Let’s review where she started.

> A lot of the problems in the schools were caused, directly or indirectly, by white flight.

and

> The main problem with white flight, as I see it, is that when people withdraw from the public school system they tend to forget about it, even though their taxes are going into it. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for the appallingly low voter turnout in school board elections, which partially explains the selection of clowns we get. I have to think that if everybody cared, we’d vote for better people.

Does she now disagree with those statements?

> But you cannot stand to think that anybody can do anything without Nanny Government holding their hand.

Huh?

Govt took their money. I can’t change that, so I advocate giving it back. And, going forward, I think that govt should NOT take their money.

That’s opposition to the nanny state combined with awareness that said nanny state exists.

Of course, Laura’s real problem is that she needs an argument. She tried an appeal to authority and now she’s inventing strawmen.

How is this me blaming parents who take their kids out of school?

And I don’t know what question you’re talking about. Is it this? “Is her opposition to the same school choice for elementary, middle, and high school that we currently have for college due to guilt (for ruining said public schools) or does she want her kids to have opportunities that poorer kids don’t have….” Is this not an answer: “If you want vouchers, fine, let’s all start out fresh so that everyone has the same chance. I’m not opposing school choice. I am opposing retroactively giving school choice to people who over the past ten years apparently didn’t need the help.”

I’m going to play your game, Andy, and then I’m done with this. Over the past 10 years in NO, there are parents who actually made some personal choices about their kids’ education, for whatever reasons they dared to have, and inexplicably managed to implement those choices without involving the government. Apparently they were able to afford to do that, since they did it. But you cannot stand to think that anybody can do anything without Nanny Government holding their hand. You want the city of NO to create a new program with city taxes (that’s money out of the pockets of the citizens, rich and poor), so that it can run after those people and say, “Here! Here! You shouldn’t have tried to to that without my help!” Because you can’t stand it that anyone shoould take responsibility for their family.

I did, but Laura never bothered to respond. She just kept up with the “they didn’t sacrifice enough, so they should be punished” claptrap.

Laura blames folks who took their kids out of public school. She also doesn’t have much sympathy for kids of folks whose parents didn’t
manage to do so, while coyly mentioning her hairshirt.

It’s fair to ask why she’s such a fan of public schools, and my questions about her reasons for doing so have the advantage of being consistent with the facts in evidence.

I note that she didn’t answer the question….

I do not blame parents for white flight. If I’d had a kid in public schools here in the 1970’s, I’d have done the same thing. I wish to heck my in-laws had. Sometimes people make individual decisions that are right for them, but that in the aggregate are destructive through no fault of their own. I blame the federal courts for systematically destroying the public school system by bussing for desegregation. It obviously didn’t work; schools are now more segregated than before, and there is now no chance of reversing this. The problem of white flight; or if that term bothers you, affluent flight; is that people in the community who might have some idea of how to solve the problem and who might elect school board members who could run the schools competently, have dissociated themselves from the public school system. I do vote in school board elections. And I always have, even when my kid was in private elementary school. I, Andy, am not the problem.

If you want vouchers, fine, let’s all start out fresh so that everyone has the same chance. I’m not opposing school choice. I am opposing retroactively giving school choice to people who over the past ten years apparently didn’t need the help.

Yes, I understand. That’s why I’m able to say that Laura is wrong.

It is interesting that Laura is one of the people who she blames for ruining public schools. Remember, she blames folks who took their kids out of public schools for the failings of said public schools, and guess where her kids went to school….

Of course, this raises a question. Is her opposition to the same school choice for elementary, middle, and high school that we currently have for college due to guilt (for ruining said public schools) or does she want her kids to have opportunities that poorer kids don’t have….

The thing that I keep running into here is that poor people pay taxes too. They pay sales taxes, if they have a car they pay vehicle registration fees, and they pay property taxes too - even if they rent, because if the property taxes go up then their landlords raise their rents. It looks to me like the Guths want all citizens of NO, rich and poor, to retroactively have supported 2 school systems for the past 10 years. Even people who in their wildest dreams could never have afforded private school for their kids will see their tax dollars go to both public schools and people who sent their kids to private schools. And this will be to the benefit of people who demonstrably could afford to pay the tuition in the first place. And y’all talk about me wanting them to eat cake.

1) Because you’re saving the school system money by educating your kid elsewhere.

2) The school district can save money by reimbursing only low-income people, but then they need to find out everyone’s income, and there will be some stigma to accepting money from the district.

3) If it makes you feel better, why not look at it as the schol dsitrict reimbursing you for your taxes, not your tuition costs.

I think asking why the city should reimburse you is comparable to asking “why should the city pay public school teachers to (try to) teach my kids?”

Then don’t take the money. Heck - feel free to voluntarily pay more.

But, money for you is not the issue. You don’t want anyone to have the ability to make a different decision.”

Do you understand what I’m saying? Some of us who chose private school didn’t do it for academic reasons. We did it because by law, the government is not allowed to give our children what we want (religious education). Why should the city reimburse us for our tuition?