Replying to say I appreciate your discourse and can empathize with some of your views. I think it’s important to level set, and that level currently is your perspective and identification of a libertarian is one data point, and some of your perspective includes some nice, popular opinions:
Everyone wants policies and rules that empower, not limit. (Don’t treat me like a child).
Hell yeah, balance the budget, nobody wants their money going to waste, that’s a no brainer.
Drugs clearly won the war, and the program did what it was intended to do: throw minorities in jail and destroy families. You’re against it, so am I.
Now, instead of outright providing counter arguments to the things I’m not on board with, I’d like to suggest a route where instead of divesting from resources under the banner of “choice”, what if we invested resources into communities into the way they’re built? For example why bus students from a poor district to a rich one when you should leverage equity to bring communities up to par? I think that solves more problems than it adds.
Anyway, I’m sure the libertarian community is pretty diverse and I’m sorry for generalizing them. Again, I appreciate your perspective.
why bus students from a poor district to a rich one
For the same reason that universities have different curriculum despite all being accredited. It’s less a case of which one is better funded, but more which one has the program you want.
I think kids (and adults) do better when they have a say, and I also think they do better when they’re learning things they’re interested in.
My ideal is for a city to have multiple schools all with different emphases. Maybe one focuses on fine arts, one on STEM, and one on debate/communication. They’d all cover the same core curriculum (e.g. Common Core), then add what makes them special on top. Then students and parents decide where to go, and the counselors help figure out transportation. If we do it right, kids will have employment prospects right out of high school because they gained specialized skills through their school track.
I’m not suggesting we divest anything, I’m suggesting we change the funding model to get the same dollars to work better. If we can combine school and city buses, we save money that can instead go toward attracting better teachers or providing specialized equipment. But more importantly, we can have schools specialize without excluding lower income students whose parents can’t afford to take them to school every day.
So, anecdotally, the school I had to go to didn’t have a robotics program, or laptops to lend out to students, but other schools (probably in other districts) did. My colleagues today who did have those things, have experiences that are different from mine as a result, arguably better as they had earlier exposure.
My school did offer sports and orchestra I participated in, and with people closer to where I lived where I could hang out with before and after school.
I don’t think being sent to a school farther away in a different community would be an ideal solution, or necessarily make me a better person as a whole. Besides being treated like an outsider and the unavoidable stress and time loss that comes with travel, I would probably be stressed out and struggle to be happy in that environment.
Again, I’m speculating but school isn’t just about what job you want to have, it’s about exploring and developing, not only as an individual but also as part of a community. I think my ideal is one where communities have more access to opportunities, rather than limiting opportunities to specific locations. To clarify that location matters a lot, and I think history (redlining as an example) provides guidance to that.
Either way, it sounds like we both would like folks to get access to the resources they want and need so I’m cool with that.
Replying to say I appreciate your discourse and can empathize with some of your views. I think it’s important to level set, and that level currently is your perspective and identification of a libertarian is one data point, and some of your perspective includes some nice, popular opinions:
Everyone wants policies and rules that empower, not limit. (Don’t treat me like a child).
Hell yeah, balance the budget, nobody wants their money going to waste, that’s a no brainer.
Drugs clearly won the war, and the program did what it was intended to do: throw minorities in jail and destroy families. You’re against it, so am I.
Now, instead of outright providing counter arguments to the things I’m not on board with, I’d like to suggest a route where instead of divesting from resources under the banner of “choice”, what if we invested resources into communities into the way they’re built? For example why bus students from a poor district to a rich one when you should leverage equity to bring communities up to par? I think that solves more problems than it adds.
Anyway, I’m sure the libertarian community is pretty diverse and I’m sorry for generalizing them. Again, I appreciate your perspective.
For the same reason that universities have different curriculum despite all being accredited. It’s less a case of which one is better funded, but more which one has the program you want.
I think kids (and adults) do better when they have a say, and I also think they do better when they’re learning things they’re interested in.
My ideal is for a city to have multiple schools all with different emphases. Maybe one focuses on fine arts, one on STEM, and one on debate/communication. They’d all cover the same core curriculum (e.g. Common Core), then add what makes them special on top. Then students and parents decide where to go, and the counselors help figure out transportation. If we do it right, kids will have employment prospects right out of high school because they gained specialized skills through their school track.
I’m not suggesting we divest anything, I’m suggesting we change the funding model to get the same dollars to work better. If we can combine school and city buses, we save money that can instead go toward attracting better teachers or providing specialized equipment. But more importantly, we can have schools specialize without excluding lower income students whose parents can’t afford to take them to school every day.
So, anecdotally, the school I had to go to didn’t have a robotics program, or laptops to lend out to students, but other schools (probably in other districts) did. My colleagues today who did have those things, have experiences that are different from mine as a result, arguably better as they had earlier exposure.
My school did offer sports and orchestra I participated in, and with people closer to where I lived where I could hang out with before and after school.
I don’t think being sent to a school farther away in a different community would be an ideal solution, or necessarily make me a better person as a whole. Besides being treated like an outsider and the unavoidable stress and time loss that comes with travel, I would probably be stressed out and struggle to be happy in that environment.
Again, I’m speculating but school isn’t just about what job you want to have, it’s about exploring and developing, not only as an individual but also as part of a community. I think my ideal is one where communities have more access to opportunities, rather than limiting opportunities to specific locations. To clarify that location matters a lot, and I think history (redlining as an example) provides guidance to that.
Either way, it sounds like we both would like folks to get access to the resources they want and need so I’m cool with that.