As I mentioned before, we spend a lot on our schools around here. This prior mention was in the context of my being appalled at the President wanting to kill the federal tax deductibility of school (and other local/state) taxes.
So how do the schoolchildren in Texas do, Mr. President? I gather that you think we spend too much on our schools here. Well, that depends upon what kind of future you want for the children and, by extension, the country and the world. My evidence for the effectiveness of our expensive schools? This year's national Intel Science Competition semi-finalists were announced today.
Of the 300 Intel semi-finalists nationwide, as Newsday put it, 83 LI teens make Intel science contest semifinals.
Your schooling may not have given you a good grasp of math, so let me help. That's just under 28% of all of the semi-finalists nationwide. It doesn't mean ~28% came from New York. This is just Long Island.
I don't have any children, and I'm not going to have any. Even so, I want to pay school taxes at the rate necessary to produce results like these. I want all children to have an education good enough to maximize their potential. I want this for them and for my country.
Education is the key to a better future. Why can't you see this? Are you that short-sighted? Is it greed that keeps you and your friends from spending on education?
One last note that I'm sure you'd find appalling: while I think we need to tighten up the standards for public school teachers, I don't think we pay them enough. The bad teachers should be weeded out--they're dangerous to our future. The good ones, on the other hand, are priceless. They should be paid so well that there will be real competition for these jobs and the best of the best will consider teaching as their career, it being one of the noblest of all professions.
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Public education has the potential to be a great equalizer--each generation gets a fair shot at achieving the American dream through study and hard work, regardless of whether or not their parents can pay for fancy schools. Thus, our Peerless Leader hates it, because when you're a talentless, brain-dead nimrod whose only claim to fame is family connection, the idea that some poor child in the ghetto could take your place through hard work frightens you so much you pee in your sleep.
Just my opinion.
Here. Here. I totally agree. I don't mind paying taxes if it means we get product out of it. As Sam Seaborn said, "Education should be ridiculously expensive and absolutely free to our citizens."
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