Iraqi Statue honoring President Bush

Oh, and as for education, I don't care if its democrats or republicans, you are absolutely right about poverty and education, so lets actually fund it, thats the first step. Education should never be allowed to be underfunded by any means or reasons.

But I'll tell you what though, if we don't offer actual education rather than patriotic lies we will still suffer greatly.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

Fund it? OMG - not that lame argument again. That's the cry of the left. Why would you put the fox in charge of the hen house? Don't you get it? The Left has been in charge of education and education reform for 8o years. America already spends more on education than any country in the world and what do we have to show for it? My God man, just look at DC and the amount of funding it receives. And look at the excellence of American education in the 19th century when it received NO federal funding. Money is not and will never be the answer to all your problems. Instead we need to embrace true reform: school choice! Take the money out of the unions and politicians and bureaucrats hands and give to the parents.

Education works in Europe at least.

I mean, private education only exacerbates class lines. It removes equality of opportunity and makes social mobility more difficult. Besides that, it creates a quasi-feudal class of the rich.

The principle (although practical problems can always arise) should always be, that regardless of birth, you have the same shot at life as everyone else.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

Forgive me for sounding repetitive in my point, I referred to personal experience and seeing music and arts programs being cut and teacher's pay obviously sucking ass. These arts classes are known to help with the development of minds and should not be able to be sacrificed.

Then yes, whatever reform is needed, of course, but what are you saying is the reform needed, just private schools?

What exactly does that accomplish? Are people teaching different information or just doing it better, what?

I don't claim to know about what all schools are in need of besides a way to better suit individual needs, and access to good information. I just said they shouldn't be underfunded, which includes missused funds.

I don't want schools or any other programs wasting money. But I don't want education being only accessible to those who can afford it either.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

"Forgive me for sounding repetitive in my point, I referred to personal experience and seeing music and arts programs being cut and teacher's pay obviously sucking ass. These arts classes are known to help with the development of minds and should not be able to be sacrificed."

Yes that does occur - you know why? Because that school district spends 40-70% of its monies on its unionized bureaucracy. You know what the single purpose of a bureaucracy is? To maintain and expand the bureaucracy.

"Then yes, whatever reform is needed, of course, but what are you saying is the reform needed, just private schools? "

Of course not - in fact I never mentioned private schools. I said school choice. School choice takes the money allocated for each student out of the hands of the bureaucrats and gives it to the parents. The parents can then take that voucher and send their child to a public school that has a better rating, or a charter school or their local neighborhood public school or a religious school. Thus schools that arent performing properly will be financially punished and schools that are will be awarded. This creates an incentive to either maintain excellence or to reform in order to achieve excellence.

Sounds like it might be a start, but like I said, I'm little knowledged on that to say.

Ya, I didn't mean that taking wasted money was bad, but I've seen and heard of curriculum cuts and bad salaries, so money needed not being applied.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"