A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:26 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off. And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it! It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block. [I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

frtzw906

The challenge is to promote flexibility and excellence in education without
ending up with nothing but elite schools for the gifted/rich and slums for
everyone else.

Well, the free market, combined with stipends for the genuinely poor solves
that problem.

It won't work. The amount of the stipend is obviously going to have limits,
and the amount of taxes the free market payers are going to want to
contribute to those vouchers is going to be next to nothing.

Not unless society as a whole decides to abandon the poor, which is
unlikely. If they were going to do so, they would have done so by now. You
imply that contributing to public school education is optional or voluntary.
I never suggested any such thing. I suggest that the stipend be based on
need, and that it come from taxes that are levied equally on all, to reduce
the burden to any individual as much as possible. Even the selfish rich
would be unlikely to complain about a few dollars, or even a few hundred
dollars in additional sales taxes paid to fund public schools.


However, in the present system, if "slum schools" happen, the blame falls on
the government, not on the parents who put their children in private
schools...while usually simultaneously paying for a by-right public school
education for the same students.

The fact is that the more students who are moved to private schools, the
more money and resources available to those remaining in public schools.
What on earth could be wrong with that?

What's wrong with that is it is total crap.

You don't know that. You merely assume it because you have no faith that the
people will be willing to tax themselves to achieve it. Problem is, they
ALREADY ARE. If they can get a better education for their children, while
providing a better education for poor children for the same amount, or less,
than they are now paying for a public school education, why wouldn't they?

The only real difference in the money stream is that the money goes with the
child, not to the district. In this way, the educational system has
something to compete for, which always results in a better product.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself frtzw906 wrote:

Scott Weiser wrote:


As for the "handicapped" one, she has a RIGHT to that education, by your
own argument, and to suggest that her presence drags down the educational
environment for other children, which ought to be balanced out by forcing
her sister into academic slavery, is astonishingly uncaring and dismissive
of the fundamental value of each child, no matter how handicapped. I can't
believe you really mean this.

=======================
I don't know whether you've ever been in an elementary classroom, but I
wonder, are you suggesting that disabled children, mainstreamed into
classrooms, do not impact on the educational environment of other children?

Are you saying that they do? How undiverse of you. How dare you buck the
politically-correct dogma and suggest that disabled children
are...well...disabled. Shame on you.

I maintain that my position is neither uncaring nor dismissive. Can you
demonstrate otherwise.

What's uncaring and dismissive is your implicit suggestion that the gifted
child has some duty to accept an education inferior to what she might be
able to obtain in the interests of egalitarian pain-sharing.

The disable child is not to be discriminated against because she's disabled,
nor is the gifted child to be discriminated against because she's gifted by
being made into an intellectual prop for others.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:


On 1-Apr-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

I just call 'em like I see 'em.

Given your self-imposed blindness, we can all ignore what you call.

Self-evidently, you cannot.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott figures:
===========
It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped
and I don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct"
speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a
debit to the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be
leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.
=========

OK. in my anecdote, there was the need for brevity. To fully explain
the hypocrisy: here's the rest of the story.

The parents in question have a province-wide reputation as advocates
for the disabled. A cause celebre for them is school mainstreaming of
disabled pupils.

OK, so given their passion for this cause, they then remove their
bright daughter to an elite private school that does not admit pupils
with disabilities.

Um, is this true? I find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in
Canada, because even here in the USA, it's illegal to discriminate on the
basis of physical disability. I sort of imagined it as being a hanging
offense in Canada.

As I recall, their "rationale" for doing so was that
there were too many ESL students in the public school their daughters
were attending.

"ESL" meaning "handicapped" I presume?

Surely, if "mainstreaming" is good for the goose, it
ought also to be good for the gander.

That's why it was hypocritical.

Hm. Well, given what you say, I'd say they were being perfectly consistent
with their beliefs and advocacy. They are "mainstreaming" their disabled
daughter, just as they argue ought to be done. Clearly they *could* provide
the very best individual, specialized care and education for their disabled
child, but choose instead to keep her in public school in order to "walk the
walk" and demonstrate that disabled children can be "mainstreamed." I laud
them for standing by their principles.

On the other hand, their gifted daughter evidently needs a more
intellectually stimulating environment to reach her full potential, so they
decided not to stint on her education by keeping her in private school.

I see no hypocrisy at all. I see rational judgment and a concern both for
their children and other disabled children, because they evidently genuinely
feel that the public school environment provides a SUPERIOR educational AND
SOCIAL environment for their disabled daughter. I happen to agree with them.

Putting disabled children in "special ed" programs, even very good ones,
isolates them from society and from their peers, and it leaves them in the
lurch when it comes to the necessary socialization skills they can only
learn when interacting with other non-disabled children. "Mainstreaming" is
specifically intended to get disabled children out of isolation and get them
involved in the community and society, where they can both learn to cope
with their disabilities in the real world as well as learn to make friends
and dispel prejudices and preconceptions that are often part and parcel of
"normal" childhood experience when "normal" children are isolated from the
disabled. Anything that leads towards the understanding that the disabled
are not "freaks" of some kind is good, and I applaud these parents for
sticking with it.

As to the other daughter, being gifted, she is unlikely to have as many
problems with socialization, and will experience socialization at her new
school as well, and will receive a better education. Keeping her in public
school would be unfair to her, particularly so if its done *because* she has
a disabled sister.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott objects:
============
OK, let's look at the Westernworld: Finland. Canada.
============

Both socialist states. Socialism = bad.
=================

Irrelevant (even though I don't accept your assertion) as we were
talking about quality of education or educational outcomes ("Any number
of nations do a better job of educating their children"): Canada and
Finland leave the USA in the dust.

As do a host of other nations. Depending on what's being measured,
anywhere from 12 to 20 nations have better outcomes.

frtzw906

Scott maintains:
================
It's hardly a faulty conclusion. Every study ever done shows that
private
school educations are far superior, particularly when it comes to
individualized instruction for the gifted, than public schools.
==========

Hey, you've quoted the Fraser Institute before. Why not look at their
report on education in BC (I'm not a huge fan but look anyway). While
you'll find many private schools at the top of the list (please review
their entrance requirements -- top being a Catholic girls school with
very stringent entrance requirements), you'll also find quite a few
public schools in the top 20.

You say "Even in the best public systems, which provide special
"charter schools" and special schools for the gifted, the quality of
education is far inferior to a private school education targeted at an
individual student. "

This report will show that you're wrong.

Then we should talk about those public schools; what's "special" about
them?

frtzw906

Scott asks of my libertarian views on social issues:
===================
What makes you think that your opinions are either important or
determinative?
=============

The fact that I'm a voter and will almost always prefer the candidate
with similar views makes my opinion important. Or did you think my vote
doesn't count?

frtzw906

Scott wonders:
===========
Um, is this true? I find that extremely hard to believe, particularly
in
Canada, because even here in the USA, it's illegal to discriminate on
the
basis of physical disability. I sort of imagined it as being a hanging
offense in Canada.
==============

Well, Scott, you've admonished others more than once for not reading
carefully. Now I get to return the favor. At no point did I indicate
that the girl in question was "physically" disabled. She was, but
that's wasn't the issue. She was also severely mentally disabled. As
such, she would have been denied entrance to the private school on
academic grounds.

Scott asks:
==============
"ESL" meaning "handicapped" I presume?
===========

Not in my opinion. But the parents in this anecdote clearly felt that
the ESL numbers in the school constituted a "debit" (to use your
terminology) insofar as the overall learning environment in the
school/classroom was concerned. Interestingly, several of the ESL
students from Korea and China were the top students in math/arithmetic
and music.


Scotts asserts:
================
I see rational judgment and a concern both for their children and other
disabled children, because they evidently genuinely feel that the
public school environment provides a SUPERIOR educational AND SOCIAL
environment for their disabled daughter. I happen to agree with them.
============

Yet somehow you are unable to see that by taking their brighter
daughter (not gifted, just bright) out of the public school, they
diminished the very environment they felt it was important for their
disabled daughter to be exposed to.

Sorry, that's hypocritical.


Scott, again displaying uncharacteristic, left-wing, concern for the
societal underdog, argues:
==================
"Mainstreaming" is specifically intended to get disabled children out
of isolation and get them involved in the community and society, where
they can both learn to cope with their disabilities in the real world
as well as learn to make friends
and dispel prejudices and preconceptions that are often part and parcel
of
"normal" childhood experience when "normal" children are isolated from
the
disabled.
==============

Yes.

And mainstreaming also places an undue and, at times, unfair burden on
teachers and classmates. If a "non-disabled" child were to exhibit
behaviors shown by many of the disabled children, they would be
immediately removed from the classroom and, eventualy expelled from the
school.

As a teacher-school-society we need to find accommodation for pupils of
all capabilities. However, it is an axiom of teaching that, if a pupil
consistently undermines the learning environment of the majority of
pupils, then that pupil must be removed. In the case of the disabled
child in the anecdote (and many, many others), the learning environment
was compromised by loud, random, unintelligible utterances that bore no
relationship to the matter being taught. This was complemented by
random physical outbursts of the child rattling her wheelchair and
otherwise thrashing about.

There can be no doubt that, notwithstanding the positive attributes of
mainstreaming, there are many "debits" (your word) that can be
attributed to it. So, back to the parents in question: of course it is
hypocritical to expect others' children to try to learn in an
environment compromised by their disabled daughter's outbursts while
taking their brighter daughter to a private school simply because they
have the money to be able to do so. Sheer hypocrisy!

frtzw906

KMAN being ever-so clever:



"Both socialist states. Socialism = bad"
-- Scott "I Wish I Was" Weiser


But why do I have this feeling that people have had similar fun with
that surname before...?

frtzw906

KMAN in making the case that an exodus of "wealthy" families from the
public school system will eventually leave it impoverished:


There will be less and less money. It will become like your
plan for health care for the poor...unless a charity provides it, there
won't be any.

Absolutely correct.


frzw906