Should we ask Obama to centralize schools?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

I always wondered why education in the U.S. is not centralized. I think it's to keep poor people down. This is why right wingers (Republicans and atheist right wingers - such as CATOists) defend the leaving of school administration to local authorities. Centralization would be so much better for children.

Centralization would standardize the material to be taught, which would result in kids all over the U.S. (including the more poverty-stricken areas of the South) being held to a higher, similar standard. Also, by being centralized, that would end the unfair distribution of school funds based upon how expensive or cheap that school district’s houses are (property tax funds). That would eliminate the racism of black schools being poorer.

If schools were centralized, there would be no need for all those school boards. School boards are filled with Bible-banging a-hs living off our tax money. These are people who have no training in education, and tend to love to introduce religious myth into the school system. All the money landing in the pockets of school board members, would be spent on more important things than supporting these useless individuals.

This would also eliminate school boards’ constant attempts to introduce Christian mythological religion into school teaching. Christian mythology has a new name, they prefer to call it, “Creationism” but with or without the name, it’s mythology. It’s also a blow on our Constitution’s separation of church and state.

[bluestateguy]

1. Careful what you wish for

Your last sentence says " This would also eliminate school boards’ constant attempts to introduce Christian mythological religion into school teaching. Christian mythology has a new name, they prefer to call it, “Creationism” but with or without the name, it’s mythology. It’s also a blow on our Constitution’s separation of church and state." Swell, but what happens if you have a future George W. Bush administration that now has the power over centralized school administration. Then they can impose these dogmas on the whole country by way of the school system.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. :( I guess I was thinking of European schools - they run so much better than ours do

Maybe our country is just too much of a mess, and its people too uneducated for us to have a centralized school system.

[lurky]

2. Management aside, if funding was centralized,

we wouldn't have these massive disparities between poor districts and rich districts. It's always been obvious to me that paying for schools with local property taxes was invented just to benefit the rich kids and stick it to the poor kids.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. Yep. Decentralized schools keep the poor, poor. I thnk that's why this country does it this way

I get very frustrated when I go to Europe then come back and see what's going on here with schools.

[ulysses]

3. double-edged sword.

Agreed regarding the funding issues, though.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. I'm comparing our miserable schools in the U.S. with those in Europe

Of course, the schools here associated with rich neighborhoods do quite well. The rest, well, we already know.

[ulysses]

7. right.

I'm just not sure about putting *all* policy where the creationist Jesus Crispies (thanks to Rabrrrrrr for the name) can get at it in one fell swoop.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. :) That's because you live here and have grown up surrounded by a GOP media and the GOP running

our lives - I get that way too.

Sometimes I sound like a GOPer, fearing everything that might help the poor, while welcoming in anything that might help the mega-rich.

[ulysses]

9. I grew up in Oklahoma, ground zero for fundie idiocy.

Some people should be allowed within ten miles of an education policy.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. My sister just moved away from there -

From the moment she moved there she kept feeling sorry for all the poor people. The least educated people are the poorest and the ones that end up voting for the people that hurt them the most - Republicans.

[Hippo_Tron]

11. The reason it isn't centralized is because the constitution leaves it up to the states

The Federal Government has some control over schools through conditional funding but that's about it. I think if you totally federalized the schools you would run into some serious constitutional problems.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

12. As I understand it, the Constitution does not require it to be controlled by the states

Am I wrong? Is it mandated that only the states must do this? I don't think so but I may be wrong.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. 10th amendment

All powers not delegated to the federal government or prohibited to the states are reserved for the states or the people. Education is neither listed as a federal power nor a power denied to the states therefore it is primarily a state responsibility. The federal government gets around this by telling states that they have to comply with their education mandates or they won't get federal education money. But blackmailing states into enacting mandates is different than centralizing the entire education system.

[RoadRage]

14. I like some aspects of it..

but, I also see the potholes in having a completely federally run educational system.

I do think that we could certainly streamline some of the costs though. The federal government has huge buying power... what if they were to negotiate pricing on supplys (desks, shelves, chalk boards, etc) along with text books. Create a board to choose the best 3rd grade math book and 5th grade English book... negotiate a federal price for this so smaller districts who don't have as much buying power can get the same pricing on that book as a larger district.

Slowly.. as districts realize that they can save quite a bit of money if they buy the federally recommended texts... we start to see kids learning the same information at the same time. This makes it easier to figure out who is behind, and how to best help it. Online websites pop up to help more kids through virtual tutoring, etc...

But, i'm sure it's just a silly idea.. ;)

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. We are fighting consolidation here because we would lose a lot of say in how the school is run. (And

for other reasons as well.) Local control is important to small town folks like us.