life, and staying in school more days during the year. Some parents are more than happy to offload that responsibility onto Uncle Sam. I am not.