Archives for July 2006

July 20, 2006

The International Need for an Obscenity Standard

From Agape:

Led by a request from the president of Morality in Media, a number of prominent pro-family groups have recently asked President George W. Bush "to take a leadership role in addressing the international dimension of the ever-expanding obscenity problem."

Perhaps the Evangelical Christians and militant Muslims can put their joint fatwa on hold long enough to work together on a project in which each's moral certitude blends nicely with the other's, namely the eradication of naked women. As the Intelligent Designer surely knows, the prevention of the viewing of naked women falls in neatly behind food, shelter and clothing as far as the UN agenda is concerned. It's practically a subtopic of 'clothing.'

posted by scott pilutik at July 20, 2006 06:38 PM

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July 19, 2006

new voucher plan

Republican legislators picked a curious time to unveil a proposed $100m school voucher plan -- four days after the Education Dep't released an extensive and highly anticipated report comparing the efficacy of public and private schools and concluding that the differences in quality were negligible. The report statistically damned one group in particular -- Conservative Christian schools -- the group that most vociferously supports voucher programs, lagged behind public schools in 8th grade math (the report measured only math and reading, at both the 4th and 8th grade levels).

The Constitutional argument against vouchers has been effectively killed by Zelman v. Harris, which held that a neutrally aimed law offering genuine independent choice to parents is all any voucher program needs to remain above board. So this was only a matter of time. But one of the underpinnings of Zelman--and to which C.J. Rehnquist referred throughout the opinion, was that a wide disparity of quality between public and private school existed in the Cleveland school district, necessitating such a choice for the poor.

But the report released by the Education Dep't last Friday explodes the presumption upon which Zelman relied -- that the public schools are going to hell and only private religious schools can save our inner city school children. But don't expect factual data such as that found in the report to rain on the Republicans' parade. From NY Times:

[Education Secretary Margaret Spellings] called the report's sample small and its results "basically inconclusive."

Yes, that's the same Margaret Spellings whose own Department released the report. And how does she know it's inconclusive?

She said she had learned of the study -- put out by a branch of the Education Department -- only through the newspapers on Saturday and had not read it.

... because she has not read it.

Taxpayer funds do not go to students but to public school education, which is characterized by non religious, agreed-upon common standards in each community. The community is partner to and can determine the direction of the public school system. The quality of the schools is thus controllable and determinative of the benefits the community can reap from this relationship. This relationship is not present--and cannot be present--where private religious schools are concerned.

From CNN:

"Voucher programs rob public-school students of scarce resources," said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, a teachers union. "No matter what politicians call them, vouchers threaten the basic right of every child to attend a quality public school."

And as Tbogg points out:

Fundamentalist conservatives will be sorely disappointed if the government doen't come through with those vouchers because they are really counting on the eleventy three-hundert dollars per student which will allow them to purchase copies of Heather's Mommy Speaks in Tongues and Biology 101: Men Are From Dust, Women Are From Ribs.

posted by scott pilutik at July 19, 2006 09:08 AM

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