And no private school could possibly do that while paying union wages to its fully qualified faculty (many of them pay less than public schools and/or use less qualified teachers)…. and for $6-10K a year per child (free to parents, btw, whether they pay taxes or not). Impossible. When you read about private schools which take hard-to-educate children, like those who are profoundly mentally handicapped, they’re charging $100-200K a year. And most private schools, of course, don’t take special needs children at all.

Higher education– the US has a very good higher education system, and the states do most of the educating at a fairly low cost to the student and to the taxpayer too. Community colleges provide both college and vocational education for $50-80 a credit hour. There are many private schools, and some even take students who didn’t do great in high school… but they’re charging 10 times more.

I have nothing against private schools– went to parochial schools AND two private colleges– but there’s no way that anyone can argue (rightly, that is) that private schools are 10 times better– and no private school even attempts to educate all students as public schools do. We couldn’t privatize our education system even if we wanted to… and we don’t.

The teacher to student rario was very low by public school comparison. I will always remember that news program becasue it totally convinced me that “profit” will never provide us the best education available to all in the USA. It’s unlikely to save money, and the driving force for most strategic program decisions will be to resist spending money no matter what.

Today, the privatization of the prison system I think stands as the prime example of the best a corporate run program will give. It totally stinks.

One note on this prison topic. Sen. Voinovich (R-Ohio) has a brother whose construction company specializes in building prisons.

wesgpc @ 148

GordonM says: August 24th, 2007 at 5:39 pm:

I didn’t mean to insult all boomers, or even all ex-hippies.

In California, I noticed a lot of the boomer and hippy generaton ten or fifteen years older than me go from being very radical and very pro social democracy when they were young and on the getting end, to being very conservative and even GOP when they got older and got on the tax paying end.

So, I have to admit that burns me. But I didn’t mean to imply it was true of all of that generation, even here in CA, even among those who went to one of the UC joints and got freebies to tha max, until they graduated and got very cheap.

No sweat. I went to Cal when it was $250 / quarter. I lost a lot of friends for similar reasons. Hell, I still want to break the nose of my first college friend who turned to the dark side.

Someday, though, I’ll write up my rant about the whole generational thing. It’s not that it’s wrong, it’s that those who use it the most are those who refuse to acknowledge that people in their (say) 30s are different from people in their (say) 50s, and that difference is pretty well constant across generations.

It’s actually quite simple. There are some people whose politics are egocentric to the degree that they always gravitate to whoever will give THEM the most for the least on their part. It’s why so many people like Condy Rice, Gonzalez, Supreme Court Justice Cklarence Thomas…switch over from “affirmative action” kids…to the Dark Side. Who would have guessed that Clarence Thomas once was so much of a lefty that he named his son (from his first marriage) Jamal Adeen?!!

The wealthy kids want to reduce the competition from the “cowering masses” and thus are in favor of higher tuitions and privatization. But those “egoverts” who aren’t so wealthy complain about high tuitions, or conservative policies until they reach the stage where their own interests invert. They are true to “their principals” but only when you realize that their principles are “ME”.

But unfortunately, that brings up a “dark” side which we’d rather not think about. Government water programs. These have been so successful, we’ve resettled large parts of the country which are in reality, uninhabitable. E.g. Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, large parts of California, etc. But some things dare not even be mentioned in polite company.

In the wrong hands, government is a very efficient tool for transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

We need to get the government back into decent hands….

“transfer of wealth from the many to the few” or from the few to the many.

Government apparently should not generally be used just to transfer wealth. Our American experience, our American Dream is to be Free and to only use government as a tool to preserve that and to help us achieve even greater possibilities (such as through public funding for basic research or to build highways).

The better government programs are the ones which are benign and benefit everyone equally well, usually on a first come first serve basis. The Post Office has been cited as a good example. Net neutrality is another great example of something in that category. We need it for everyone.

I think where Liberals tend to split off from Progressives, and this is really just my opinion, is in the use of standing programs, like Food Stamps, to generate change for whomever qualifies as needing that assistance. I suggest Progressives prefer their ‘programs’ to be built-in or completely transparent, such as the Progressive tax system. I don’t prefer that one myself, but it is obvious to everyone and used by everyone without a separate government agency.

Another very divisive issue is school integration. Early-on busing was used, but later the integration moved to higher education and was promoted through paperwork and was a lot less intrusive. It has also been proposed by several state’s supreme courts that funding in primary education should be more equal (done on a state-wide basis, rather than by school district) and that would be altogether invisible to the student. Apparently the SCOTUS has also decided that’s not enough to achieve integration. That back and forth has left us stranded in the middle, looking for a good solution to achieving the goal without busing which is overly messy or just equal funding which is under-effective. Someone needs to suggest a great middle-ground or we should reacquaint ourselves with Brown v. Board of Ed. despite what Justices Roberts and Alito say.

GordonM @ 62

My point, FWIW, is that posters at FDL should assume they are being spied upon.

Ha. You’re funny. That would NEVER happen here in America!

Silly wabbit.

did anyone mention trash pick-ups? we have private trash service and we call constantly to remind them to PICK UP THE TRASH!! amazing

You would naturally think of that on a Friday, right?

How about foreign relations and treaties to enable international commerce?

How about a justice system which is a little less biased towards the highest bidder than private systems could ever be?

How about food & drug quality control…before a lot of people die?

The list is almost endless.

Tithonia @ 170

LS @ 156: I’d love the cornbread recipe. I like to bake mine in cast iron too. If it’s not too OT :)

No problem. It is not “sweet” though. It is traditional Texas cornbread.

This is “Granny’s” cornbread:

1 cup corn meal

“almost” 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
Cast iron pan 10′ at 400.

Now, the trick is, cook a bunch of bacon first in the pan, till there is a bunch of grease. Take out the bacon. Put the pan in the 400 oven till it is “smoking”, then pour the batter in and cook about 20-25 minutes. Killer. You can add Jalepenos or cheese if you want. It is not sweet cornbread.

Yum!

PW (who showed up late to the thread as usual)

LS @ 202

It is traditional Texas cornbread.

This is “Granny’s” cornbread:

1 cup corn meal

“almost” 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
Cast iron pan 10′ at 400.

Now, the trick is, cook a bunch of bacon first in the pan, till there is a bunch of grease. Take out the bacon. Put the pan in the 400 oven till it is “smoking”, then pour the batter in and cook about 20-25 minutes. Killer. You can add Jalepenos or cheese if you want. It is not sweet cornbread.

Cool. Now if I can figure out how to replace the “almost” 1/2 cup flour, I can cook it for my Mom (gluten intolerant, and 93 – I’m now taking care of them).

That is what Granny told me, “almost”, so I just “almost” measure 1/2 cup. It always comes out great. BTW, the Science Project, came out great!!! Remind me near T’Giving, and I have Granny’s great “cornbread dressing”…;}