Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: "Free" education - comment to Bob Stewart Message-ID: <4748@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 22:42:08 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.4748 Posted: Fri Dec 7 22:42:08 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Dec-84 22:42:08 EST References: <733@oliven.UUCP><1247@dciem.UUCP> <2631@ihldt.UUCP>, <1543@drutx.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 29 There seems to be some confusion here. A good many people really seem to think that it is the rich people who are screaming for free education. This is simply not the case. The rich may be bitching that they have to pay twice (once for the public schools and once for the private schools that they actually send their children to) or once when they don't have any children at all, but if you read the arguements for free schools you will find that they are overwhelmingly presented by poor, and especiually poor Black people. (References at home -- I will post if you don't beluieve me.) The education system does a fairly good job of educating people who live in white, middle class suburbia. (This is not to say that the white, middle class suburbanites are really pleased with it, but it is just not as incredibly rotten as the education you will get in an inner city ghetto school in a large US city.) There are poor people who think that the education their children are getting is abysmal, *but they cannot afford to move to white suburbia to get the better education*. There have been many experiments in schools, simply because the poor people think that they can do a better job than the governmet in deciding where their children should be educated. Before you talk about the greatness of universal education, talk to the people who are the supposed beneficiaries of this -- the poorest people -- and see if they are pleased with what they have received. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura