Don't know where this should be...

[Some Friggin Guy]

A friend of mine brought up an...interesting...theory involving Bush and education which plays heavily into religion. That's why I'm putting this here. If one of the mods thinks it should be moved, then that's fine.

Anyway, this is the theory:

We have a seperation of church and state in this country, which means that public schools can't have religious education nor can they force students to pray. Private schools, of course, can.

Bush seems to be pushing for two things in terms of education: No Child Left Behind (which seems to me, though I have not read it, to be a very high standard for schools. I am basing it on the fact that so many schools failed to meet the standards in their first audit.) and School Vouchers.

My friend believes that the no Child Left Behind act is designed to make public schools look bad, so people will be more likely to support vouchers. Since many private schools (perhaps a majority) are religious, the parents who would be using the vouchers to get their kids out of the "sub-satisfactory" public schools will wind up sending them to religious schools, instead. This is all done through government money and is all above board, since the governemnt is not forcing the use of vouchers, nor forcing what schools the vouchers are used for.


Now, maybe it's my lack of sleep lately, but this sounds alternately like a complete nut-jub conspiracy theory, or a definite possibility. I'm reseving judgement till I actually can get some rest, but I was wondering if anyone else had heard of this theory or if they had any thoughts on it.

[Dorian Gray]

What I have heard, and seen myself for that matter, is that Bush just spewed all the education stuff to get elected (or whatever), then quickly put forth his real agenda once he moved into the White House.

[Ladyhawk]

SFG;

Personally, I don't think any act has to be designed to make public schools look bad....the schools do poorly enough, and have over the last decade, to earn a rusty reputation on their own.

You have a point in that each of these incentives could be designed to increase enrollment in private (religious based) schools, but it's important to remember that there are also quite a few private educational institutions which are not religiously based. I don't doubt that infusing god back into society is part of the Republican party's not-so-hidden agenda. Gaining more support for private/religious schools would certainly accomodate that agenda.

There are other theories insisting that the school voucher incentives, in particular, are designed to specifically keep low-income minority families from access to private schools since, even with voucher assistance, they would most likely not be able to meet the tuition requirements. Result? Minority, low-income households occupy the public schools while middle-class families have more access to private institutions. Don't know that I buy into this....just sharing other theories I've heard....;)

[Dancing David]

Well politics is a strange beast, the school voucher movement started as a way for people who want to send thier kids to private schools to recoup thier tax dollars. At least that is what i recall.

Then during the eighties we had wonderful Ronbo, who never threw money at any thing except the defense program, schools and education really suffered under the RR.

Now we have a president who wants to appeal to the lower income conservative and he has co-opted the voucher issue as one to help low income families.

the main problem with education is the absolute fact that very one talks about increasing spending but no one does it.

For example, here in Illinois we have property tax based public schools, with the state allegedly picking up half the tab. So after the rise of car culture and the suburbs we have school dictricts around Chicago that have about $20,000 per student, next to school districts that have about $5,000. And guess what the rich people like it that way, they want thier money to go to thier kids.
Then there was the whole 'lottery for schools issue', when they started the lottery on Illinois they said that all the money would go to education. And it has, but for every dollars that the state made from the lottery , they took a dollar out of education and put it in general revenue. The effect has been that there has been no real increase in school spending, but goodness forbid we not have another casino, because that would hurt the schools.

So politics often acts one way and looks another, the main reason that GWB is anti-education is that he wants to smack Headstart upside the head.

(That and put Jebus back in school.)