I agree with you about state committees. They can be pretty dumb. But they aren't all educators either.

What I was referring to was making sure that textbooks and curricula reflect the concensus of professional opinion in the fields being taught. Thus: English books with English grammar in them; life science books that include evolution; and so on. That's how to flatten the fanatics. If they can make the case that their opinion is, in fact, reflective of the majority opinion among professionals in the field, fine.

The creationists can't do that, so they try to discredit the scientific method of proponents of evolutionary theory. They try, in effect, to say, "They can't prove their position beyond the shadow of a doubt any more than we can, so we're equal and you have to give us equal time." This creates confusion among people without a firm grounding in scientific method.

You think schooling should be available the way health care is in this country? So parents must have jobs for children to receive educational benefits. Those uninsured children suffering from acute ignorance can visit the education emergency room, and their education costs for acute care will be absorbed through raising the price of education insurance for the insured. As soon as the acute crisis has been resolved, the child will be released and only treated during the next crisis. You must make sure to get your education from a prescribed list of educators. If your child needs special education, you must get a signed referral from your family practice educator, who will lose money if he or she makes the referral. (OK, so this happens already.) Educational benefits will be reviewed periodically by an accountant, who will decide how many children can realistically be taught math and science without cutting into the insurer's profit margin.

We don't have that many real choices. We have a large menu of options, but some are yucky, some are too expensive, some give us hives, and some are only served in the back room by invitation.

Every child deserves a chance, Tom. Where do the poor go, and who really pays for it? Do we institutionalize the class system, wherein the poor go to one set of schools and everyone else aspires to escape from that fate?

Re: choice and vouchers. First -- sorry, no taxes of mine go to teaching religion. Amen. ;)

Second -- just a couple of days ago, I was part of a conversation concerning cyberschools. The mother, who had homeschooled, went on about how great it is that they get a new computer and all the supplies that the public schools have to pay for, but her child still gets to use school facilities and participate in music programs, etc., because she's "enrolled" in the public schools. This doesn't take into account that the schools must alter their busy schedules to fit in a child who only appears for things she wishes to participate in. (In the meantime, the cyberschool has only sent them part of the computer, so they come to the library, but the school's login procedures have run afoul of the library system's firewall. This, however, is not perceived as a problem by the consumer.) I asked how the people using the cyberschool expect the public schools to pay a for-profit company for its product and still pay for building upkeep, facilities and staff for all the "extras" that her child enjoys. She admitted this was a problem, but asserted it wasn't her problem.

The question of transfer of funds away from maintenance of facilities and upgrades for equipment explains the fears of the public schools faced with vouchers. How can you compete with virtual schools and schools that don't have to meet the same facility standards when your money is being rerouted to those organizations?

Talk to the teachers in your district about the budget. Frankly. I wonder if you'll find out something you didn't know before.

Regards--
Mary Anne