Welcome to Berkeley Square, Cyrano!

Leading off with Thomas Sowell is sure to ingratiate yourself to blog management. I only hope some lefties show up to tell you how full of it you are. Welcome aboard.

Lefties don't come here, JK. They're as afraid of truth and reason as vampires are of sunlight. (No, this analogy is NOT accidental.)

You are making fun of jk's, the TV snob who hates everything, suddenly discovering "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." That's it -- isn't it?

Well, not exactly. I'm just looking for an explanation for hundreds of site visitors per day to the blog, yet comments are less than 1 percent. The best excuses I've come up with are the lefties either aren't reading or can't refute what we're saying.

But wait, I am here and I write comments! So, now let's not claim that fear of the truth is an entirely liberal phenomenon. One must only listen to the legions of conservatives of religious bent who wish to have creation taught in our schools alongside evolution and that each should only be labeled a theory to disprove that allegation.

Excuse me, but what the heck is Thomas Sowell talking about? The teacher's union is an evil cabal intent on seperating kids from their parents to brainwash them to lead a new social order? OK, I am paraphrasing wildly, but that seems to be the gist of his rant about the school system. If you don't know what your kids are learning in school, whose fault is that? I think more kids are seperated from their parents by their parents who both work 60+ hours a week whether they are poor and have to to survive, or upper middle class and driven by their career or need for the best things in life. Schools would kill for parents who volunteered to help out in the classroom or who just took an active interest in their child's education. Just like not voting, if you drop your kid off at school and have them picked up by the daycare center/nanny and arrive home only in time to kiss them good night then you have implicitly handed over your rights.

I don't understand, Dogood. Are you a leftie or a moderate? Or a moderate lefty? Or both a leftie and a moderate at the same time? (Whatever the answer, welcome! We're happy to have your comments. Don't you have some lefty friends you can talk into reading and commenting on our "supply-sider" diatribes?)

I know, I know, these are only labels and they can't possibly capture the nuances and intricacies of political thought in the real world. Let me try to be less ambiguous.

Do you believe that the government knows what's best for you all the time, or only some of the time?

Regarding your comments about the subject of this blog, would you feel the same way about what the public schools taught your kids if it included creation theory instead of evolution theory? How much volunteer time at your kid's school do you think is a fair demand on your time in order to keep them from teaching your kids ridiculous crackpot ideologies?

I find the most compelling part of the Sowell article to be his articulation of the reason why some policy makers pathologically make decisions that they privately admit are "terrible." They do it to "enhance their status with their peers." Never mind that something doesn't work. "Some things are believed, without evidence, because such beliefs are a mark of belonging." This sounds exactly like the justification for teaching "creation theory."

Thanks for the welcome. I am not really sure how to label myself. I definitely have some liberal leanings, but disagree just as strongly with Michael Moore as with Rush Limbaugh - that really narrows it down doesn't it!

I agree with you and Thomas Sowell on the dangers of conformity. Religion has a very strong brand of conformity in beliefs, the peer beliefs Mr. Sowell reports on do sound similar.

How much time should be used for your child's education? At least enough to know if they are being taught crackpot ideologies. This actually doesn't have to require a minute of actual class room time if you are aware through review of homework, etc. what your child is learning. I have become a strong proponent of charter schools, and the requirement there is 20 hours per year per student. The real appeal of the charter school though is the "core knowledge" concept, which is really just a newfangled name for the requirement of basic skills in each grade level, just like that my parents remember from the 1930's and 40's. Our principal told a story about touring a local elementary school where the students learned about the rain forest in every grade. Nothing wrong with a little knowledge about the rain forests of course, but obviously if they are covering one subject over and over they are giving short change to other subjects. Even if you intended to be a research scientist and devote your life to saving the rain forests you would probably need some basic math and language skills.

So here is where Mr. Sowell and I probably agree, teachers should be required to teach certain skills and a curriculum should be laid out so that each grade can build upon those previous. Now, I believe that teachers should have the autonomy to use different teaching methods and vary these methods pupil by pupil if they wish, so long as the desired results are achieved. I see no good argument against standardized tests to verify this either, only in school will you be given special treatment based on your ethnicity or background, in the real world good work is good work. (With the possible exception of the NY times)

On the final issue of whether the government always or only sometimes knows best for me, I think there are some things that the government does very well and some things for which we need national or state standards, regulations and enforcement. Certainly there is inefficiency and waste, but private industry has plenty of that as well. Conservatives often talk about running the government like a corporation, yet I see a lot of poorly run corporations.

Silence,

I agree with Sowell and would posit the example of condom distribution. The educational community has decided that they should distribute prophylactics and information on safe sex. And this decision is an example of an educational fad, like Sowell describes.

Reasonable people can disagree whether it is a good idea or not but it is unreasonable for a parent who chooses to teach his child abstinence to have the State undermine his authority.

Even when parents are involved, there is little they can do against the tide of this "peer pressure."

JK,

How do you define parental authority? Is this an absolute control over everything their child sees or hears, and a complete control over every decision their child makes? Outside influences are a part of life in an open democracy. The job of parents should be to instill their values into their children so that they may stand up to peer pressure. I feel very sad for parents who feel they can have control over their children only by sheltering them from any and all things and ideas with which they do not agree. I am even more saddened by parents who give up against the tide of peer pressure, not unlike the landlady in the passage from "Duel"

Standing up to peer pressure is one thing. It is another when it is administered by the state. Teach Junior to ignore the suggestions of "Joey the Roach" by all means, but I would object if they taught cigarette rolling in gym class.

I object when the actual course curricula contravenes parental teaching. I know a few people who have removed their children from public school because of this.

I wouldn't object to a school nurse providing information but having an authority figure assume that all the children will be sexually active undermines a parent who is teaching abstinence.

I agree with Dogood that censorship is not a defensible parental right. But that understandable sentiment is merely a defensive reaction to the effect of censorship through advocacy in the public schools. By advocating condom use, they are censoring the idea of abstinence. by advocating cigarette rolling in gym class they would be censoring the idea of moderate or no tobacco use. By advocating "deep communal understanding" of the rain forests in every grade, they are censoring the idea of industrialized civilization that makes the public schools possible in the first place.

Teach everything, by all means, but every alternative must be presented as well. Most importantly, teach how to evaluate these issues using thought and reason applied to objective evidence.

It seems that the issue is a question of degree. How exactly are condoms distributed in school? If the kids enter their health science class and are handed a box of condoms and a copy of the Kama Sutra then yes, you could argure that the state is promoting safe sex over abstinence. If however the ciriculum included information on the existence of condoms, their correct use and their availability, either at the local drugstore or even the public school office, then that is a very different animal. The question then becomes one of whether the assumtion is that all students are having sex or are any students having sex. It seems a pretty safe assumption to me that some are having sex, and thus if there is no mention of condoms then these students are not getting valuable information. Even kids who wish to remain abstinent may eventually marry and wish to avail themselves of condoms at that time so that knowledge of their use and their effectiveness in prevention of disease and pregnancy is not worthless.

The bigger question however may be does knowledge of the existence of condoms undermine the teaching of abstinence? Abstinence is the teaching that sex is to be reserved for married couples because of moral and/or religous beliefs and really has nothing to do with the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. In other words those parents are teaching their children to reserve sex until after marriage because of their belief in the sanctity of the act, not just as a way to avoid an unwanted pregnancy or STD. Thus allowing such a child access to a condom should have no effect on their moral beliefs.