No on 103

[Aloha_Shooter]

And once again Colorado votes down anything to do that might actually help our schools.

I'm as conservative as anyone here but as a parent in torn on the issue when it comes to school funding. Colorado is always at the bottom of the list when it comes to school funding and I can tell every time I walk into my daughters school.

The problem isn't the funding, it's the attitude and system. I was just listening to an audio book of Heinlein's "Have Space Suit -- Will Travel" and his description of the inadequacies of the educational system of the 1950s is priceless -- you could multiply all his complaints tenfold today and NONE of them have anything to do with funding.

The problems with education today are society's values and emphasis on "soft" curricula and touchy-feely garbage instead of actually expecting students to learn something, particularly critical thinking skills, or demonstrate any initiative or responsibility toward their own learning. More computers actually make the problem worse (and I'm a technogeek both by education and avocation) when students think the answer to any question is "look it up in Wikipedia" or "Google it."

Read William McGurn's column in the WSJ -- he's talking about college but his argument could just as well be applied to pre-collegiate education.

[BigBear]

Been on my soapbox before on this issue. Y'all know where I stand. I love teaching and I love music. Better yet, I love being able to teach music!! Your kids will get an education with me "whether or not you want to" because that is my job. I can do my job with a paycheck of $1mil or a paycheck of $18K a year. Granted, the $1mil would be nice and I would be able to afford new instruments and music for everyone in the school, but... it's not needed.

As a teacher in a low socio-econimic school that has minimum funding (even by CO standards), I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is the quality of teachers and not how much money you throw at a problem...

In music, we have to learn critical thinking skills, reasoning, logical sequenceing, teamwork, discipline, math, science, reading (English and Foreign languages), et al... but for some reason, music is the first thing to be cut. If you get a chance, look up Chris Potter and how she turned her music program around with private marketing, etc. Amazing.


Thanks for listening.

[TSOTSI]

The public education problem can be simply summed up this way.

It is an institution whose sole purpose is to make sure its charges leave that institution knowing what to think rather than how to think.

Twain said it best about newspapers but it is equally applicable to public schools. "If you don't attend you will be uninformed. If you do attend you will be misinformed."

[OneGuy67]

Privatize and de-unionize the system.

Get government out of it and allow parents to choose how their children are educated and more important, how much they're willing to pay. The ensuing competition will elevate the education of our children far beyond what it is today and it will cost less. Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" works.

I can't disagree with this notion, however, most people can't pay, which is one of the reasons why many attend public schools as their parents can't afford a charter or private school. This then gets into the question of giving public money to people to spend, which then gets us back into the government controlling the dollars (collection and dissemination) and then comptrolling it.

Parents should be able to choose for their kids and parents should be able to pay their own way. However, that isn't reality.

[JoeT]

when the state (county and city too) can show me that they are effectively using my $6500 a year in property taxes, and my 8.25% on everything I purchase...my .125% road use tax, my 4.63% in state income tax, .....etc, etc, etc, I'll gladly give more to education.

I have 2 daughters in elementary school. And want what's best for them, but if we continue to "feed the beast" it'll only get worse.


My family and I live within our means (as I'm sure many here do as well) it's time our government starts to do the same. I'm making $40,000 less now than I did in 2008, but my taxes and costs keep going up....They keep taking a bigger piece of the pie

[Zundfolge]

I can't disagree with this notion, however, most people can't pay, which is one of the reasons why many attend public schools as their parents can't afford a charter or private school. This then gets into the question of giving public money to people to spend, which then gets us back into the government controlling the dollars (collection and dissemination) and then comptrolling it.

Parents should be able to choose for their kids and parents should be able to pay their own way. However, that isn't reality.

I dunno ... I grew up with a little Catholic school about 4 blocks from my house ... most of the kids I knew that went there were po (too poor for the second 'o' and the 'r') There's no way some of those kids parents were paying for their schooling (well other than the money extorted from them to pay for the public schools they weren't using).

Where there's a will there's a way and the American people are the most charitable in human history.


I think we've all been conditioned to think there are some things that only government can do. We've only had compulsory public education for 174 years, and somehow things like The Renaissance, The Enlightenment and the birth of our own great nation happened without it.

I don't have all the answers but there has to be a better way than just blindly throwing money down a government run black hole.

[jackthewall81]

Sources please? Because I already posted a chart that shows several states that spend significantly more than Colorado per-student that have LOWER test scores (along with a few that spend less and score higher).



Privatize and de-unionize the system.

In 1837 the compulsory government/union monopoly of education began with the institution of a system built on the Prussian model, who's original intent was to create better citizen-soldiers that no longer thought for themselves. I fail to see how this is a good thing.

Get government out of it and allow parents to choose how their children are educated and more important, how much they're willing to pay. The ensuing competition will elevate the education of our children far beyond what it is today and it will cost less. Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" works.

A few states doesn't represent all of them and I am talking specifically about Colorado. Ill get some for ya, my mother will gladly email me some.

I agree. Everything needs to be privatized, but it wont happen for a while.

[Zundfolge]

I agree. Everything needs to be privatized, but it wont happen for a while.

No, you're probably right. That's why vouchers are probably the best realistic idea out there.

[RussDXT]

voted no! public schools are a joke and should be done away with.

[jackthewall81]

I can't disagree with this notion, however, most people can't pay, which is one of the reasons why many attend public schools as their parents can't afford a charter or private school. This then gets into the question of giving public money to people to spend, which then gets us back into the government controlling the dollars (collection and dissemination) and then comptrolling it.

Parents should be able to choose for their kids and parents should be able to pay their own way. However, that isn't reality.

i see privatization of all education as a initiative. If all schooling is privatized it will create a system where education is the single most important thing to succeed within American society . Drop outs will decrease, the so called racialized groups will emerge from poverty, IF their children know that the only way to succeed is to get an education, and the only way to get an education is to PAY for it like everything else in America since we are bureaucratic nation. We are not socialist (at least not yet) and private education would help because parents would work knowing that they have to pay for school the whole way until high school graduation. Dropouts would be the burger flippers of the world, but there would be less of them because they grow up knowing that schooling is something that is not just handed to them.