If your children are still n public schools, run.

[temporal1]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

Thomas Sowell really likes charter schools, so, i have to leave doors open to possbilities.
however, where ever gov dollars are distributed, bad things follow. i think of it as unintended consequences.

in my area, there has been a charter school of decades, not in a big city, at all, it was deliberately located in a poor+troubled neighborhood, the idea was to offer more+better classes/education, to attract students from all over (bussed in).

from what i know, it’s been a success from the start. parents must apply.
in the past, it was inviting. who knows what they’re doing now. i presume keeping up with the woke Chicago crowd.

not fly by night.

[Jazman]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

How do you know this... it's not true in the public school we attend.
And social engineering actually happens in every school... including home schools and private schools. I've seen some pretty horrendous 'engineering' experiments walk out of home school...damaged / years of recovery ahead or reject the faith entirely...
Same in private school. We're also involved in a 'mennonite-in-name-only' private school and there is definitely some very problematic 'social engineering' going on... ie there's a concerted effort to churn out squishy, comfort-addled, wealth-pursuing, GOP-voting, mega-churchy hoopla, got-my-heaven-card-don't-need-to-do-much-more american! christians!... <sarcasm>Just what the world needs more of...not</sarcasm>

[temporal1]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

How do you know this... it's not true in the public school we attend.
And social engineering actually happens in every school... including home schools and private schools. I've seen some pretty horrendous 'engineering' experiments walk out of home school...damaged / years of recovery ahead or reject the faith entirely...
Same in private school. We're also involved in a 'mennonite-in-name-only' private school and there is definitely some very problematic 'social engineering' going on... ie there's a concerted effort to churn out squishy, comfort-addled, wealth-pursuing, GOP-voting, mega-churchy hoopla, got-my-heaven-card-don't-need-to-do-much-more american! christians!... <sarcasm>Just what the world needs more of...not</sarcasm>

good questions.
to begin, no system, no human construct, is infallible, which is regularly well-represented on this forum, failures get airtime, even on MN.

what results is minority rule, “the tail wags the dog,” etc.

a central peeve for me (and, many others, long before me) is organized lib gov politics normalized throughout schools.
esp since 1964. it’s now sooo normalized, it’s like “the air we breathe,” largely going without notice.

home schools, private schools, even charter schools, provide important options.

every human construct requires accountability, they’re all vulnerable to (sin).

[barnhart]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

How do you know this... it's not true in the public school we attend...

Four of our children were in our zoned public school for several years and it was a positive experience. Despite the headlines about radical social engineering, their teachers were Orthodox Jews, practicing Catholics or evangelical Christians. The administration was quite open and sensitive to any concerns we voiced. The last thing a principal wants to loose is children from stable homes with two involved parents because any empty seats will be filled by the board of Education with students rejected from other schools. So they are not out to offend.

This experience will not sell as a story. It's no way to incite fear or motivate votes.

[temporal1]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

How do you know this... it's not true in the public school we attend...

Four of our children were in our zoned public school for several years and it was a positive experience. Despite the headlines about radical social engineering, their teachers were Orthodox Jews, practicing Catholics or evangelical Christians. The administration was quite open and sensitive to any concerns we voiced. The last thing a principal wants to loose is children from stable homes with two involved parents because any empty seats will be filled by the board of Education with students rejected from other schools. So they are not out to offend.

This experience will not sell as a story. It's no way to incite fear or motivate votes.

To repeat, failures get airtime.
True across the board, not just wrt gov ed. God forbid your experience become “expected.”

The Hill / Report: Medical Journals BLOCK Research on Impact of Puberty Blockers on Kids Over POLITICAL BIAS / -12min

Description:
Amber Duke and Jessica Burbank discuss LGBT issues with Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Sarah Parshall Perry.

About Rising:
Rising is a weekday morning show with bipartisan hosts that breaks the mold of morning TV by taking viewers inside the halls of Washington power like never before. The show leans into the day's political cycle with cutting edge analysis from DC insiders who can predict what is going to happen. It also sets the day's political agenda by breaking exclusive news with a team of scoop-driven reporters and demanding answers during interviews with the country's most important political newsmakers.

Found in Comments:
@davidkendall4588 WROTE:
3 days ago
This is what you get when you embrace scientism instead of science. One is a cult-like religion. The other is actual science.

@mikechappell4156 WROTE:
3 days ago
A 5 and 8 year old had no opinion on BLM. Mommy or daddy did.

@jeremywildrick-cole8373
3 days ago (edited)
Trust the science folks, clearly there is no prioritizing political expediency over the safety of our children here.
The concept of safe until proven otherwise is an EXTREMELY dangerous precedent to put forward when it comes to medicine.
Why have an FDA at all at that point?

i see The Hill as largely left-promoting, i give them credit for attempting to present balanced views, Jessica Duke comes across as terse, defensive, she seems to attempt to restrain her haughtiness, as her regular presentation. imho.

This discussion represents some of the problems of minority rule, the problem with political EXPERIMENTS foisted upon everyone’s children, and, in my view, presents a good argument for school uniforms. Some gov schools have uniforms.

[Ken]

Ordinary public schools are governed pretty much everywhere in the US by democratically elected local school boards that determine curriculum and policy through an open public process with opportunities for public comment and input. There are a few exceptions like in NYC and Houston where the city or state have taken over but they are rare. So they are generally reflective of the communities in which they exist.

Charter schools are an end-run around that and are generally accountable to no one except an unelected state charter board of some type that often does no actual supervision. They operate by design, outside of local control. That is how you get ridiculous things like this proposed charter school. Which I would suggest would not be approved by any democratically elected local school board anywhere in the US.

There are some excellent charter schools run by good people. I have seen some. But bad ones run by grifters seem to be more common, frankly.

[Jazman]

Ordinary public schools are governed pretty much everywhere in the US by democratically elected local school boards that determine curriculum and policy through an open public process with opportunities for public comment and input.

Yes, ours is like this. The superintendent is rumored to be a Christian. A board member is a Christian and lives down the street from us. Evangelical, church going grandparents... (she's on the school board) Our particular elementary school has a number of Christian teachers. It's been a blessing and has helped us make connections with all kinds of people (Christian, etc and nones) in our community. I don't believe God calls everyone to this, but I do think He might be calling more Christians to GO into, than currently say they're called to avoid...in my opinion. The scary outlier stories don't scare me... God's grace, including His common grace, is bigger and stronger.

[Josh]

I don’t think God calls children as “missionaries” to go evangelise public schools. Adults working as staff, sure.

[Szdfan]

i’m for home schools and private schools.
i’m sorry public schools have become ground zero for lib political social engineering EXPERIMENTS, without honest labeling.

There are over 90,000 traditional public schools and over 13,000 school districts in the US. How many of these do you think are engaged in liberal social engineering experiments.

in my area, there has been a charter school of decades, not in a big city, at all, it was deliberately located in a poor+troubled neighborhood, the idea was to offer more+better classes/education, to attract students from all over (bussed in).

from what i know, it’s been a success from the start. parents must apply.

One of the differences between traditional public schools and charter schools is that charter schools can choose which students they educate. Public schools don't have that option. We have to accept all children that live in our district. If the school expells a child because of behavior issues, they can only expel them for a year under state law. Charter schools don't have to adhere to that.

[Ken]

Ordinary public schools are governed pretty much everywhere in the US by democratically elected local school boards that determine curriculum and policy through an open public process with opportunities for public comment and input.

Yes, ours is like this. The superintendent is rumored to be a Christian. A board member is a Christian and lives down the street from us. Evangelical, church going grandparents... (she's on the school board) Our particular elementary school has a number of Christian teachers. It's been a blessing and has helped us make connections with all kinds of people (Christian, etc and nones) in our community. I don't believe God calls everyone to this, but I do think He might be calling more Christians to GO into, than currently say they're called to avoid...in my opinion. The scary outlier stories don't scare me... God's grace, including His common grace, is bigger and stronger.

Part of local governance and local control is that you get variation in quality and emphasis from district to district and state to state. Most states do have minimum standards when it comes to curriculum, number of hours and days schools must be open, certification of teachers and so forth. But most of it is pretty lightly overseen. In 15 years of teaching I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about state administrators visiting a school district for any reason much less enforcement of state standards. And not at the federal level either, which is mostly concerned with special education, disabilities, and civil rights. So 99% of school governance is the responsibility of local school boards.

The alternative would be direct state or Federal control of education as is the system in many European and Asian nations where teachers are state or national employees not local, and schools are directly overseen and managed by central offices. Such systems have more uniformity from place to place and tend to have less disparity in wealth and resources across poor and rich areas, but they are going to be less reflective of local ideas and values.

I have taught in relatively conservative districts in Central Texas that were perhaps 60/40 Republican vs. Democrat. And I have taught in more liberal districts here in Washington that were the reverse. Or really more like 55/45 Democrat vs Republican. Frankly in the good districts there really isn't much difference. Most of the day-to-day operations of a school district are not political. The conservative district I worked at in Texas was extremely well run and the only times that their conservative leanings really showed were in things like dress code (male teachers had to wear ties, during the first 5 years I worked there, and student dress codes were more rigid with things like mandatory short hair for boys). And they poured much more money into athletics and athletic facilities than they do here in Washington with very elaborate stadiums, indoor football practice facilities, weight rooms that look like they belong to an NFL team, and so forth. But when it came to actual teaching it was very mainstream and mostly focused on test scores not culture war stuff. Local political activists would sometimes show up at school board meetings demanding this or that thing, but unless there was broad community consensus, it was rarely accommodated.

Here in Washington in a somewhat more liberal area there really isn't that much difference in governance. Curriculum is essentially the same. There is less focus on standardized testing but that is more of a state-level policy than local. And standardized testing was at its national peak when I was working in Texas. Sports are less emphasized here. We have all the same sports and more, but they are less of a central focus of school and community life. Otherwise it really isn't much different. What and how I teach science is exactly the same with many of the same textbooks and curriculum web sites. And it seems to be the same in other subjects as well. The reading lists and work my youngest daughter is currently doing in her AP lit and AP government classes looks nearly identical to what my oldest daughter did 8 years ago in Texas. High school is basically high school. And elementary schools are even more the same. The good schools and good classrooms look the same whether you are in Texas, Washington, or New York. And honestly they don't look much different when you compare good private and public schools either.