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From: dyer@vaxuum.DEC (Where's the falafel?)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Dumping Public Education - A Bad Idea
Message-ID: <6308@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Mar-84 11:39:09 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.6308
Posted: Mon Mar 19 11:39:09 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Mar-84 01:28:13 EST
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 69

> = James Jones

> Re the alleged deleterious effects of the supposed segregation that
> would arise from the death of the public schools: so what?  Children
> are segregated by the neighborhoods they live in;...

	"So what?"  What you seem to be saying is that children who live
in ghettos should also go to ghetto schools, pick up a ghetto education
and probably grow up to live their lives in the ghetto.
	It's bad enough growing up poor.  Take away public education and
you take away most opportunity to be anything *but* poor.  I was born
poor; I attended public schools and I got smart.  Smart enough to win
an academic scholarship into a private school.  If I had to go to a pri-
vate school that my mother could then afford, I'd probably be working
in the steel mills back in Pittsburgh (if I was lucky enough to be wor-
king) instead of here at DEC.

> 						   ...do the opponents of
> giving people a true choice of schools also advocate requiring people
> to live in particular neighborhoods?...

	Your scheme to abolish public schools seems to be the best way I
know of eliminating a choice of schools (as well as many other opportu-
nities).  Thus, you qualify as an "opponent of giving people a true choice
of schools" (the poor are people too).  So why don't you answer your own
facetious question?
	My answer is this:  No, people should not be required to live in
particular neighborhoods.  Denying the poor a decent education takes away
most of their chances to leave the place they're at, effectively requiring
them to live in a particular neighborhood (the poor are people too).

	I anticipate replies in a Social Darwinist vein, so let's look at
them.  One would be "it's their own fault that the poor are poor".  I per-
sonally feel that that's ridiculous; but assuming that it's true, is it
just to withhold opportunities from the child just because the parents
are poor?  Ghetto children have enough problems:  hunger, breathing pol-
luted air (urban air harms children the most), violence (often from the
family), poor health; why add poor education to the list?

	Then there's the "what's in it for me?" reply.  Rather than ex-
pound on morals and kindness and so forth (valid, but not the things that
immediately reach the "what's in it for me?" set), let's look at the bene-
fits that result from allowing the poor to be educated:
	(1) The poor can bring new experiences and approaches to the mar-
ketplace of ideas.  This marketplace is overloaded with stagnant, outdated
wares; there's a glut of dogmatic goods; lot of ideas for sale there to
help the poor, most of which were devised by well-to-do Democrats.
	(2) The poor have a different social context; that is, they have
different mannerisms, inhibitions, etc.  Thus, their creativity meets dif-
ferent barriers than does the creativity of the well-to-do.
	(3) An educated poor is less likely to fall victim to totalitarian
movements.  For democracy to work, we must educate as many citizens as pos-
sible!
	(4) An educated poor is less likely to fall victim to dishonesty
from either the public or the private sector.  Keeping each of these as
honest as possible is necessary if we want our system to work.
	(5) If you take away the poor's only legal opportunity for advan-
cing themselves, don't expect them to remain "law-abiding citizens."  One
of the human needs is growth (a.k.a. self-actualization); any attempt to
contain it will fail.
	(6) People who used to be poor but now have moved up to a point
where they can access the USENET can come along and straighten your head
out when you start flaming nonsense about public and private schools.  This
is known as recursion.
		<_Jym_>

| Jym Dyer | Nashua, New Hampshire | ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!vaxuum!dyer |

Mon 19-Mar-1984 11:46 Zen (not EST!) Time