Sunday, October 30, 2011
Ron Paul on education
Abolish the department of Education?? Ridiculous! Or is it? Let's break this down....
1) The US Department of Education was formed in 1979. Can the United States exist without this department? YES! Some of you may have parents that went to school before the DoE, and now they managed to send you to college, didn't they? Henry Kravis didn't have the DoE meddling in his education, he's doing fine now.
2) Ron Paul wants to abolish the FEDERAL DoE. That means that every state can still have their own state DoE. Less schools for one department to manage= more efficient running of matters.
3) WHAT ABOUT FUNDING for poor schools????!! If you care so much, start cutting box tops off of your boxes. I do it, I send it to schools that I never went to. And now I am getting my mentee from Uncommon Good to do it. Bottom line: only YOU can make a difference.
4) What about funding in general? The really good schools will be fine with money. As for the bad schools, see above. For the students, there exist private loans and scholarships/ financial aid provided by schools as well as outside sources. To get more money for the school for financial aid, see above. Note that there are other ways for an institution to raise money as well. E.G The Montclair Mall is providing a very generous gift to a school if their students win a competition.
5) What if the kids and parents don't care enough to raise money? I am sick of caring for people that don't care. Why should I care if they don't care?! If one kid really cares, he will find dozens of ways by doing research on how he can get a better education.
6) The DoE was responsible for No Child Left Behind, adding billions to the federal deficit.
7) How will schools gain any credibility without DoE? Well, doesn't there exist private companies that write exams nationally for the schools? Doesn't there exist private companies such as the US World News Report that rank these schools?
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This is a good post, you and Ron Paul provide a lot of really understandable arguments. It's a shame that people take one thing that Ron Paul says, like "Abolish the Department of Education" and immediately write him off without thinking of the positive benefits of such a move. In fact, people do this to just about every candidate ever which makes for a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of misguided hatred.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this post and I happen to agree with a lot of what you are saying here. It seems to me that people of our generation seem to be stuck on the idea of having the US DoE because that is what we are used to. I like how Ron Paul is looking outside the box here. You bring up some really good points in this post.
ReplyDeleteI really like the article. Its a very clear and well thought out argument that brings up a lot of good points. Many of those points are not often considered, like the fact that our parents went to school pre-DoE and turned out just fine. I have to agree with Katya, that politicians these days are often defined by a single idea or sound-byte. Then a candidate who may be the best person for the job has no chance at actually winning the Presidency.
ReplyDeleteWould you say a similar thing if you were the parent of a child that attended a school with poor funding?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like all of the conservative candidates in the presidential elections support abolishing both the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. My post for Congresswoman Bachmann also discussed her desire to get rid of the Department of Education. She argues that there is nothing in the Constitution that allows the Federal government to create and guide education policy on a national level
I would very much like to respond to this post in itemized detail because I think another balanced perspective is sorely lacking here, but as I am exhausted from registering voters all night I think I shall confine my response to a single one of your numbered points:
ReplyDelete"5) What if the kids and parents don't care enough to raise money? I am sick of caring for people that don't care. Why should I care if they don't care?! If one kid really cares, he will find dozens of ways by doing research on how he can get a better education."
I will be perfectly honest - this statement made me very, very angry when I first read it. I will try to keep my intellectual response cordial and respectful, however, and I apologize in advance if I fail to do so.
Now, the problem here is the presupposition that any student who is receiving a bad education and doing nothing about it simply "[doesn't] care," and therefore does not deserve out sympathy or assistance.
I will readily admit, there are a great many students and parents out there who place no value in education, though writing even THEM off as totally lost causes from an administrative perspective still makes my skin crawl.
Nevertheless, my real problem with that claim is that it ignores the millions of students disenfranchised by circumstances entirely beyond their control. A dirt-poor high schooler deep in the middle of Harlem doesn't even have a CHANCE to "care" about their education - they only have a scant few educational options, and none of them are stellar.
It should not be incumbent on the individual student to deliver themselves their own education. In a utopian world where everyone has perfect access to all resources, sure, that would work great, but in this world it is simply not feasible.
Rather than lifting the federal assistance we provide to students such as this, we should be dramatically increasing it. Yes, the structure of the federal Department of Education needs to shift somewhat - NCLB is a failed initiative, though perhaps it might not have been if President Bush had bothered to fund it worth a damn - but getting rid of it outright is not the answer.
My overall response to Dr. Paul and his intellectual brethren has always been this: that government should be made smarter, not smaller. In the realm of education, this is no different.
- Kevin Chafe