well, if this thread is an example, Kelly, I’d say that it is you have some problems w/understanding written English.
Several people (myself included, as a matter of fact, I was the first ), asked specifics “which posts” of doreens that you find to be potshots or ‘nasty comments’. and you’ve simply repeated your assertion.
we understood your assertion dear, we were asking for substantiation of that assertion. Generally, when one is attempting to support an argument, one submits evidence, vs. merely repeating, for emphasis, the argument.
Actually, she was there to offer her own perspective “from the inside,” as it were, and yes, she did point out some perfectly valid inconsistencies in what you were saying. It is Great Debates, after all, when inconsistencies in an argument are bound to be picked apart. Gods know that I’ve been subject to the same scrutiny, but hopefully I dealt with it better than you. Perhaps if you had toned down the rhetoric in that thread you wouldn’t have been open to such criticism.
The truth that you have not copped to, but should be becoming increasingly apparent to you, I hope, is that you were far more unreasonable and (let’s just say it) mean than doreen ever got. Read DDG’s summary of the argument to see further evidence… she’s spot-on. You had no call to get insulting with doreen, but you did. She responded with grace, by giving your inflammatory words all the attention they deserved – she ignored them.
Rather than Pitting her, it sounds like you could stand to learn something from her.
I think this is a bit unfair. From what I saw it was probably more frustration and projection of Kelly’s remembered anger at her(or a loved one’s?) mistreatment by local school authorities and/or the special education system. I admit my naievete and I don’t address the subject of how special education is handled so I really can’t say if it is proper to trust the authorities or if KellyM is completely justified in her anger and distrust. A diagnosis of “paranoid” without more details on the events which led to the feelings Kelly has about local government is a bit premature.
OTOH, Kelly has certainly done her share of overgeneralizing by characterizing local officials as power-hungry and untrustworthy. While this is possible, and checks in the system do need to exist to balance this possible abuse of power, it still seems like hyperbole to put such an emphasis on the possibility of such abuses.
OTTH(didn’t you know I have three hands?) Kelly is doing the same thing many advocates of oversight for homeschoolers have done. Point out a case of abuse and note the potential for future abuses then invoke FUD(Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) to attempt to discredit the opposing position. For the record: I did not see doreen engage in much of this style of arguement although her tone when describing the homeschooling family who did so to keep the children from socializing with the neighbors was fairly clearly negative IMHO.
I’m inclined to forgive more than condem. It’s easy to snap when old wounds re-open. Sometimes you snap at people who don’t really deserve it.
Kelly DOES have a good point, and it’s the reason I advocate homeschooling parents have input and veto power in any framework to be implemented. If we acknowledge that xenophobic and psychotic parents(however small this percentage of parents may be) may keep their little darlings cloistered and brainwash them instead of providing them with a real education then we should give at least as serious creedence to claims that power-hungry psychotic administrators(however small this percentage of administrators would be) would be unduly demanding or take the children from parents without due cause. The system should be able to detect, and hopefully remedy, both of these extreme cases.
well, Mtgman I believe that the ‘checks and balances’ you ask for are much more likely to be in place when the person needing the checking is a public elected official who has to answer to the electorate, the legal system, the press as well as to the students, teachers and parents within the school district, vs. say, the xenophobic paranoid parent who wishes to cloister their children, protecting them from ever coming in contact with anyone outside their own small group. The lessons of Jonestown as it were.
KellyM you are such a rude, abrasive, paranoiac asshole that when you couldn’t get the rise out of her with your childish taunts that you were so obviously and desperately angling for, you take her to the Pit for the crime of what… being too polite? You are really a piece of work. Whatever valid points you may have had are lost in the noise when you start shitting your rhetorical pants by being a class “A” jerk in debate.
Um, Kelly…I think that should be “which even if it were there…” There are other errors in that one statement.
(Since we are discussing education, you lose a little of your credibility with me with such mistakes.)
I have taken no position one way or the other on the discussion of home schooling. But I agree with the others here that Doreen was not taking potshots. Kelly, I think that this thread is unwarranted.
Ehehehe…Diane, you buttmunch, you said “jack”…ehehehe…
Kelly, if ANYONE is being deliberately dense, it’s you. You seem to have a habit of flying off the handle and throwing hissyfits when people disagree with you. Get a thicker fucking skin or just go lock yourself in an ivory tower.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I abase myself, I flog myself with the videotape from Kevin Costner’s entire oeuvre pulled out of its cases and braided into an even more painful punishment device than the movies themselves, difficult though that may seem.
So, if you’re not ManagementMan, then what are you–MeetingMan?
[faster than a speeding memo, more powerful than an office baby shower fundraiser, able to leap tall conference room chairs with a single bound…]
throws an extra copy of “The Postman” into the pile I can’t work up the anger to throw an extra copy of “Waterworld” into the mix because the anger would have to overcome my extreme aversion to Costner’s masterpiece in order to get me to touch it and, dang it, I’m just not THAT angry. **
No, my handle comes from the Collectible Trading Card Game Magic: the Gathering, commonly abbreviated M:tG. M:tGman had special characters which were illegal in the system I first devised the handle for(an online gaming service where you could play, shock here, M:tG) so I morphed it into Mtgman. Everyone knew what it meant and it wasn’t until I started using it in other contexts that it messed with people’s heads.
I find considerable irony in the fact that interpretation of my screen name is actually a fairly common one when juxtaposed with my personal aversion to both management and meetings. To be honest I never considered such an interpretation.
Thy wish is my command, milady:
[hijack]I didn’t realize that “turdburglar” had anything to do with anal sex.
I thought it referred to someone so stupid they would steal shit.[/hijack]
[ol][li]The Electorate[/li]
Homeschooling families are, ATM, an insignificant voting block comprising single-digit numbers of the population at best. One could argue that they could rally non-homeschoolers to their cause but in reality this would be a highly unreliable check. It also forces parents to wait until the next election to remove an abusive official and provides no remedy. Voting the jerk out of office won’t overturn his action in marking families as unfit to homeschool. An appeal would have to be filed with the new official who may or may not overturn the old ruling, or who may not have the time/resources to review the case at all. This is not a pro-active check like the checks the President, Judiciary, and Congress have on each other.
[li]The Legal System[/li]
The law is a capricious ally, especially when your opponent is seen as an agent of the law. Bringing charges of corruption or abuse of power against an official is extremely difficult. Only the most aggressive, well-educated(in terms of the legal system and their rights therein), and wealthy parents would have the knowledge, courage, and resources to pursue such a case. This raises the barrier to entry on homeschooling and makes it available to less parents than it could be.
[li]The Press[/li]
In the US the press is free to run, or not run, whatever stories they choose to. Again a capricous ally. It also places the burden of proof of abuse on the parents who were unfairly treated. The idea is to put a barrier in place to keep an official from treating parents unfairly. If officials are solely responsible for determining if a parent should be allowed to homeschool and they abuse this power to take a child from a homeschool unfairly why should it be considered a effective check for the parents to plead their case before the press? The press could help sway public opinion to vote the jerk out next time, but that still fails to remedy the situation in most situations and it certainly isn’t timely. Or are you counting on the official having a change of heart when he sees the news? An inadequate check IMHO.
[li]The Students, Teachers and Parents of the school district[/li]
How would these people know of cases of unfair treatment of homeschoolers? The students don’t interact with homeschooled students, nor do public school teachers. They DO know the school board authority. Why would these people even care if a school board official marked some family they’ve never met as unfit to homeschool? Again the pressure is on the family to defend their right to homeschool instead of on the official to justify beyond any doubt that his action is the correct one. This is an unfair burden for the homeschooling family, they’re supposed to be able to focus on properly educating their child not sucking up to the local officials or making sure they cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.[/ol]**
Your arguement is the checks should be on each individual family to ensure they’re not xenophobic psychotics? I’ve always said it’s fine to have some sort of evaluations, I’ve simply said it should be as fair, and inobtrusive, an evaluation process as possible. The only way I know of to ensure this is by checks and balances because I just don’t trust officials to ALWAYS exercise complete fairness in performance of their duties. The lessons of Watergate, as it were.
I wonder if I could get the permission of the mods to re-post my reply in the original thread, it’s really much more on-topic there. wring would you care to join me there and we can re-create this exchange for anyone who is following that thread and not this one?
Eratta: My final paragraph would more accurately read thusly.
MtGMan - you misunderstand -
my point that “the checks and balances you seek are more likely to be present w/Group A than Group B”, does not claim that the checks and balances of Group A are infallable, merely that they’re more likely to be present, than with group B, and much more varied.
my point 'tis better if that both supervising entities (the home schooling parents and the school boards) have some check and balance in place to insure that all youth obtain an education (it is in society’s best interest that they do), so that even if home schooling mom and pop decide that it’s wrong for young un to be taught to read and write, some check and balance would occur that would overrule them, just as, with the school board deciding that “all children should be taught that all religion is evil” should also have some other check and balance occur (note, I am not claiming that home schoolers would do the one any more than I am claiming that school boards would do the other, just suggeting two specifics that hopefully most of us would agree shouldn’t be a required teaching in any school system).
and I don’t really care to participate in the other thread, thanks, I don’t really have a dog in that fight. I have only personal observations that some of the kids that I’ve observed who are home schooled have/had some level of noticable (to the casual observer) lack of peer socialization skills; that some of the kids that I’ve observed who are in the school districts and have some level of disability don’t seem to be getting the accomodations they need to successfully learn; that some of the parents of kids w/disabilities have difficulty w/the organized school meeting the needs of their kids; that some of the school board members I’ve known work very hard at insuring that the kids in their districts are being treated fairly and appropriately; etc. etc etc.
IANA mod, but hey, go for it, it’s not a problem. Cross-posting only means like when you’re desperate for attention for your god-like pronouncements so you run around ALL the forums and start threads with the identical OP. It’s not like where occasionally the same answer happens to fit two different threads.
My claim wasn’t that they don’t exist, just that they are inadequate for a large percentage, possibly a majority of cases. If a parent can’t afford a lawyer to pursue their claim of unfair treatment, how is the legal system a check? Do we want to put homeschooling parents in the situation where they would have to rely on the charity of legal representatives to take their case pro bono?
Effective checks and balances. Not just theoretical ones. That’s what I’m after.
My point is that at present, there are several avenues to take to hold school boards accountable. regular elections, legal means, the press, public picketing, advocacy groups etc etc. any parent can avail themselves to any of several means, in order to publicize/address their concerns.
at present what oversite is given to the homeschooled to address a potential wrong? certainly not the level and varied means available for the others.
the aim for both is clear: society needs to have educated youth. they disagree on what to teach, how best to accomplish this, what constitutes an ‘educated youth’ etc, but I don’t see that the current situation has the same level of potential oversite/methods of correction for the homeschooled as for the public systems.