Nothing clear at all in that post. Just seems foolish.

Yes the left needs to mobilize and counter the more extreme elements of the right who seek to gain power and control outcomes in schools, etc directing them towards culture war, only issues while ignoring all the real systemic issues.

The powers that be on the right have successfully for a long time now been able to do that at the Federal and State level and as they increasingly funnel the majority of the wealth of the country up to top percentile and corporations scream to the citizens all their problems are the fault of the 'Wall', 'Caravans' or 'Antifa'. It is so effective that you would not be able to go to many if any GOP events and engage in a serious discussion over health care or infrastructure needs before it was hijacked to the next 'brown menace' or 'LGBTQ+' threat. Checkmate liberals.

The elements of the deplorable right are out numbered and recognize long term this is not a war they can win. They are not in denial of those facts. Changing demographics and over all the population (including white people) become less accepting of intolerance means their days are numbers.

The only chance they have now is to extend their rule out for as long as they can via mobilizing more than their opposition does and to then try to change as many levers of power to minority control, for as long as they can.

Good for Waukesha for nipping that in the bud. They already have some ground to make up on education without wasting class time appeasing political activists.

It's funny that cuepee thinks this is some insidious plan for GOP takeover, given that the historical nature of school boards has been domination by progressive/liberal types, even in otherwise strong conservative areas. At least, that's been the case for as long as I can remember here in Southeast Wisconsin.

Without addressing whether your last solution would work or not (I think it largely could), let me tell what the major problem with it is.

It allows society to then distance itself from the majority roll it plays in why these problems largely exist and instead act as if it is a bootstraps and parental issue only or mainly.

It puts society in the position to be 'savior', while then completely ignoring the factors that need to change to improve the society so that this type of military school is not needed in the future.

So while I think it could be of value to actually have the type of 'Boarding School' type option for many of these problem districts and that you might find a significant percent of parents who would embrace it (kids come home weekends, etc) as it also then helps many of those same families out who struggle with daycare type or other supervision issues, and it also alleviates some burdensome food and other costs, I also think the only way you could and should implement that is as part of a two pronged process where there is massive investment at the community level to address the true systemic roots of these issues and fix them.

I am not a believer in the reparation discussions as I generally see them played out but can recognize that is the future culture war issue that is going to be fought. Just too much money on the table for special interests to not hijack the topic.

The way I would like to see reparations issues engaged, is with a multi-generational investment that really targets the roots of these problems, with the money that is designated as 'compensation' for the past theft of POC wealth and labour. No cheques to any individual. But big, sustained and long term investments in key areas.

No religion should ever have a crack at it on the taxpayer's dime, period.

The solution is not to punish children for behavior resulting from circumstances that are outside of their control. This is horrid imo. You need to have social programs that create a more equitable society generally, where adults are less likely to have children they don't want or can't properly care for.

Great. While you're crafting that new societal utopia, you have entire generations of kids being thrown into completely dysfunctional classrooms controlled not by teachers, but by a small number of classmates who spend all day every day guaranteeing that no meaningful learning can take place.

I think I posted a link upthread but go listen to the free The Daily podcast that discusses this growing issue and speaks to Billionaire Republican donor who speaks very candidly about this and his role, and the organization he created to do this all across the country.

He talks about how he came to it earnestly, as just a parent who felt he needed to be involved in his kids schooling. And then he realized what a powerful tool controlling the School board and other historically overlooked areas of small town politics could be at then controlling the State and Federal voting infrastructure.

He speaks quite candidly about how this power dynamic just appeared and he could not, 'NOT' capitalize on it as an entrepreneur and as such creating this national infrastructure to take in donations Nation wide to over run these Boards now with social conservatives, with culture war biases.

They cite lots of examples now where there supported candidates in School Board campaigns are utilizing large budgets for advertising in the ways you never saw in any of these elections prior, which were often fought only reputationally, and door to door and thru exposure to the community at meetings. They talk to him about how that is now forcing many on the left out, with only those who can raise lots of money (usually reaching out to small donors through activists on the left) to counter.

So congrat's if that is what you see as a good thing Inso, with now the most local levels of community politics being taken over by monied interests.

It seems as always you miss the forest for the trees and don't understand why this should be a problem for all sides.

if "progressive types' were hijacking the Boards in pre monied interest days that just means they were more active in the community and got more votes via that the old fashioned way and the way to counter that is simply to get conservatives more active and to garner more votes. No one has an issue with that. And that, is not what 'this' is. This change you applaud is quite insidious.

There could be alternative solutions between doing nothing and sending kids to military schools, while at the same time addressing the issues in society that creates those kids. The U.S. solution to adult trouble makers is completely ineffectual and other countries have not only more humane solutions but better results. Largely punitive tactics don't work very well for reform.

I'm not worried about reforming the small segment of the population that ruins it for the rest of them. At least, I won't be worried about it until the innocent majority is taken out of harm's way.

Get those kids off the railroad tracks first, and then worry about reforming the people who keep placing them there.

The troublesome minority is also innocent and shipping them off to military school is a) not likely to fix their problems and b) essentially a draft for the poor.

Nobody is suggesting you literally send children off to war. You can use military-inspired structure to reprogram them before it's too late and they just add to the prison population.

If they want to volunteer for actual military duty after finishing school, good for them.

You know what's definitely not fixing their problems, though? What we do today, which is worse than nothing. Today we're making empty threats and letting them know there's no follow-through, which only emboldens them as they get shoved through grade after grade without meeting the required metrics.

That wouldn't be a quibble at all - it would be very inaccurate for me to say that board members were fired. However, I think you missed a word in my post: "using culture wars to fire people up". I'm referring to the general public. Politicians are getting others fired up about non-existent issues, for their own political gain.

Sounds to me like a great way to exacerbate and entrench some existing issues with the US education system. Families who have the means to send their kids off to the much nicer and better-funded schools will be able to do so more easily, and those without that ability will be stuck in the schools that have less.

What problem(s) would these vouchers be solving?

i find it hilarious the crt is an issue at schools where it would never in a million years come up, you're just not interacting with it until college and most likely then as part of a graduate degree

just shows how reality doesn't even matter

This is two strawmans. I never said you literally want to send kids off to war. You said military schools which I interpreted as actual high-school military academies. While you're not required to join the military after completing these schools you're obviously influenced to do so in a way someone at a non-military school is not. In my mind that is effectively coercing the poor (as is already being done in other ways) into sacrificing their body and minds simply because they were unfortunate in birth. I'm also again, I'm not advocating doing nothing. Obviously some really troublesome children need help that teachers can't and shouldn't have to give but military school is at best slightly better than doing nothing.

Not enough children getting religious education and not enough for-profit grifters sucking on the teat of the state.

I suspect you've never set foot in a religious school.

They are held to the exact same curriculum standard as any public school, but you just might see more, "What would Jesus do?" and "Remember to love thy neighbor" language involved.

You act like hour 3 and 4 of every day is bible study time.

If you think the for-profit grifters are dangerous, maybe you should take a closer look at your friendly neighborhood failing urban school district and see all the "not for profit" grifting going on by well-connected consultants.

Of course, you're still conveniently ignoring the fact that choice schools are reimbursed at a fraction of the cost of the failing public schools. Even if we accept the idea that they're no better than public schools, they're definitely not any worse, and they only cost half as much.

I don't want one second of religious education outside of a sociology or philosophy course happening with tax payer money. I don't care how benign it seems.

It's been a while since we've had a "freedom of religion isn't freedom from religion" thread.

I accept your decision to be a zealous anti-religion wierdo, but as someone with quite a bit of experience with parochial schools, I think you're being unnecessarily antagonistic toward them.

i would second the i dont want a single penny of tax payer money going to a religious school or a school that has prayer in it idea.

As a religious weirdo, I'm not surprised you would defend them.

The Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case was a 5-4 decision with the dissenting opinion pointing out the obvious problem that though technically school vouchers are not giving direct aid to religious schools, when religious schools make up the vast majority or all of the available choice in private education in an area, the government is actually funding religious education in practice. Worse yet, Christian schools make up the lion's share of religious schools so the government is giving preferential treatment to one religion.

These schools can also discriminate based on religion, sexual orientation and disability of course so even if you were a student who wanted to go to a private religious school because the overall education was better than your public option you could be refused on purely discriminatory grounds. Meanwhile you're stuck in your public school that is having it's funding stripped by voucher programs.

On the contrary. Every time you send a voucher student to a choice school you get rid of a kid and keep half of the money you were allotted to teach them with. This is a net boon to those who are left, or it would be if they were willing to partake in the process of education. Since they aren't, you're left with a bunch of money to spend on outside consultants to tell you that the solution to all of your problems is to not hand down punishments, and avoid pulling kids out for specials because it isolates the child. You must keep them in the general classroom to cause utter havoc amongst their peers and make sure no one can learn.

Thanks, consultant! Very progressive and inclusive of you to ensure that if one kid won't learn, nobody can.

Why stop there?

Parents can send their kids to school on their own dime, not mine.

Sorry about that. Maybe I need to go back to skool.

My general principle is that more options for consumers are usually good things for the consumer.

Successful existing voucher programs:

Food Stamps. Government helps folks buy food, but the recipients freely choose what food to buy.

Section 8. . Government helps low-income folks by paying a good portion of their rent, while the recipients can freely choose where to live from among the apartments who accept Section 8 tenants.

Student Grants/Loans. Some or all of tuition is paid for by the government while the student freely chooses what college to attend.

I don't want a single penny of taxpayer money going to any school that teaches Sex-Ed. Now what?

One thing is unconstitutional, the other isn't. You're free to lobby your state legislature or school district to remove education that results in fewer abortions of course.

I thought you earlier referenced Zelman v Simmons-Harris, which upheld the Constitutionality of vouchers?