The rise of faith schools

How is that different from the case of people who have to pay taxes to support the public schools, while paying tuition costs to send their children to private secular schools?

I'm one of those parents. And sending children to a private school is not cheap. Nevertheless, I do not in any way resent paying taxes to support the public schools.There are two different issues here. I paid to send my children to a private school, because I want my children to be as well educated as possible. I support taxation for public education, because it is in my best interest and in my children's best interest that my neighbors' children be as well educated as possible.

No, it isn't.If it were my money, I would be paying a lot lower taxes than I currently pay. For example, I would not be paying for a stupid, ignorant and unjust war in Iraq.The taxes paid are the membership fee for being part of the society that collects the taxes. If we don't like it, we can consider joining a different society. I have to disagree with that. It's about incentives. If it costs more when you send children to public schools, then society will have created incentives that encourage illiteracy and ignorance, including the "ghettos of holy ignorance" that jar criticized.

Maybe I didn't understand your post. In Message 53 you wrote: You seem to be saying that it should cost you more if you do send your child to public school than if you don't. I was commenting on the implications.

Home schooling is usually a bad idea, so should not be encouraged. Private schools can be good and can be bad. The state won't discriminate between those possibilities in what it encourages, so such encouragement could lead to a deterioration in education of the citizenry. That's a misunderstanding of evolution. There is no standard of "better" that directs evolution. If incentives are given that encourage something that is worse, then something worse could well evolve.Look at the news reports on the TV networks. At one time they were run as benevolent dictatorships, paid for by the entertainment programming. Now they are faced with the competition of the market. They have become far worse than they were.

It sounds as if you are more concerned with pushing a political ideology, than with the best interests of the children and the community. Where did I ever advocate bureaucracy? There are some excellent public school systems, and there are some poor ones. Some of the problems of public schools derive from social conditions in the communities. Where private schools look better, it is often because they get to cherry-pick their students.

It is not their tax money.

You are right. Cronkite was never a rigidly dogmatic right wing extremist, which I take to be your meaning of "neutral."

Right wing ideologues, such as you, use the word "spin" for truths that they don't want to hear. Where did I ever promote single source education? Where did I ever object to choice and competition?And you have the gall to accuse me of spin! I'm calling you a liar, in spite of rule 10. I'll withdraw the accusation if you can demonstrate where I ever did what you state. There is no such thing as the public school system. There are many public school systems, some well run and some bureaucratically run. I'm all for reforming badly run school systems. You continue to misrepresent what I am saying. I am not against the cherry picking. What I oppose, is the use of tax dollars to underwrite cherry picking. And I oppose the dishonest use of the results from cherry-picking in arguments about what works and doesn't work in education.

No, he just uses writings and voice recordings way out of context. That's a form of misrepresentation.