[ryandrake]

I have no doubt that out of the thousands of religious schools out there, there are some that provide an objectively great, fact-based education. Just like I have no doubt that out of the millions of parents who want to send their kids to religious schools, there are some that want to do it for strictly secular, "education-quality" reasons. And when the miracle happens and these two combine, you're going to see a great outcome like yours. These are outliers.

The majority of parents who advocate against public schooling [edit: in America] are objecting to their public schools on ideological or religious grounds, not on the quality of the education it provides. And the majority of schools these parents run to with voucher money are going to teach their kids exactly the ideology they want. Educationally stunted young-earth creationists growing up to make sure their kids are educationally stunted young-earth creationists, too. That's not a good end result for society, and not one that a constitutionally-limited government should be funding or promoting.

Working in tech, I'm exposed the occasional parent who talks about sending their kids to private school, in order to give the kids an advantage towards getting into Stanford, or as prep for future pre-med degrees. These few are not the parents I'm talking about.

[gruez]

>The majority of parents who advocate against public schooling [edit: in America] are objecting to their public schools on ideological or religious grounds, not on the quality of the education it provides. And the majority of schools these parents run to with voucher money are going to teach their kids exactly the ideology they want. Educationally stunted young-earth creationists growing up to make sure their kids are educationally stunted young-earth creationists, too. That's not a good end result for society, and not one that a constitutionally-limited government should be funding or promoting.

It's easy to make the argument against charter schools when the "majority" of people supposedly using them are using it for "bad" reasons, but what if the situation were reversed? Would you be pro charter schools in a jurisdiction where the public school system is shoving young-earth creationism down student's throats or refusing to teach sex-ed? Does your support for charter schools hinge on whether they're being used to teach "bad" things to kids, or do you believe whoever has political control over the school system should be able to dictate what kids are taught and parents cannot opt out?

[yongjik]

> It's easy to make the argument against charter schools when the "majority" of people supposedly using them are using it for "bad" reasons, but what if the situation were reversed?

I don't think that's a persuasive argument. You are assuming a (by your own admission) hypothetical situation which is different from where we are now, and ask "But if our situation is different, would your position change?" Well, of course it will. Would you rather want people to keep their positions when the situation changes?

Besides, if the kind of people who'd teach creationism get hold of the government, they wouldn't give a damn about what their predecessors thought of public education. Nobody's going to say "I was planning to teach the nation's kids that the earth is 6,000 years old, but my neighbors fought for the rights of parents to teach their kids that the earth is 6,000 years old, which showed me the error of my ways."

[gruez]

>I don't think that's a persuasive argument. You are assuming a (by your own admission) hypothetical situation which is different from where we are now, and ask "But if our situation is different, would your position change?" Well, of course it will. Would you rather want people to keep their positions when the situation changes?

This is less of an argument for charter schools and more of a line of questioning to figure out the motivation behind people's stances. Are people against charter schools because they think other people's kids won't be taught the stuff they want, or do they believe the state should have supremacy over what can be taught using public dollars, regardless of the content?

[ryandrake]

Public school standards are set and enforced state-wide, so in order for that scenario to happen, the whole state in which I lived would have to have found a way to dodge the establishment clause. There's no chance my local community could start teaching young-earth creationism and not instantly find themselves in court. So that question remains hypothetical. But let's say I suddenly lived somewhere like Iran, where the state schooling was strictly religious-based: I'd be doing whatever I could to GTFO of there, not worrying about school vouchers. My opposition to charter schools and school vouchers is based on the US Constitution's first amendment, and isn't relevant in a place without that protection.

[haberman]

Upthread you argued that small school districts are "vulnerable to being captured by a small local enclave of fundies." Here you argue that such a thing is impossible, that state-wide standards and the first amendment would prevent it from ever happening. Which is it?

[pooper]

School districts are way too small. We need one school district for the whole state. No, you may not keep tax dollars local. School district taxes should be distributed state wide.

Remember, the federal government sets the legal drinking age at 21. Are you going to argue this is a bad thing because the federal government could in theory force states to allow drinking at the age of nine?

If the federal government forces teaching creationism, we have bigger problems. If a state wants to receive federal education dollars, it must behave. Simple as that.

School districts are a vestige of our racially segregated past and unfit for tomorrow's children.

[haberman]

Nothing in your comment addresses the contradiction that was the subject of my comment.

[everyvillain]

What is being referred to as ""good"" in this thread is simply science, aka the scientific method of testing theories and taking what can be proven and cross-validated, and applying it to everything.

When people talk about taking their kids out of the public school system based on the ideologies- they mean evolution, possibly "contraceptives work", and maybe even CRT which just validates that racism existed throughout the entire history of the United States, eg disliking how schools teach "the Civil War was about states rights over owning slaves", the HIV/AIDS epidemic was a colossal failure of US policymaking, and that racism didn't end somewhere between the 70's and the 90's.