"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> Background:
> http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/14/florida.vouchers/
> http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/14/florida.school.voucher.ap/
> http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/20/school.vouchers.02/
>
> So, in both Florida and Ohio the voucher programs are down.
> But the reasons are quite different. In Cleveland they are saying
> its a violation of the separation between Church and State, while
> in Florida they are saying that it violates the state's constitutional
> requirement to provide a "high-quality system of free public schools".
>
> However, the voucher supporters seem to be vowing to pursue this.
> The articles seem to suggest that given the variability of the
> state constitutions, unless the Supreme Court says "no vouchers", we
> are likely to get some split between voucher and non-voucher states.
>
> Given the recent newspaper article, where I think it was claimed
> >60% (!) of Americans supported teaching both the theories of
> creationism and evolution side-by-side, of course it doesn't take
> much to realize that if parents move their children en-mass to
> "religious" education, we are going to end up with a larger fraction
> of the population who cannot think "rationally". [Unless you
> believe in the pipe-dream that a "religious" education will
> promote rational thought and downplay "miracles".]
Just because they think both theories should be taught doesn't mean that
they think both theories should be given any credence. My own parents
put me through sunday school for some 10 years, but probably would have
been worried about my intelligence if I actually took the genesis myth
seriously.
>
> Now, fairly often the finger-of-blame for the poor-quality public
> education goes to the teacher's unions. How do extropians reconcile
> the freedom people should have to organize for collective barginning
> with the result (which seems to be the freedom to teach poorly)?
Its the right to be stupid. As stupid as ya' wanna be....
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