Re: creationism wars

["Daniel S. Price" <dprice@JEFFCO.K12.CO.US>]

> As for attacks on public schools,
>  there needs to be many MORE attacks on public education/educational
> establishment for their contributions to the failure of public education
> today (and yes I know there are public schools doing a great job many
> places, but for every good one, there's probably 2 bad ones.

In Colorado, attacks on public education are by-and-large led by those who
assume that students private (particularly religious) institutions will
perform better than they did in public schools, simply because they are no
longer in public schools.  In more concise terms, the belief is that private
education is inherently superior to public education.

If this is not what you believe, understand that the conservatives in
control of much of the Colorado government do believe this; the governor's
initiatives to replace "poor-performing" public schools with charter
schools, and his continuous push toward public funding of private (including
religious) education, are clear indicators.

Also of note is that private and religious schools are not subject to the
same evaluation criteria as public schools (teachers need have no
certification; students in non-public schools need not meet state
educational standards in their classes, nor are their schools' performance
measured by the test which is used to target "failing" public schools).  As
such, they can claim to be better than, yet need provide no proof that they
are even as good as, public schools.  I would submit, Mr. Mackey, that for
every private/religious school doing a great job, there are probably two bad
ones.