Democracies and Mutual Respect

Okie wrote further on the dismantling of the federal Dept of Educ:
We could save billions and give the schools back to the people in their local communities to run, manage, and pay for

This is conservative doctrine as it was defined in my high school government class and my political science classes as an undergraduate. At that time, conservatism was defined as the doctrine that the govt that is closest to you protects you the best (a variant on states' rights), while liberalism was defined as a doctrine promoting more distant govt for the purpose of protecting the citizenry.

Which leads me to ask whether you would allow liberalism or conservatism to be defined in schools. It seems like defining either doctrine would come under your stricture about taking sides.

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Foxfyre wrote:
Opposed to teaching intelligent design in a comparative religion or theology class? It would be absurd not to.

That statement does not set well with the teaching I received in Catholic schools from grade school through college.

I remember in sixth grade, Grover Cooley asked Sr. Thomasine whether we could believe that man evolved from apes and her answer was, "As long as you believe that at some point, God infused a soul in the smartest ape and called him Adam and a soul in the most beautiful ape and called her Eve."

Consider that in the late 19th C., a Harvard prof said that bumble bees should not be able to fly. Well, I never really thought that men literally descended from apes, but rather that the two species -- obviously intertwined : consider the evidence of DNA -- somehow share at least a common ancestor.

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Okie wrote:

The current form of the Department of Education was started in 1979 by Jimmy Carter. Before that, there was no full fledged Department of Education in its current independant form and virtually everything in regard to schools was run and funded by the local districts and the states.

In response to parados' statement that the DEO in some form has existed for more than a century.

Prior to the Carter's (? or was it Reagan's?) change, it was the Dept of Health, Education and Welfare.

Prior to that, there were fewer school children, fewer poor people and health was less complicated.

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According to the link given above, the original Department of Education was created in 1867.

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Has anyone stopped to consider that the person who today is intellectually lazy and disrespectful probably had parents of the same stripe who learned everything they know at their grandparents' knees?

So, Okie, the community of caring -- which was only introduced in one program that didn't catch on (more on that to follow) -- seems to have been a co-ordinated effort to promote self respect among the kids in order to have a more orderly, happier, cleaner school.

I think it is something that should have been tried for two years because the "sweathogs" are bred by sweathogs.

Now, I proposed that we return to using real debate -- Resolved: Global Warming poses a threat to the environment (ok, too broad) or Resolved: Electronic Voting Machines stand to disenfranchise minorities -- the way we once did.

When Lincoln and Douglas debated, farmers stood outdoors for up to four hours, listening to these two debate.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

According to the link given above, the original Department of Education was created in 1867.

You're wasting your time, Walter. Such a statement is not consonant with the political point of view espoused by Okie and Fox, so i guarantee you will be ignored.

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plainoldme wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Opposed to teaching intelligent design in a comparative religion or theology class? It would be absurd not to.

That statement does not set well with the teaching I received in Catholic schools from grade school through college.

I remember in sixth grade, Grover Cooley asked Sr. Thomasine whether we could believe that man evolved from apes and her answer was, "As long as you believe that at some point, God infused a soul in the smartest ape and called him Adam and a soul in the most beautiful ape and called her Eve."

Consider that in the late 19th C., a Harvard prof said that bumble bees should not be able to fly. Well, I never really thought that men literally descended from apes, but rather that the two species -- obviously intertwined : consider the evidence of DNA -- somehow share at least a common ancestor.

Just out of curiosity, how is teaching intelligent design in a comparative religion class or theology class opposed to anything that is taught in Catholicism?

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

According to the link given above, the original Department of Education was created in 1867.

No Walter. There was an office of education designated in 1867 with a very narrowly defined purpose, but there was no governmental "Department of Education" until the 1970's. Designating it as such in that article is, I believe, incorrect and only done to save verbage. A Department in government suggests an entire bureaucracy devoted to development and administration of large scale projects. There was nothing like that in education (or in much of anything else) in 1867.

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Foxfyre wrote:

No Walter. There was an office of education designated in 1867 with a very narrowly defined purpose, but there was no governmental "Department of Education" until the 1970's.

Please don't tell that me but the

U.S. Department of Education

Phone: 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327)
Spanish speakers available (se habla español)
TTY: 1-800-437-0833
Fax: (202) 401-0689
Mail: U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

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Walter linked the Department of Education. The paragraph to which he refers at the Department of Education web site reads, in full:

The Department of Education wrote:

The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency's name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.

There is good reason to believe what is written about the Department of Education at the Department of Education web site. There is little reason to believe Fox, who constantly claims to be well-informed, and as constantly demonstrates that this is not so.

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Setanta wrote:

Walter linked the Department of Education. The paragraph to which he refers at the Department of Education web site reads, in full:

The Department of Education wrote:
The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency's name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.

There is good reason to believe what is written about the Department of Education at the Department of Education web site. There is little reason to believe Fox, who constantly claims to be well-informed, and as constantly demonstrates that this is not so.

And it looks in original like this:

Source (again)

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
No Walter. There was an office of education designated in 1867 with a very narrowly defined purpose, but there was no governmental "Department of Education" until the 1970's.

Please don't tell that me but the

U.S. Department of Education

Phone: 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327)
Spanish speakers available (se habla español)
TTY: 1-800-437-0833
Fax: (202) 401-0689
Mail: U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

And your point is what? There is definitely a cabinet level Department of Education now and it employes an enormous number of people and administers a huge budget. Nobody has suggested that there isn't. There was nothing comparable in 1867. I don't believe the office of education was even called the Dept. of Education in 1867, but whoever wrote that article for the government website used that term to begin the history of education in government to bring it forward to present times.

It is not much different from the course I teach entitled "The History of Development of Christian Thought". The timeframe covered in the course goes back many millenia prior to Christianity and the students study for most of a year before we even encounter the word "Christian".

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And, no doubt, it begins long, long before thought actually appeared among christians . . .

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Foxfyre wrote:

And your point is what?

My point is that the official website says "yes" and you say "no".

And I quoted this governmental site as source.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
And your point is what?

My point is that the official website says "yes" and you say "no".

And I quoted this governmental site as source.

Well you can accept my explanation or not. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. World peace does not hinge on this issue however and I don't want to spend the afternoon researching it.

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Translation, Fox knows nothing for certain on the subject, and although willing to make unfounded statements from authority on the subject, will respond to any criticism by refusing to learn anything about it and by claiming it is unimportant.

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No, not world peace. But calling an officially gov. site publishing lies ...

I've always looked at those with some suspect.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

No, not world peace. But calling an officially gov. site publishing lies ...

I've always looked at those with some suspect.

No, Walter. I did not say that the government site lied either. Please read more carefully.

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plainoldme said...

Quote:

I have written many, many times that I think morality is bunk. Morality is the acceptance of handed down set of precepts that remain untested by philosophy and personal experience. Once a person lives and experiences and thinks then they may take the inherited morality and use it to develop an ethical system. Only ethical systems matter.

My morality tells me not to have sex with a 12 year old girl,my morality tells me that murder is wrong,my morality tells me not to rob a bank.

So,using your logic,if I have sex with a 12 year old girl,and decide I like it,then its ok,since I have tested my morals?

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The following link explains that a previously named Department of Education, not the same cabinet level department that we have today that was established in 1979, was established in 1867, only to be demoted to an "office of education" shortly thereafter in 1868. Since that time, the office of education or whatever it was called from time to time was handled within other agencies, and federal involvement in education was very limited compared to today, and did mainly perform the functions as Foxfyre explained.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education

Also, this link:
http://www.hhs.gov/about/hhshist.html

And again this link on the history of the Department of Education:
http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/child/briefs/Brief%20History%20of%20US%20DOE.pdf

So, it is a fact that the current full fledged cabinet level Department of Education was formed in 1979, and federal involvement and mandates have taken a marked upturn since that time. This fact is not arguable.

Federal budgetary expenditures on the Department of Education now exceeds 50 billion, many times what it was in 1979. I have been unable to find the figures. Strange how the government websites don't bend over backwards to post the graphs of annual expenditures. I did find a link that stated that overall expenditures per student have increased 4 fold, ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION, from 1950 to present day.

Having a discussion about the wisdom of funding and managing education on the local level vs. injecting federal funding and federal mandates is a very legitimate debate with arguments on both sides. To call someone a rightwingnut merely because one is in favor of 100% local funding and control of education is uncalled for. Education was very successful when it was totally controlled and funded locally. In fact, as I said before, it developed the most technologically advanced country in the world.

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