Minimum Wages

Then... that sucks? What do you want to do about it? Punish everybody else for your misfortune?

a) It's not my fault that the parents screwed up, and I shouldn't be forced at gunpoint to help them.
b) There is enormous social (but I think you mean economic) mobility in the U.S.

 

Betsy DeVos is going to allow under privileged children to attend great schools. Does that count as a good thing Trump and his cabinet choices did?

 

I think it's a pretty good idea, as long as the government creates standards as to what can be taught at schools. I don't want taxpayer money going to schools teaching random crap; I went to a fundamentalist Christian middle school that taught young-earth creationism, and some other really questionable things, while refusing state accreditation and oversight. As long as public dollars aren't going to schools like that, I'm fine with the idea. Clearly public schools, especially in poorer inner-city districts, have been failing their students.

However, it gets a little murky with separation of church and state. Personally, I have no problem if people want to use school credits for private religious schools (provided the schools actually teach, and don't spout religious BS 100% of the time). However, it might be unconstitutional.

 

Lol it wouldn't be unconstitutional. All the first amendment says is that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. A state can allocate funds pretty much however it wants, then. (the Federal government supplies like, 10% of education funds)

 

Hm, okay.

I'm not good at reading legalese, but PEARL v. NyQuist is a Supreme Court case that I think says otherwise, no?

 

yeah, I think so
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We can have all the (someone vs. someone) all we want. That depends on how stupid the judge is. We had a judge declare Trumps "travel ban" unconstitutional and what not then we had another judge that proved him wrong. Btw, the travel ban would bearlt be over by now (in like a week) and we could have probably been a little safer, that's irrelevant though. So no, allowing kids to go to a private school on the governments dime is not unconstitutional. Unless someone on Trumps cabinet does it then of course it's a horrible thing to do. (Sarcasm at the end).

 

District court and circuit court =/= Supreme Court.

I hope I'm reading this wrong and it's constitutional, because I want it to happen, but sadly I dunno if it is.

 

Education is a different issue, but there should be a nationalized curriculum, so every school teaches the same things to people.

If, for example, the federal government lets kids go to "biblical school of jewish scientology", it would be.

 

It is; the president has the power to halt immigration basically however he wants . "And lest there be doubt, Congress adopted a provision in 1952 saying the president “may by proclamation and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens and any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants” whenever he thinks it “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”"

The only argument that you can make is that it's primary goal would be to prevent muslims from entering, and then you'd have to argue that it violates the First Amendment, which personally I don't think it does but the courts would probably rule otherwise looking at other cases regarding the first amendment. But the primary goal isn't to prevent Muslims from entering, it's to prevent people who pose a higher risk to national security than most from entering.

 

The first amendment doesn't protect foreign citizens right?

 

It's still wrong though; private institutions/people shouldn't be subsidized by the government EXCEPT if there is a threat of imminent collapse (so like, exerting control over farmers to try to prevent the Great Depression).

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Not really, but then it doesn't protect people from executive action either. It reads "Congress shall make no law..." after all. It doesn't even protect people from state governments. I don't like the first Amendment particularly; I think it should have been written differently to provide a much more robust protection for freedom of speech, however the way that courts have been interpreting it (looking to intent I would guess) I'm fine with.

 

I was referring to education sorry for being unclear

--- Double Post Merged, May 7, 2017, Original Post Date: May 7, 2017 ---

14th amendment:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

So I would think foreign nationals would be protected, right?

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I agree that there needs to be some government oversight as to what's being taught, but some people need different educations than others. One-size does not fit all when it comes to education.

 

Yeah. While I wholly support education reform (I think that our education system as a whole sucks, and needs to be rethought) I don't think subsidizing private schools is the way to go, rather think that control of educational standards should be left to the state or maybe county level so as to avoid a 'one size fits all' scenario. Additionally I believe that politics and political history should be subjects offered at every school (though not mandatory classes like English and Mathematics, due to the fact that one radical teacher could shape the politics of thousands of students over their career).

 

Besides the fact that it's probably unconstitutional, why is it a bad idea?

 

Under the letter but not the intent, I think. The intent was I believe to prevent Southern (and Northern to an extent) states from making laws that take away the newly gained freedoms for black Americans (written after the Civil War), not immigrants.
So now it just depends on whether you're talking to a strict constructionalist or a loose constructionalist. (strict probably going with yes, foreigners within our borders are protected, loose going with no, they are not protected.) Ironically, it tends to be conservatives and the Republican party who are strict constructionalists but support torture of suspected terrorists (or waterboarding, if you don't think that's torture) and liberals and the Democratic party who are loose constructionalists (except when it comes to the same issue.).

--- Double Post Merged, May 7, 2017, Original Post Date: May 7, 2017 ---

A) it limits the private schools' independence if they receive funding from the government ("teach this or we'll pull funding")
B) It's not right to force people to give up their money and then give it to private groups/individuals. Whether it's constitutional or not is irrelevant; it is wrong.

 

Fair enough, i suppose. The way I'd imagined it working is the state determining some minimum list of benchmarks that students had to learn, and then the private schools doing whatever they wanted outside those benchmarks, similar to how homeschooling is treated today (obviously the private schools would achieve better results, namely because their teachers are actually qualified).

It's already being done though. Like you said, farmers are currently being subsidized to protect them from economic downturn, and there are numerous other examples of government subsidies to private entities.

 

How? There should be a basic level of critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and social skills as well as basic knowledge when you graduate to high school. Thats what standardized tests should be used for, to make sure everyone knows enough to function in a democracy. The greeks thought demos was evil because at the time it was unreasonable to expect everyone in Greece to be educated, so people would act out of there own self interest and a "democracy" would crumble. If people aren't being educated and taught how to think, our democracy won't function, you can see this happening on college campuses, where people misunderstand the underlying reasons for higher education.

 

Just because it's being done doesn't make it right. Do you think the holocaust was right while it was being done?

--- Double Post Merged, May 7, 2017, Original Post Date: May 7, 2017 ---

The reasons that private schools are better are:
1) They can expel students that misbehave which attracts teachers who will work for less pay to actually enjoy their job.
2) The kind of students who attend come from families that value a quality education, and their work ethics with regard to school show that.
3) Class sizes are smaller
4) there are probably some others that I can't think of right now

 

Right, 100% agreed. This is why the government needs to establish minimum benchmarks that public schools are teaching. However, teachers are the people actually educating the students, and as such are the people who know their students best. The education system needs to give teachers more freedom how to teach what needs to be learned. Teachers shouldn't necessarily determine what needs to be learned (i.e. the state or federal government can say something like: "9th grade: must complete pre-algebra or higher. 10th grade: must complete algebra or higher, etc.") but how to teach their curriculum.

This isn't really happening in public schools right now, though--teacher's lesson plans are scripted and everything, which is detrimental to the overall success of students.

Also, even in private schools right now--if they want state or regional accreditation (most reputable private schools do), they have to teach (at a minimum) certain things. The government can easily say something like: "We're only allowing your voucher to go towards accredited schools," so there's some oversight as to where the money is going.