04/08/1999: grundle

Posted By: Richard_B_Bernstein


On the one hand, you're sloganeering instead of arguing.

On the other hand, in some ways, you have a point, a point stated more cogently by FerretBoy.

My mother taught in the NYC public school system for over twenty years; one reason that she retired was that she felt caught in the whipsaw between the parents' expectations that the schools would take care of everything and the parents' belief that they could dictate what the schools could and could not do. Note the logical contradiction, and note further that parents are completely unwilling to face that logical contradiction.

It is not that the government is assuming the role of Mommy and Daddy; it's rather that many individuals are unwilling to shoulder responsibility for working with government -- in this case, the schools -- to deal with their children's upbringing and instead take the rather stupid approach of free-market consumers: I pay for you to do all this stuff, and I can yell at you for not doing it.

The problem is that they are NOT paying for the schools to be completely "in loco parentis" and that the schools cannot -- and do not want to -- assume that complete role.

But, grundle, life is always far more complicated than free-market, government-hating shibboleths.

By the way, FerretBoy, I usually call him Richard Milhous Unindicted Coconspirator or Richard Milhous Impeachable, so go ahead and call him Tricky Dick.


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