[lo_zamoyski]

I am all for helping the worse off. However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less.

This is slave morality and the logic of ressentiment and envy. It is also profoundly immoral.

Never mind that this approach condemns everyone to a state of perpetual mediocrity, and the poor will always be with us. Mind you, how much you value education is to a large degree a product of the family environment and how supportive it is.

How about we allow excellence to flourish as it does, support it any way we can, and also look for ways to lift those who are worse off out of their condition? The focus should be on making things better, not bizarre idealistic notions like "equality" or "equity", whatever they even mean in real, concrete terms. If we dispense with envy, we focus on objective improvement instead of status-obsessed insecurities.

Of course, I think the most pressing problem in education today is that most "educators" have no damn clue what it even means to be educated anymore. They think they know, but they absolutely do not. It isn't "getting a job", as important as jobs are, or some odd aim of the ideology du jour. Public education in an ideologically-charged society of our stripe is practically condemned to superficiality and poor quality, because all good education begins with an accurate anthropology. We can't even agree on that, so naturally, this produces a lowest common denominator effect. In such a situation especially, permitting a diversity of educational styles and programs is necessary.

And btw, if someone is wealthy enough, they'll move to another school district and make school choice a reality anyway within your regime. People do it all the time. Or would you like a return to latifundia to enforce your vision?

[habinero]

> I am all for helping the worse off. However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less.

Bruh. It's easy to prattle on about "objective improvement" and "slave morality" and pretend everything's a zero sum game where funding is fixed and we can do nothing to change the system. Neither is true. This is just an excuse to absolve yourself of doing any of the hard work to improve things.

> The focus should be on making things better, not bizarre idealistic notions like "equality" or "equity"

Man, does anyone else hear that high pitched sound? Just me? Huh.

[lo_zamoyski]

Perhaps you should learn to read, because your response (even putting aside the juvenile bits woven into it) doesn't actually respond to it, and certainly not with any real substance.

> pretend everything's a zero sum game

This claim is truly amazing. My post is exactly a rejection of the notion of a zero sum game. How can you reconcile the assertion that you can both enable excellence and assist the poor? Perhaps your aren't familiar with what a zero sum game is.

You don't achieve true solidarity by crippling those better off. In fact, that is what produces zero sum game thinking, because people get defensive, and rightly so.

> absolve yourself of doing any of the hard work to improve things.

What does that even mean? A parent's responsibility is first and foremost to their own children. If you don't accept that, then we have nothing further here to discuss. Children are not the sacrificial lambs of your pet political project.

(I am a bit curious about your accomplishments here, since you so self-righteously demand "hard work" from others. Did you force your own children to attend a garbage school when you could have given them a better option? I suppose that's at least consistent, but it is still unjust and a failure of parenting.)

[j_w]

> However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less.

When did I say that I'm in any way pro crippling other students? I'm simply pointing out the socioeconomic reality of school performance.

Comments like yours are vile. Brimming with vitriol.