Look at Robert Gibbs squirm…
…when asked why the president opposes the D.C. school choice program that allows a black family to send their two kids to the same private school to which the Obamas send their daughters.
Posted in: Double standards, Education
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Sandra Rose
- Sandra Rose
- Did Barack Obama want President Bush to succeed? « Sister Toldjah
- Is Robert Gibbs qualifed to be Press secretary? | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- SCROLL FOR UPDATES.. OBAMA’S DILEMMA: VOUCHERS VS. HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS AND UNIONS | Right Voices
- Obama administration attacks school choice | Radio Vice Online
- GaryMcCollum.com » The Definition of Classless
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Double standards, Education
Power Line
» More From the East Anglia Archives
Founding Bloggers
» Did The New York Times Just Tell Glenn Reynolds To “STFU”?Doug Ross @ Journal
» BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Boston Globe Climate Beclownment SpectacularDoug Ross @ Journal
» 'Hope is fading fast' --- the T-ShirtRadio Equalizer
» Media Matters Admits Rush Didn't Make Key Racist RemarksDoug Ross @ Journal
» The CRU Climate Scam In 90 SecondsHot Air
» 3rd quarter GDP 2.8%, not 3.5%Mudville Gazette
» Threatswatch: US Embassy Denies Secret Eikenberry Talks With Taliban
Gotta love those deep, substantive questions from the press corps!
Oh, man…priceless!!
Are you kidding me? That is a great question.
I’ll follow this under “gotcha journalism for thee but not for me.”
My question is, why aren’t the Republicans in Congress all over this? They should placing Obama on the defense about this issue and many others, yet they cannot come up with a coherent public relations strategy.
Red State Skeptic,
The question asked is an excellent one. Why does Obama not support school choice for inner school children? The fact that you are pretending not to get it proves that you are a seminar liberal posing as some type of “independent.”
Red State Skeptic: You don’t think its a good to find out why the ONE supports removing poor black kids from a school he feels is good enough for his own kids?
RSS is simply a water carrier for the ONE. He will defend anything the ONE does regardless of the consequences.
Correct, of course.
Just another cheerleader shaking her pom-poms.
Isn’t that his job?
OK, that’s fair. Then, what is your position on withdrawing the vouchers?
Yes, but don’t burst his bubble.
It strikes me that this would be a great project for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Tax Evaders. Only a few dollars out of the income from the $70 billion that they and Buffett have stashed in this “charity” would be enough to send all 1700 to private school.
That ignorant union bag-man (read Senator Durbin) is just heartless and corrupt. Money before people. The democrap way.
Pray for those little children and their family (and those heartless, hateful democrats).
Rule #1 in PR; If you don’t know the answer, or are in a trap, punt. Correct answer would have been, “I’ll get back to you on that.” Then never deal with it.
Not enabling other kids go to Obama’s school is blatantly hypocritical. There’s no way to spin it and Gibby should have known that. Why does the hope&change super new & improved Ivy League best of the best administration have this bush league (no pun intended) spokesman?
This wasn’t a good day for Gibbs – he also confessed that the Obama White House bizarre “enemies list” obsession with Limbaugh was “counterproductive”.
YouTube – Gibbs: WH Diversionary Strategy “Counterproductive”
1) That would be file.
2) Apparent hypocricy is relevant, and fair game.
3) Applies to all politicians, both sides.
About time someone asked. This should be asked whenever The One, or any of his cronies appears in public.
And it should be an ad campaign.
You couldn’t possibly have read the WSJ article, because if you had you would agree that the reporter asked a very pertinent question. I along with txvet2 am curious as to your position on this issue, seeing as it’s for the children, and all.
Gibbs is almost becoming about as reliable as the King of Gaffes Biden to stick his foot in his mouth on a daily basis. I am curious why the kids of ‘dear leader’ deserve a better education then the poor kids stuck in the dangerous failed public schools. Oh! That’s right he wants to keep the plebian dogs on the plantation and a good education won’t allow that. Considering the demographic of the District of Criminals population it almost makes ‘dear leader’ look RACIST.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
He did his best Baghdad Boob impersonation.
paging lOgJAm … paging lOgJAm …
Just how proud are you of Barry O for putting the interests of teachers unions above that of parents who want their children to receive quality education?
Don’t be too hard on Barry O. and his press secretary. After all, Barry is the first half white president we ever had.
In that clip, the feckless Gibbs derides cable shows where two people from opposite sides of the spectrum argue with each other. Do you think his (and thus the Team Obama) answer to this might be to silence the other side? Not saying they’re predictable or anything….
***
Gibbs should just use the Nazi Goebbels BIG LIE technique. George Orwell and Saul Alinsky detailed the use of this technique well in their writings.
***
President O’Bummer takes all sides and no sides of all issues. He is (almost) never called on these contradictions by the Left Wing Media (not MSM)–they are too distracted by hope and change (and leg tingles) to notice.
***
Send Gibbs to the State Department to learn how to lie with a straight face. Hillary and Bill Clinton can give him a few useful pointers.
***
John Bibb
***
More like…”good schooling for my kids, but not for yours”
Obama — the eternal elitist hypocrite.
Keep the negro’s uneducated and on the Government plantation!
Slaves! RISE UP! HE IS THE MASTA’S NEGRO NOW. HE’S IN THE MASTA’S HOUSE RUNNING THINGS NOW. GOTTA KEEP THE OTHER NEGRO’S STUPID SO YA’LL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HOUSE NEGRO IS UP TO.
This isn’t gotcha journalism, it’s a perfectly fair question. If Obama has a principled reason for opposing school vouchers, he should be able to defend it. If it’s just straight-up politics, we deserve to know that just the same.
Personally, I think the money would be better spent improving the public school system so all kids have access to quality education, rather than the lucky few who get a voucher. But that would take years to do if it happens at all, and in the meantime kids are getting shafted.
Folks, of course RSS is being disingenious — we know he’s not stupid, and the low level of intellect displayed by his comment leaves only those two choices.
Just for chuckles, though:
Gotcha Question: (1) a question who’s sole purpose is to belittle or embarrass w/o providing substantive information. Example: treating a question on a minor international player or dictator, (especially in a country where the current leader changes semi-annulally) as if that question actually had relevence.
Restatement: asking a minor obscure fact easily looked up and playing an incorrect or vague answer for 2.5months as if the lack of said minor obscure fact would lead to the End Of The World.
Asking questions to illuminate Policy Positions that do not square with well propaganized goals obviously *isn’t* a “gotcha question”!
I honestly thought you had more intelligence than this RSS… or you are intentionally insulting ours.
A few more of these time-waster “lgm empty-headed” comments and I’ll have no choice but to add your handle to the reader’s display filter.
What a shame. That would truly sadden me — you’ve been a good debater up until recently…
Keep in mind that The One nominated Arne Duncan, head of the totally inept and failed Chicago Public School system to be the head of the Dept. of Education. Chicago’s public schools are gun-ridden and clueless drains on the public treasury with few if any positive results. 50% dropout rates are the result, along with continual gunfire and killings on a nearly daily basis. Chicago public schools are SO good Obama sent his kids to private schools in that city as well. “For me, but not for thee…” is apt here for sure.
Where were these reporters a year ago?????????????????
‘Wha????? We cant report on Bush any more? !@$@!$!@$ OK……’
Wow, the questions keep getting tougher. Who let real journalists so close to Gibby?
(Did he giggle like a school girl this time?)
Is there any tape of this? I’d love to hear Rush hit this tomorrow.
You didn’t proofread this. Please replace “half white” with “half wit”.
“Baghdad Bob” Gibbs is a poseur. Just like his boss…
I find it inane to ask a question regarding a politician’s policy and gratuitously put it in the context of the politician’s personal life, as if that changes anything. It’s the same thing as that reporter asking Dukakis if his position on crime would change if the victim was his wife. Gotcha!
And thanks for asking for my opinion, it’s so nice to feel valued! j/k… Actually I’m in favor of school vouchers. I think that if the GOP had played its cards right in the stimulus bill, it could have gained billions for school vouchers in place of other programs that were funded, in return for their votes so that Obama could get his 80 votes in the Senate (and pass responsibility around if the economy doesn’t get better) … but instead Republicans decided they would rather the stimulus bill fail and get to say “I told you so” vote for it and gain concessions relevant to what they believe it.
I would be great if all kids had access to quality education. That’s a goal which is probably shared by everyone on here.
However, the method used to improve the quality of the education system would probably be hotly debated.
Your answer: spend more money
It’s almost as if it hasn’t been tried again, and again, and again.
huggybear, do you know the amount of money DC currently spends on each child?
Why is it that other school systems are capable of providing a quality education for less than half the amount spent on DC school children?
Is it at all possible that money, while correlated, isn’t the issue in cases such as this?
Unfortunately, the teachers’ unions fight the development of alternative solutions.
Unfortunately, the teachers’ unions are politically powerful.
Unfortunately, the teachers’ unions are suppressing the quality of education many children could be receiving.
Republicans aren’t looking to say, “I told you so.”
Republicans didn’t believe in wasteful spending. And they weren’t willing to accept wasteful spending in order to gain spending allowances of their own.
How could you have missed that?
Why would that be a gotcha question? Why would that be a difficult question to answer?
Unless, of course, the politician lacked conviction.
I’m sure that somewhere in America, some ig’nant on the left are saying, ‘that’s the white in him making him do that’.
LEAVE OBAMA ALONE! HE’S JUST DOING HIS THUG THIZZLIN’!
huggybear: DC schools spend more $$ per student than any other place in America, so your answer is to just spend more? WRONG
The right answer is to get rid of the deadwood — bad teachers, principals, administrators, assistant administrators, deputy assistant administrators, facilitators, assistant facilitators, deputy assistant facilitators, etc, etc, etc.
Every year the DC schools fail to get their textbooks on time — EVERY year. Money is NOT the answer. The answer is accountability to the parents and the students.
If I had my way any school that failed to proved a safe, secure learning environment and see their students actually advance then every manjack one of them from principal to kindergarten aid would be GONE.
Fail in your duty to any one grade in any one class and ALL the tax money you are supposed to get in subsequent years for that class becomes vouchers for that class to be spent as the parents see fit (until that class graduates). Those parents who choose to let their kids continue in your failed school would give you their vouchers so you could stay employed.
If nobody comes back to your school you may stay in the system but only as a hall monitor for the next five years and your salary will be the equivalent to one year’s voucher for a student (may be up to $10,000 by now). You could only reapply to teach in any school in the United States AFTER five years of hall monitor duty and a requalification on your teacher’s certificate.
This would result in an instant uptick in academics in the DC schools.
Correct me if I’m wrong (and I know you will) but doesn’t the concept of school vouchers necessarily mean spending more money? Theoretically, everyone on private school would receive the cost of a public school education, so the government will all of a sudden be paying thousands of dollars for every kid who’s in private school. Of course that’s no difference in funding for kids who are in public school now and would change to private school, but for kids already in private school, that is a MASSSIVE expenditure to pick up the tab.
It’s obvious that you didn’t read huggybear’s post.
RSS: What, you can’t stand that Ms Couric wasn’t there to ask what kind of tree Obama would like to be, what his favorite flavor of ice cream is, or what the kids had for dinner the night before?
Softball questions got this guy elected, but he is now in the big leagues and had better be ready for some brushbacks, IF the press will do its job (one CAN hope!).
Harry Truman had it right about staying in the kitchen when its hot — and I only hope the press brings the heat!
Which would you prefer: to spend $53 billion on “education and training” (as that money is allocated in ARRA) OR spend $53 billion to cover the cost of school vouchers? Republicans could have won concessions like that if they were actually interested in being accountable for the bill. But instead they are betting that the economy will not get better, and when it doesn’t they want to say “we told you so.”
I blame Obama just as much for watering down the bill to appeal to Specter, Collins and Snowe (so it’s not all on him) when he could have had a more ambitious bill with just 51 votes, since the GOP doesn’t have the guts to filibuster and stand in the way of a popular president.
RSS: Not if it’s tax money intended for the school system that is converted into a voucher to a private school.
Caring parents will send their child to a real school instead of allowing their precious little minds to be turned into mush at the gubmint school.
No extra cost, failing schools fail, good schools thrive — it’s a concept called the free market.
If a gubmint school wants to have students, they must compete and do so by providing what the consumer (parents) want — educated kids!
Honestly, this isn’t an issue I spend much time thinking about, and I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. I also don’t necessarily think “spending more money” is only the answer either, other than the obvious implications of getting better teachers by paying competitive salaries, being able to expand teaching programs beyond the basics, and keeping schools safe and clean. None of those things come cheap, and for many public schools are considered luxuries. It’s not a matter of spending more money, rather spending the money we have more wisely.
I’m certainly not going to argue in favor of teacher’s unions, or any unions for that matter; they consistently demonstrate where their priorities are, and it’s not with the kids. Perhaps without their interference, it would be possible to develop broader, more egalitarian solutions for improving our education system than throwing a bone to the occasional, lucky kid and leaving the rest to rot.
Um, I did. Why can’t you tell me how school vouchers wouldn’t be an enormous government expenditure?
This is more from the “Do as I say, not do as I do” party.
I wonder if the parents voted for Obama? and I wonder if now they are having regrets?
You didn’t read my post. Obviously giving vouchers to kids who are in public schools at this time means no additional expense. But you would also have to give vouchers to kids who are already in private school. That means $$$$$$$
Wrong.
Republicans didn’t want to be part of such a terrible waste of tax payer money. Why are you criticizing them for not selling out?
These comments are so stupid .. well what did I expect?
RSS: Did I miss something? Aren’t those who send their kids to private school now required to pay taxes?
When I sent my daughter to private school (grades 6-12) I still had to pay taxes to keep the public schools financed. Where is the extra $$$$ required if I could have taken the tax $$$$ paid to the county to educate my duaghter in a public school, and instead spent it on her private school?
You’re missing the point.
1. The proposal would end the voucher system.
2. A reporter asked Gibbs why the current recipient of the voucher shouldn’t have option of attending the same school as Obama’s daughters.
3. huggybear suggested spending more money FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
4. I claimed that spending more money for the public school was a tired, old answer.
5. I never claimed that the vouchers weren’t expensive. Such information wasn’t germane to my point.
Now, what do you want me to answer?
So you don’t care whether that taxpayer money is used for additional educational funds, or used for school vouchers? You wouldn’t rather use the money to build missiles and aircraft than on “green jobs?” You have no preference whatsoever on how the money is spent? Because your elected representatives could have gotten that money spent on conservative priorities, but instead they decided to sit it out altogether and hope for the worst.
A reasonable argument, but there was no debate on it, much like just about everything else in this omnibus. They just abandoned the program. Is the de facto solution left behind a winner? Doubtful.
However, in less than 50 comments, there’s been some reasonable debate on the subject here.
The question was in bounds. It’s not as though anyone suggested that Pres. Obama pay for these children’s education (not like that woman who basically asked the President for a home). They just noted that this program was affecting kids who went to the same school as his children.
Gibbs flubbed the answer.
That might have been a slip on his part, but it’s a telling statement. Why does he answer questions from the press if not to represent the President’s position?
On a side note, I’m curious about who asked the question.
5. I never claimed that the vouchers weren’t expensive. Such information wasn’t germane to my point.
Oh I gotcha. ARGH, study breaks to comment on MM are a bad idea. My brain is too fried to begin with. Now back to the books so I can pass the bar and sue doctors.
Ah, a lawyer. That explains a lot. Good thing too – this country is in dire need of more.
Wow. What a liberal mentality.
How do you NOT understand that the “conservative priorities” are to avoid wasting tax payer money!
Just don’t forget to stop when the ambulances do.
I guess I’m a glutton for punishment, but … there was plenty of negotiation, at least in the Senate. The bill was essentially whatever Specter, Collins and Snowe wanted because they were the only Republicans willing to go along. If more Republicans had agreed to go along, they could have many more concessions, because Obama hates having to be responsible for this thing — unless the economy gets better fast, in which case he gets the credit.
G’night
Most Republicans know that the economy has a great chance of improving. And we know that Obama will receive the credit.
We are upset that any possible improvement will be attenuated by our new government tax-and-spend model.
You mean like “Mr Obama – why was your license to practice law suspended? Is it related to the reason why your wife was disbarred?”
or
“Mr President – when you applied for a license to practice law in Illinois you denied taking illegal drugs on the application yet in your books you freely admit to abusing illegal drugs. Aren’t you afraid of being disbarred like your wife or are you counting on the abject stupidity of liberal bureaucrats?”
or
“Mr President, Senator McCain provided proof positive of his birth as an American, why do you insist on showing us false documents?”
You mean questions like that RedState? Or are we talking about the REALLY substansive ones that the press is asking that you so seem to think is soooooo deep and intalleckshul … like:
“Mr President – can we see your pecks glisten in the sunlight some more? pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease oh pretty please? Hmmmm? Just a little? wibble!“
Like a salted slug.
Does anyone remember the days when we didn’t let gang thugs run the schools…and you could send your kids to class and not worry about them getting shot or stabbed?
Maybe with all the people being laid off they should think about keeping their kids at home and doing some home schooling. If I lived in a major city I would refuse to send my kids to any public school that has metal detectors at every door.
If you believe that I have a pair of revoked Illinois law licenses to sell you, like new! Never used!
Then why isn’t he holding the democrats who caused this entire thing accountable; Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Bill Clinton… – oh yeah, I forgot – you need personal ethics and a spine to do the right thing
Not gonna happen grrlfriend – two presidents have shown us how to do that; Kennedy and Reagan, and Obama has publicly stated on numerous occasion that:
1. He intends to do the exact opposite of their highly successful programs by increasing taxes at the very worst time which as any econ 101 student will tell you is economic poison
and
2. He fully intends to make things even worse and drive all industry out of the US by making all forms of energy such as electricity, natural gas, and gasoline completely unobtainable to the American people
He’s said these things, you’re just too blinded with passion for his glistening pecks and his manly relationships with terrorists to notice.
Us humans call that sheep power.
One more time … Do not feed the trolls!
Yep, that’s right, Red State… One legit question has canceled out 2 years of leftist propoganda… It’s all even now, right? The Media is actually Conservative! Wow!
Wow, now the bill is all because of the Republicans.
RSS, nice try, but you are not even close on this one.
The press should be admonished for their stupidity. First, the masses must adhere to the policies that best serve The Party.
Second, members of the Politburo are always allowed to send their children to private schools where they can receive the proper
indoctrinationpreparation for a life of service to The Party.I am not a member of a teacher’s union, first, because my state doesn’t have them, and second, because I’m far too conservative to give those yayhoos my money. There is more to the current school situation than unions.
Here are a couple of examples of how bad the school system has become:
1. I had a 17-year-old student write the word “hows.” He meant “house.”
2. My sister teaches 8th grade and had to take two weeks from her curriculum to teach 14-year-olds their multiplication tables.
Social promotion is the bane of my existence. Because of loopholes in the current accountability system, schools would rather pass poor students on to higher schools. Then those students do not count against their NCLB scores.
For a group of folks who are all about personal responsibility, I’m surprised I don’t hear more from all of you about parent and personal responsibility when it comes to education.
The wheels of the bus go ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round. NEXT! Sing it with me, people.
Absence of that argument here (which is tangential to the post) doesn’t mean we don’t believe in parent and personal responsibility. Absolutely, most if not all of us here do believe that.
Some of us believe it enough that we also support those that choose to home school their children.
I would guess that a majority of us here would agree with you on this as well. Who holds the schools accountable? You mention these loopholes and passing on the poor students as a prime example of how the government fails to hold schools accountable, even when it means to try (e.g. NCLB).
The voucher system may not be perfect, but for some it was a step in forcing schools to be competitive. As you mention, unions are just part of the problem that eliminate meritocracy and therefore bring the system down. The school bureaucracy is just as accountable. If schools don’t have to compete for their funding, where is the motivation?
That’s not to say that individual teachers may not be motivated by good will, such as your examples. However, if the system doesn’t reward success and validates mediocrity, even the most altruistic teacher is going to feel run down and wonder “why bother” at some point.
What are you talking about? And since when is social promotion our fault? How many kids have you personally held back?
You don’t hear about personal respectability when it come to education here because the people here are mostly conservative – unlike liberals we tend to do rather than make hollow promises.
Like many others here I could bore this board with stories of the PTA, serving on the school board, hours spent with teachers complaining how can I teach my child excellence if the teacher keeps rewarding them for substandard performance, etc.
Salt –
Thanks for your comments. You raise some good points. My comment about personal responsibility was really an aside as opposed to a direct response.
I have no problem with homeschooling, and in many cases would absolutely support such a decision. I also have no problem with vouchers. I agree that competition=competitiveness.
However, I’ve grown beyond tired of the idea that union=bad schools. My point was that the issue is far more complex than that.
A little more specificity on loopholes:
One thing we heard when NCLB passed was that social promotions would be ended. I thought, “hurray!” We heard that if students didn’t pass tests at certain grade levels, they couldn’t promote.
Then the details came out, and we found out that committees at those levels could “override” that decision if they felt the student was a good performer who just had a bad day.
As an example, I personally know of a jr. high where 50 8th graders failed TAKS, and not one of them was retained.
Not.
One.
I wonder what percentage of blacks have buyer’s remorse now after 95% of black voters voted for da1 and see he doesn’t want them to get an education.
Reminds me of the Jews, majority vote for dems every election…masochistic?
Whoa…you’re defensive for no reason. I never said social promotion was a conservative problem or attacked anyone for it. I just said it was a problem. All I was saying is that there is more to the problems of public school than lazy, unmotivated, unionized teachers.
I pointed out that particular issue since many people think NCLB changed that, when it didn’t.
Keep the poor down, but always promise that you’ll save them. The dems have been doing that for many decades. And, the poor continue to believe that all will be well tomorrow, if they vote for the same people who are adamant in keeping them down. The “war on poverty” has done more damage to the black community than any “Jim Crow” law ever did.
So we can naturally assume that you were vocally opposed to everyone who asked if Bush would send his daughters to fight in Iraq, and of course you denounced everyone who condemned the war based on Bush’s lack of combat in Viet Nam.
You know the difference between you and us? When someone on the right is full of it a bunch of us jump on it. When The One is full of it (which is daily) you torture logic until it screams trying to convince us that he’s not. Intellectual and idealogical integrity matters to us, to you they’re foreign concepts.
Would all of you just please leave Mr. Gibbs alone? He provides me with some of my funniest entertainment. I have never seen a P.R. guy use so many “duhs” and “uhs”. I just love to see him squirm.
Please, at least try to think about how the voucher system really works. Look at the Sidwell situation for example:
There is a pile of money out there and it amounts to over $13,000 per student per year for all students eligible for public education in DC. That is how the states do it, they inventory the students in the fall and then send out the funds based on the enrollment. There is a classroom with 26 students in it. The system gives $7500 to 1 student and they go to Sidwell. That leaves $5500 still in that classroom and is now divided up over 25 students or an extra $220 per student to spend in that classroom. There is more money available for those students, which addresses the top priority of the NEA. There is now a smaller class size, which addresses the second priority of the NEA. The voucher system always gives substantially less money to those that want to leave the public schools than what is allocated per student in the budget. That always leaves more funds available per pupil in the public system.
If it is truly all about the children, anyway you can get more dollars per child is a good thing isn’t it? At any point in time there are a total quantity of children the state is responsible by law to educate. If some choose to take only a partial amount of their allocation and get educated outside the system, the state is left with more money to spend inside the system and the responsibility is less.
I think the trolls are being themselves again.
If you think Obama is being hypocritical and Gibbs is being evasive–great. If you think vouchers are a good thing–great.
But, no. It’s all about smoke & mirrors instead of the issues.
Money has been thrown at the public school system all across the country and it does not work. Teachers are paid a ‘competitive’ salary–in some places, above the range.
The left is cruel–just like Rush said. Cruel.
I have to agree with RedState… the jounalist apparently didn’t know his “place”. The Press Secretary MUST NOT be made to look foolish! Journalists must stick to a specific agenda of questions, as provided on the “list of acceptable questions” given out to each reporter upon entering the hallowed ground. If that reporter went off-topic, he should be flogged. I have a theory as to why Obama wants to do away with the program. I think his daughters may have actually made friends with (gasp) some of those “ordinary” people. And, since his daughters are “prominent” people, they can’t be associating with the commoners. Thus, he needs to destroy the rest of the peasants also, in order not to look like he is singling anyone out. That would fit his MO, don’t you think? Yeah, RedState, that was a career-busting question. These things must not be allowed!!
Huggybear, I can’t believe you used “public school system” and “quality education” in the same sentence!!
Someone who is no longer with us, rest his soul.
Or any public school that does not!
Exactly. My parents did everything they could to put my sister and I in private schools, but they get no help from tax money, that’s for sure. I’m thankful for it, but we still had to have fundraisers just to be able to make it affordable for the families who had kids there. If only there were a tax break for that. *sigh*
First off: Gibbs is the MOST clueless press secretary I’ve ever seen. He’s not that graceful with a turn of phrase and an absolute clod at answering questions from media.
Now to education and access: I think it quite “ironic” that Obummer puts his kids in private school yet takes issue with vouchers and the need for them. They fill a void for kids who need an alternative to an under-performing school
Then there is the public education vs. private education debate: having worked in both sectors there’s such an obvious difference between the two and it’s certainly not money it’s quality. I taught in public school and felt like not only the babysitter but other roles I wasn’t equipped for such as social worker. However, in the local Catholic school system I taught in, I found that while the kids dealt with the same developmental issues/challenges, their learning was more advanced and there was a culture of respect that was missing overall in the public school system. I’ve seen equal disrespect from both teachers and students in public schools and it’s not a productive environment.
And, sunshinerbray: I totally disagree with your take on unions. Why is it that teachers last an average of 5 years before they get out? Why? That was my average of tolerance given the total lack of support I had from schools regarding the fact that I was a military spouse.
Why are unions so threatened by substitute teachers? Why are they so devalued as mere “babysitters” when many of them have to be certified to be subs and most already have either college degrees or a teaching background?
I do agree that NCLB has not ended social promotions. However, it has introduced some accountability but because so many schools game the system or outright cheat by feeding their students answers to the standardized tests (which happened to a local school district where I lived but didn’t teach), many schools don’t want to address their failing standards.
Then there is the societal component in which clueless parents drop off their kids and expect schools to be their kids’ parent for the whole day including feeding them and providing daycare. I’ve actually had one parent say that to me. And this runs across the whole socio-economic plane.
Frankly, if unions were left out of the equation, we’d all be a lot better off. Plus, if these school districts wanted higher caliber subs, they wouldn’t have the union dweebs butting in and making threats. Perhaps, vouchers would be taken more seriously and more kids would have the access to charter schools where they would actually learn how to read, write, and do math. Not the opposite: say, what the state of Mass does by teaching their kids that it’s okay that Johnny has two mommies.
Public schools have been a experimental environment for social engineering for a long time since they were invented to put newly arrived immigrants in to keep ‘em off the streets. Schools aren’t doing their job any longer, and, as a former teacher, I admit it. Schools are perpetuating the shortcut mentality and the current culture of less education is more.
As a former Social Studies teacher, I’ve seen such a lack of basic civics/American history being taught these days. It’s not as cool, as say, teaching the civil rights movement, or how the white man oppressed the native peoples. That’s more appealing and that’s why our kids can’t read, write, or figure things out for themselves.
Vouchers would provide some means of competition. The unions can’t allow that because they’d have to give up their educational fiefdom. We can’t have that.