1000 Words: Socialism spawned at Woodbrook Elementary

Every mother who ever clothed her kids in hand-me-downs is a socialist. Who knew?

Old wisdom: Sharing is caring.
New wisdom: Get your hand outta pocket!

Ken’s comment is pretty silly! The hand me downs are given to the next person (or sometimes loaned if they are, say, maternity clothes and the original owner wants them back.). In any case, the clothes aren’t just spread out in a big pile; they are in someone’s closet or drawer and are that person’s property (even if temporarily)

How is this sharing and no ownership of school supplies helping in real life? That won’t be the case in middle school, high school, or college. And people won’t be sharing all their possessions as adults either unless they are in committed relationships or in a commune. So what is this teaching them?

Wonder how they would feel sharing grades? Just give everyone a C no matter how much or how little work they do!

Sharing is wonderful when people choose to share. Forced sharing is socialism.

Gail, you’re right. Since hand-me-downs are freely given, that wasn’t a good parallel. My point is that mothers freely share their kids’ clothes, so what’s wrong with asking them to share school supplies? Never mind, I know: they’re not being asked, they’re being “forced.” Honest to goodness, what a level of maturity: “You can’t make me!” That’s what you want to model for kids? I respect opposition to socialism but that’s childish and churlish.

How is having to share going to help them later since at higher school levels and as adults they won’t share “all their possessions” ? (Never mind that it saves their parents money now). First of all, school supplies aren’t all their possessions. Secondly, it might encourage them to voluntarily share later in life, turning them into useful idiot Democrats, also known as good neighbors and citizens who aren’t resentfully focused on keeping for themselves what they, never mind all that God has given them, have a “right” to because they’ve supposedly earned it all by themselves. In some situations they might even voluntarily become like the first Christians, whom Acts 4:32 says “were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”

Look up socialism and you’ll find definitions like “collective or governmental ownership of and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. Also, “a system of society or group living in which there is no private property. It’s a little more comprehensive than kids’ school supplies.

The school’s oversight body, the Albemarle County School Board, is democratically elected. Anyone who actually feels that having to share a few lousy supplies in one setting makes them unfree can go exercise their freedom and vote.

A look at Woodbrook’s test scores, demographic breakdown, performance of white students versus elk/Hispanic and suspension rates will give some insight into the rationale of this redistribution scheme. It is pretty clear what they are doing; in the great former president’s vision, those who have WILL give to those the gubmint thinks do not have enough.

How exactly are you giving if you save $10-20? Is a money-saving idea really unacceptable just because it helps the poor? Is it possible your heart is three sizes too small?

Well, I printed out the supply list for Crozet Elementary School First Grade from their website (same school district). We have kids in school, so I am familiar with it from a familial perspective. I tallied the supplies and I could get them for just under $32 at Walmart.

Your first mistake is to take a government missive (i.e., the Woodbrook letter) and believe the figures they throw out to you. I don’t, for I find that incredibly naive.

You believe the government schools are these benevolent, all-for-the-kids entities whose main job is to educate. I don’t. I must have read too much Orwell, Huxley and Vonnegut. So, as my taxes go up and up and up, I look with a very suspicious eye at these schemes and, frankly, I find it abhorrent that a government is telling its citizens to write them a check so THEY can buy them things. Isn’t that what taxes are for?

Look up Woodbrook’s testing disparities and achievement disparities. Look up the issue of bullying in schools and how schools ignore it routinely. Look up how public schools regularly fudge or outright lie on test scores (Philly, Atlanta), move the goalposts on graduation requirements (Baltimore), protect lousy teachers (ever wonder why every teacher gets the same raise in most districts, why the embrace tenure, why each teacher gets a COLA adjustment in many states, regardless of performance?). And all this occurs while colleges and employers complain that Johnny can’t read, write or add sufficiently to hit the ground running. But the schools keep on plugging along with little accountability.

I think the small heart belongs to the NEA, AFT, and all those who bow at the altar of government unions. I am due for an annual physical in October; I will let you know about my heart.

Schools have problems because families have problems, because society has problems. They move the goalposts because they’re under pressure to perform, and while ideally they shouldn’t reward poor teachers with raises, the teachers are paid poorly in the first place, which you don’t care about. Is there rot in the schools? Sure. There is rot in pretty much any human institution. When you guys start caring even a little about the rot in the White House and this administration I might bgin to believe it’s rot you actually care about. You’re phonies.

The ridiculous article of faith on display in the post above is that any person anywhere who works for the government is automatically untrustworthy. That isn’t thinking, it’s hating and then fantasizing. I don’t believe “government schools” are benevolent, no. I just believe most people go into education because they care about kids. In the same way, I believe, never having seen a smidgen of evidence otherwise, that most people who work for the government are decent. I use my heart and mind to reach these conclusions.

What you guys do is slap on a scary label like “Deep State” or a creepy one like “bow at the altar” and then believe your own spiteful fantasies. Do you bow at the altar of freedom (as you conceive it), or do you just believe in it? Do you sometimes just go to work and come up with what you think of as a practical and money-saving solution that has nothing to do with ideology? For your sake, I hope so. You don’t sound like a stupid guy, but your rhetoric is nothing less.

I think you could have shortened your post to…
When you guys care about the rot in the White House I might think you really care.

After all, that is your major gripe…and the launching point for all other gripes. All things point back to Trump. Thanks for clarifying.

Now, as for the schools, the schools have been hijacked by the NEA and AFT. They are happy to get their federal money and then bend over for common core and other silly fed mandates. The average rank-and-file public school educator cannot think that critically to know the implications of telling 6-year-olds “we share everything” coming from a government organ. They are indoctrinated; just look at the evolution of the WV teacher’s strike of February 2016. They speak group speak.

If you have been intimately involved in education, you know that–when the rubber meets the road–public schools use their power of government on parents. Do you think police officers with guns should be in schools? Do you ever look at school handbooks and the CYA language they use? Do you know that schools pay solicitors to represent them, using their budgets to cover their legal liabilities? Once you send your kid to that smiley school, you have surrendered a LOT of power.

You say “ideally should not reward poor teachers with raises…” Really, that is an “ideal,” to weed out the poor performers and only reward solid performers? I thought that is how the world worked.

I think the beef folks have with public education is that, in its end, they are government employees and, if they do not get what they want from a student or parent, they will use the force of government to get what they want. They have lost a lot of trust in overarching government.

Thank you for the psychoanalysis.

Trump is a glaring example, not the point. The inconsistency (hypocrisy) and dishonesty on both the Left and the Right are the point.

I don’t like encouraging poor teachers to stay in the profession. I do believe in paying everyone a decent wage for their work, and in funding schools well enough that teachers don’t have to spend their meager salaries on supplies.

The average rank-and-file public school educator cannot think that critically to know the implications of telling 6-year-olds “we share everything” coming from a government organ. They are indoctrinated

What better example of indoctrination could there be than to believe a six-year-old even thinks about the government (whatever the word means to a six-year-old) when taught to share at school. And don’t populist parents still teach their kids to share at home anyhow? What’s the problem with doing it at school then? And practically speaking, what problems does it cause at school? Talk about kneejerk reacting instead of thinking . . .

“Public schools use their power of government on parents” – In other words, schools, being institutions, have power (by definition and by necessity), and because they are funded and overseen by the government, that power is in that sense government power. Let’s think about this in regards to Woodbrook’s nefarious new strategy for making kids into Marxists (or maybe it’s just to teach them to get along better). This policy isn’t being dictated by the feds or the state, so what in the world difference does it make that the school is technically an arm of the government? Again, all you have to do to scare a populist is say “government.” I guess the “government schools” really are failing at teaching the skills of critical, dispassionate thinking.

Great last line regarding skills of critical and dispassionate thinking. What I see in schools is too much focus on passionate social engineering. However, K12 schools are only the tip of the iceberg compared to schools of higher education. Here’s a outside the box suggestion in today’s world. Why don’t we instill in our children a unique sense of self where they are provided educational tools by whatever means and are expected to hold on to them and account for them? While the Woodbrook experiment is a small example, when there is a community pool of resources with no accountability for its use and maintenance exactly what do you think is going to happen. Say a kid loses a pencil a day. When someone asks why they don’t take care of them, the reply is “no big deal, I’ll just get a new one tomorrow.” That attitude should be discouraged, not encouraged. We need to instill a sense of ownership and responsibility, not the concept that somehow there will always be a safety net under us.

That’s an interesting take on the situation, Al, but even little kids face a variety of daily situations at school in which they’re asked to learn to take responsibility. School supplies are hardly their only chance. And who is to say Woodbrook teachers won’t encourage kids to track of the supplies they’re using, especially since they, like parents at home, have only a limited supply of resources? Supplies “lost” at school will be found at school, where they’re needed. Your scenario is unlikely.