One of the dumbest, most arrogant articles I have ever read was written by Allison Benedikt, managing editor at Slate, who decided that anyone that doesn’t send their kids to a public school is a bad person. “Not bad like murder bad, but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s most-essential-institutions bad.”
According to Benedikt, if every parent were forced to enroll their children in government sponsored indoctrination centers, the so-called schools would improve in the next several generations. It doesn’t matter if your children end up stupid or your grandchildren can’t tie their shoes, your great-grandchildren will turn out okay. So please feel free to sacrifice your child on the altar of socialism in the hopes that sometime in a far, far, far, far away distant galaxy education might improve.
According to Benedikt, bad people send their kids to private school for prestige, religious reasons, behavioral or learning issues, out of loyalty to family tradition, or because they want their children to work at a left-wing publication like Slate, none of which are compelling reasons. “You want the best for your child but your child doesn’t need it. . .chances are your spawn will be perfectly fine at a crappy public school.”
After all “there is more to life than English, History, Science,” etc. Going to school with “rich and poor, black and brown, smart and not-so-smart, Christians and Jews” is itself an education and life preparation. “Getting drunk before basketball games with kids who lived at the trailer park near my house changed the way I saw the world. In fact, its part of the reason why I feel so strongly about public schools.”
It is the usual liberal think – Blame the parents – not the system. Getting drunk before basketball games might impress Benedikt but it is hardly something most parents find life affirming. Parents who can afford it send their children to private schools because public education has been in decline for a long time. Pressured by the “we know what’s good for you” liberal think, schools have lowered academic standards while pushing government backed indoctrination.
Family values are passe because we live in a global world, Christianity is bad – Islam good, adults are destroying the environment, guns kill, America is evil, 9/11 was committed by freedom fighters, Constitutionally guaranteed rights are optional, Conservatives are racists and our salvation lies in the hands of Socialism.
Our children are taught how to get and use birth control and condoms, where to get an abortion, that sex at any age isn’t bad, homosexual marriage is a good thing, God is dead, and government will take care of you from cradle to grave. The only thing kids aren’t taught is math, science, english, literature, and history and how to think for themselves.
I say thank God for those parents who can afford to send their children to private schools, and for those parents who homeschool. The rest of us must continue the fight to get government indoctrination out of our schools in the hopes our child will not become the next Allison Benedikt.
