A while back I wrote about people who act as if they are playing SimCity with the real world.

For a perfect example of what the analogy was trying to illustrate, read this.

P.S.—My favorite comment on the post has got to be this one:

Translation: It’s all a capitalist plot! Isn’t there some sort of corollary to the John Birch Society on the left? (Oh, wait, yes—the NEA.)

Cars are far better built today than they were 30 years ago. Ask anyone which they would rather drive cross country, a Maverick, Pinto, Vega, Chevette or, a new Charger, Honda or Mustang.

The reason they got better is because they were about to be crushed by the thing the NEA fears most. Competition.

The only way the NEA is going to avoid competition is to allow accountability for poor performance. But thats not what they do. They are a union and devoted solely to protecting the status quo.

The core issue is the self-defeating culture of those attending the inner city schools. Bright new buildings and avante garde programs are meaningless if the kids attending them have no interest. Or the neighborhoods are unsafe, let alone the schools.

Even so, the education establishment, NEA & Administrators, fear for their empires if new ideas are used in the schools. Obviously theirs do not work, certainly not over the past 40 years.

One poster relates the decline of cars to schools, but does not understand why the decline of either. Competition is good, greed is good. It creates an environment where people do things better, instead of existing in the same old rut.

Thomas Jefferson was pretty well-educated, and he didn’t have no stinking NEA.

Bart, I personally see a larger concern being raised in the posts lying below the one you highlighted:  Whether or not vouchers “would transform American education into a consumer product.” This is a big concern to me since I’m aware that consumer products are only considered successful if they are marketable and cost-effective — not whether the product is of the very finest quality.

(If one cannot see the inverse relationship between cost-effectiveness and quality, then one has definitely got their head stuck too far into the sand. For a quick example, just consider how the quality of automobiles has declined over the past couple of decades.)

When dealing with the education our nation’s children, I feel very strongly that the major focus ought NOT be whether parents can choose between Product A, B or C (as though the issue is picking toiletries in a CVS store); neither should worries of a school’s “marketability” be allowed to distract from the primary purpose of schools — the betterment of the child.  When I do see this happening then, yes, I smell the ideology of a philosophical fish.

The John Birch Society bears little similarity to the NEA. The JBS was a collection of fringe kooks that nobody took seriously. A better comparison would be between the NEA and the NKVD. A totalitarian enforcement organ tasked quashing percieved threats to the endless expansion of the controlling beauracracy.

The NEA just has a better PR arm.

“We teach the Children”?? Barely. The new catch phrase should read, “We Exploit the Children in order to extort and squander zillions of dollars from parents who think we actually care about their children”

While I am sure there are many radicals who would like to make this an argument about capitalism and unions, there are actually some very good arguments against charter schools that the TD editorial writers could address if they really wanted…

Charter schools, due to their small size and limited numbers, will provide only some families with public school choice options, thereby raising issues of fairness and equity.

Successful reform models such as New American Schools and Core Knowledge have already been identified. Why not attempt these reforms in existing schools? If rules and regulations are so burdensome, they should be waived for all public schools.

Charter schools have an unfair advantage when competing against district public schools since they tend to be smaller and free from regulations. Charter schools have access to federal funds and other revenue sources.

Charters are too limited in scope to adequately pressure the entire public school system.

Charters are not accountable as they are freed from rules and regulations intended to ensure quality in public education.

O.K, lets admit that there are capitalistic overtones that we would ignore to our detriment. Some questions are in order.

Would the hidden purpose of charter schools be to separate the classes as far as quality of education goes? Would the students recieve a superior education or would it simply be a way to syphon off tax money to private enterprise?  In other words, IS it a capitalist plot? Would all students benefit or simply the wealthest? As usual, I know not of which I speak.

Geesh, Bart, your blogs bring out the paranoid in me!

Anything of major import to education should be untimately decided by refrendum, by the parents. Trust the people! Even when they make stupid mistakes like the marriage admendment.

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