151 Comments

Private religious schools should never get one cent of public money, for any reason. It is not the government's job to back-stop anybody's religion. The smoke screen of giving parents a choice, is in fact making Arkansas' already awful schools even worse by taking funding away from them. Once you realize the Republicans want to create a permanent American underclass, much of what they do becomes apparent.

Expand full comment

From the first I heard of "voucher" programs, I have been utterly and adamantly opposed to them. Too often, they drain monies away from public schools which are operating on the margins of competency and render them even less effective at their missions than they already are. Considering her previous decision regarding child labor, Governor Sanders' actions here just continue to follow the same dangerous pattern.

Her goal is simple, insofar as I can see it: the dismantling of public education and the de-education of Arkansas' kids, who apparently are meant for the labor pool of the Natural State ... though what's "natural" about that utterly escapes me.

Expand full comment

It's the goal of Republicans to stop funding public education and put all children in subsidized religious schools.

Expand full comment

Close. The leaders get expensive - and, obviously, exclusive* - private schools.

*(exclusive - y'know... exclusive, you get me? Right?)

Expand full comment

Absolutely.

Expand full comment

She needs the money to pay for the "art" allegedly made by her children (masterly debunked by Val).

Expand full comment

Arkansas. Ranked 5th from the very bottom of states to live in. Ranked an even worse 47th in health care.

Education? 43rd. Which Sanders & Co. look to torpedo and send to the bottom.

Expand full comment

None of 'em will be happy until they're 50/50 across the board.

Expand full comment

Of course it’s wealthy families benefiting from this, I’m betting they’re majority white. Of course it’s religious schools benefiting from this, I’m betting they’re majority evangelical Christian. Corporate America has teamed up with the theocrats to create a caste system in the USA so they have an endless supply of disposable workers who don’t complain when they’re abused.

They’ve been looking to defund public education for generations. Especially if it benefits people of color. This is the way they’ve found to package it as something the base approves or they can get away with it without the immediate ire of the folks on the left.

Expand full comment

> "...so they have an endless supply of disposable workers who don’t complain when they’re abused."

Well good gosh, you wouldn't want to see workers who know more and have sharper minds than their managers, would you? I mean, I know that isn't hard in most cases, but still! That would be the end of everything!

I've been lucky enough to only work for companies on the side, so to speak--in between writing gigs. But I say with no exaggeration that every upper level manager I've ever worked for was a dope. One bank VP I worked for quite literally couldn't read or write. (He had been a college jock, and he was great at talking sports with the higher-ups, so he kept getting promoted.) His secretary had to read his mail to him every morning--slowly--and compose the responses for him then read them to him before she mailed them. And every other manager I've worked for was almost as bad. Not quite as bad, but not really much better, either.

But America's economy is sound. Yeah, sure it is.

Expand full comment

I’ve never had a manager that bad, but I’ve had some that are just in love with the sound of their own voice.

Expand full comment

"Religious education" is an oxymoron.

Expand full comment

First, tax-exempt status - we literally subsidize religion. Then

Second, funding religious schools - we subsidize indoctrination and grooming to boot.

What's wrong with this picture?

Expand full comment

OT

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day. A big salute to all the native populations of this hemisphere. And a big middle finger to all the Christian invaders who made those peoples lives a living hellish nightmare.

Today also marks what would have been John Lennon's 83rd birthday had he not been assassinated by a devout Christian. If Yoko Ono has her way, Mark David Chapman will never taste freedom again. Good!

As it turns out, this is also the birthday of John and Yoko's son Sean. He turns 48 today, meaning he outlived his father by almost a decade.

Expand full comment

The state of Texas doesn't get today as a holiday. The parent company does starting this year, but since we work with several state programs as well as a few federal we only officially get the day off when both are closed.

We didn't get the day off when it was Columbus Day, and with Gregg Abbott as governor we certainly aren't going to get off anything called 'Indigenous Peoples Day'.

Expand full comment

All the usual stuff is closed here today, libraries included.

Since there's no library computer to switch over to today, think I'll post until 11AM my time and take advantage of the extra hours to find some items at Northgate Mall. That should take about 4 hours or so, due to all the traveling.

Expand full comment

I don't think the library is closed, the schools aren't, but the federal offices are closed and a few (but not most) businesses.

Expand full comment

May I ? The American Native singer/flute player is John Two-Hawks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZxa7KYRu0

Expand full comment

Thank you.

Expand full comment

...imagine there's no heaven...

Expand full comment

I know many people love it, but that song grates on me. Too far from reality.

Expand full comment

Just paying a bit of homage to Mr. Lennon who would have been 83 today as noted in the original comment.

Expand full comment

Every private school will get a $20,000 podium.

Expand full comment

Gold-plated toilets?

I hear they're all in vogue these days.

And the bathrooms serve double duty as sensitive document storage!

Expand full comment

I am not only against vouchers. I am against private schools. If there is a need for special schools let them be run as public schools open to everyone who needs them.

Expand full comment

That's true of most private schools, which only cater to the hoi polloi. But the really elite schools, the ones that enroll only the wealthy and the privileged...well, horrors, we can't deprive the privileged class of their privileges, can we? We can't expect their children to mingle with the children of ordinary people, can we? I mean, imagine what someone like Donald Trump would be like if he actually knew people whose families struggled to live even at a subsistence level. That would be the beginning of the end of America, I tell ya.

Expand full comment

If you have the means to pay for a private school, you pay out of your pocket or you try to get a non state funded scholarship, point.

A little of my school history. My parents had the choice for boarding schools, three (that I know of) specialised for children whose parents travel a lot for work (bargees, carnies, gypsies). They also have a pick of others private and public boardschool. They choose C, even if it was not convenient for them for two reasons :

A) My paternal grandparents lived less than 5 kilometres away.

B) Theses boardschools are actually dormitories and have a contract with public schools. DM especially wanted me to have contact with children outside my subculture.

Expand full comment

I would imagine everyone here already knows this, but I'll say it anyway: We cannot kick religion out of education fast enough. These all-too-Christianized schools are a burden on society as a whole, and not just because of the tax dollars lost to them. Indoctrination is for Sunday School, not for actual education of future generations.

I don't have kids, but somehow the Republican party has managed to offend me over this time and time again. They insist on things like 'school choice' that mean spending taxpayer dollars on Little Junior Bigbucks going to a private school, while denying Little Sammy Poorguy any education at all. It's got to be one of the worst forms of elitism, and they refuse to stop doing it; what makes it even worse is they've convinced their base that it's a 'good thing'! The very base that is suffering though this BS is voting for it, so far as I can tell.

I don't know how it is elsewhere, really. I know that here in Arizona, the legislature starts staring at the public education budget every time money needs to be spent on a project of any kind. This state is so red it's practically bloody, so voting the Republicans out just ain't gonna happen. I keep trying anyway, and telling myself that neither violence nor jail time will solve the problem.

I just wish I knew what would solve it.

Expand full comment

When Rusty Bowers, former AZ Speaker of the House, is deemed a hero and awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award (and then censured by the AZ Republican party) for refusing to go along with the illegal scheme to replace Arizona’s legal slate of electors with a false slate of electors who would elect Trump, then enduring persistent harassment and intimidation tactics from Trump supporters, and finally getting primaried out from the right to lose his re-election bid, you know your state is in Deep Shit.

Expand full comment

We've just had 5 Libertarian candidates withdraw from the election because they are batshit crazier than usual. It seems to be a race to the bottom.

Expand full comment

You don't get much more mean-spirited than Sarah Sanders - all in the name of her performative christianity. This is the same person who lifted legal barriers against minors working in sometimes dangerous industries. The same person who made it more onerous to apply for medicaid with over 82,000 losing coverage due to deliberate measures enacted by the governor. The same person who put in place a near total ban on abortion risking the lives and health of women in Arkansas and condemning some non-viable newborns to a slow, cruel death. Oh, but she revels in her unyielding position against pressure to remove a chalk drawing of a christian cross at the capitol building - not to mention the ever-present cross hanging around her neck. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/jul/01/sanders-vows-not-to-erase-chalk-drawing-of-cross/

Expand full comment

We say it all the time here, but it bears repeating still again: There is no hate quite as hateful as christian love.

Expand full comment

I have to take city streets to get to the pickleball courts, but there's not a direct route. I have to keep making left and right turns, just like everybody else who uses city streets. How horribly inconvenient! I want a straight-line shot directly from my house to the courts, cutting diagonally across all those city blocks, and a parking lot immediately adjacent to the courts as soon as I arrive. I call it "pickleball choice", and I absolutely insist that the city government has to pay for it. Maybe if I formed my own church people would take me more seriously.

Expand full comment

OT : I take back what I said. I was better off without the proteinated drink. They changed the brand, it's sweeter than the previous one and I mean nausea inducing sweet 🤮

Expand full comment

I'm sure proudly made in the USA. I find very little too sweet, but when it is, it's bad.

Expand full comment

If D-Day happened in your country, yes.

Expand full comment

It didn't? So much for a U.S. History education? :)

(Truthfully, no U.S. history class I ever took before college covered WWII, somehow there was never enough time in the school year to cover much beyond the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.)

Expand full comment

In my high school years, I took a class called American History: 1880 - 1950. It covered both world wars.

Got an A (wellllll, A+ actually) :)

Expand full comment

So your class covered the future?

Expand full comment

Post Civil-War history wasn't until college and I got a D. The textbook was a better sleep aid than Ambien ever dreamed of being.

Expand full comment

In my case, it just shows what a teacher with a passion for their subject can do.

Expand full comment

Try taking a class in Spenser and Milton (which I was required to do) and learn what boredom really is.

Expand full comment

I had a class like that. I don't remember the exact name, but it covered 'some date' to present. The textbook was 20 years old.

Expand full comment

I don't think I ever got an A 4 anything until I went back to university (part-time and correspondence) in my 40s – then they came regularly. Just goes to show the influence of the Demon drink.

Expand full comment

History and Sciences Naturelles from third to fifth grade. History and biology from 6th to 13th 😁

Expand full comment

Nobody likes a showoff, Smarty Pants. 😝

Expand full comment

It's hard to humble when you're as great as I am. ;)

Expand full comment

I studied WWII in 9 th* (twice), 11 th and 13** th grades. I didn't even need to revise anything for my Bac Pro (12th and 13th grades).

* I didn't know which kind of high school to choose so DM had me retaking the class

** Not a typo.

Expand full comment

I'm curious--how did they cover the Vichy/collaborationist government? If France is like the US, they gloss over it with terms that make it not sound so horrible. I know the Germans avoided talking about the Third Reich's most heinous behavior till they couldn't avoid it anymore. And we Americans are masterful at maintaining all the myths about what a wonderful place this is now and has always been.

Expand full comment

From what I remember they put everything on pétain, whitewashed of course and papon wasn't even mentioned. Vel d'Hiv was studied very quickly (the part where the French government offered Jewish children as a bonus = nada). German concentration and death camps were not whitewashed, there was several pictures of emaciated prisoners taken when they were freed.

No mention of American Japanese put in concentration camps. And except for Pearl Harbour, nothing about the Pacific part of WWII.

But it was about 25 years ago. I have no idea if it's the same.

Expand full comment

I taught World War II to 18-year-olds years ago. I don't know if it's taught now, they've tended to move away from world history to more local stuff. Which is good but World War II is a hugely important world event. Everyone should know a little something about it.

Expand full comment

See my answer to Jomicur.

Expand full comment

Sarah Huckleberry Slanders is one of the byproducts of America's worst decision and most unqualified, inept, destructive president in its history. Jesus should be proud of his work.

Expand full comment

And now, just like Jesus, Trump is elevated by the Christians to a perpetual victim. The ultimate con is underway.

Expand full comment

My new name for '45' is '91.' The latter speaks more to his legacy as a POS rather than POTUS.

Expand full comment

Here's another thing as it comes to the whole issue of school funding: some time back, Ohio's Supreme Court ruled that the property taxes the state uses to fund local public schools is unconstitutional. It ordered the state to come up with a better mechanism to accomplish that funding. I don't recall just how many years ago that was, but to this date, no such alternative scheme has been proposed, or at least not that I'm aware of. The problem with property taxes is that the more affluent school districts get the benefit, where the poorer ones get the shaft. I was lucky enough to have been brought up in one of those former systems and to raise my daughter in one as well. A lot of kids are not so fortunate.

What this suggests to me is that the powers that be really DO NOT WANT a level educational field, as it comes to public schools. They want to continue to have the stratification of classes, from dirt poor to super-rich (typically with them in the latter group). And, of course, Sanders' atavistic attitude only makes matters far worse.

Expand full comment

My home state of Wisconsin was the first in the nation to address the horrible disparity in local tax bases. It does so thru a system of general equalization state aid to school districts. The poorer the local district is (in terms of taxable property value per pupil), the higher the percentage of its costs is covered by state aid, which is drawn from more progressive tax sources like the income and sales taxes. For many decades now, general equalization aid has been the largest single item in the state budget.

Expand full comment

That doesn’t mean Wisconsin isn’t trying to implement a voucher system too. But I do my part to keep it at bay.

Expand full comment

It's good to hear that at least ONE state has figured something out and that it actually works. Would that we could arrive at the same beatitude, here in the Buckeye State.

Expand full comment

A-woman. I don't really like local funding or control of school systems. It leads to substandard education in either funding or curriculum in far too many cases.

Expand full comment