Single issue voter

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Hello,

Can someone tell me who caters least to families, children, and "no turn between 7-9 a.m." signs in the upcoming election?

Thanks!

Comments

Re: ;-)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I could think of several options. Tax credits for single parents, extensions on the educational loans.

I think you're missing my point. There are plenty of parents out there that are simply never going to be good advocates for their own children. In fact a lot of people who have studied the problems with inner city education say that lack of parental advocacy is the *main* reason that these children do not do as well as their peers in better neighborhoods. What I'm trying to figure out is how your system would deal with the children of parents who are essentially absent from the educational process.

The onus of the loan is on the parents, not the child.

A big part of the reason we are willing to lend money to kids going to school is that we believe that giving them an education will shift their own income bracket enough that they could conceivably afford to pay off a loan while also enjoying a higher standard of living. Otherwise the lack of credit history and collateral would make such a loan untenable. In other words: what about the parents that should not, under any circumstances, be allowed to borrow money? Either because they are already in debt up to their eyeballs, or have never made a loan payment in their life (but not for lack of borrowing), or both.

Re: ;-)

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Eric, I don't believe in legislating to address the lowest common denominator of society. If every anecdote inspired a law we'd be fucked. Obviously some people would struggle under a system like I described. I, and others, struggle under the one we use currently. Nothing's a perfect solution.

Re: ;-)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I think you underestimate the scope of the problem. That "lowest common denominator" of society represents a substantial chunk of the people in our prisons and public housing projects at the moment, and the problem is currently getting worse rather than better. The main purpose of public school, in my opinion, is to allow children to gain advantage where their parents had none, so that they can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" so to speak. The rest of us already have the means to borrow money to go to private schools if we want to do that (although I would argue that our general population already has more debt than we can handle, so adding even more would do more harm than good).

Re: ;-)

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Let's agree to disagree. I think privatized schooling would be higher quality due to competition between schools and more (much more) centralized and focused administration.

Re: ;-)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

The problem is as much with the structure as it is with the mindset of said administration. We very nearly ended up with an entire national education system that believed the world is only 6,000 years old. If that had happened, I would have been hard pressed to say that we were better off because our entire country's curriculum was decided by one centralized and focused administration.