McCain chides Obama over school vouchers

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

Orlando, Fla. (AP) -- John McCain, the father of private school students, criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama on Friday for choosing private over public school for his kids.

The difference, according to the Arizona Republican, is that he — not Obama — favors vouchers that give parents more school choices.

... During a feisty question-and-answer sesssion, McCain drew gasps and grumbles from the mostly black crowd when he praised former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The one-time GOP presidential candidate was widely scorned by many civil rights leaders for permitting the city's police department to use overly aggressive tactics against black criminal suspects.

... McCain repeated his claim that "the best equal opportunity employer in the country is the U.S. military." However, an Associated Press study found that while blacks make up about 17 percent of the total force, just 9 percent of officers are black.

... McCain also apologized anew for voting against the enactment of a federal holiday honoring the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1983. "I was wrong," he said to applause.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/01/politics/p123907D07.DTL

[mcctatas]

1. In other news....

McCain chides cloud for blocking the sun. McGrumpy should go Cheney himself;)

[JDPriestly]

2. Why does Obama send his children to private school?

Any excuses out there.

[chimpymustgo]

3. He be for vouchers in the morning.

[Danieljay]

18. ? huh?

[stlsaxman]

21. "He be"???

i hope to god that was a fucking typo.

:mad:

[iamthebandfanman]

4. whats that have to do with vouchers?

obviously obama can afford to send his children to private school

are you suggesting we pay for his children to go there?

vouchers are a stupid idea, and take away money from public schools that desperately need it.



sorry, but i dont think tax payers should pay for private schools. especially religious ones.

[Trajan]

6. Alright .... THATs why I come to DU ....

Support of the Democratic Party Candidate ....

Any excuses why you couldn't yourself be creative in answering your own question ?

I could think of at least three myself ....

Im going to guess you are not an Obama supporter .....

[Runcible Spoon]

13. sorry, you can think vouchers are a fucking horrible idea and still support Obama.

If only people who supported 100% of Obama's platform were on DU, it would be about 50 people.

Supporting the candidate means constructive criticism as well.

[Danieljay]

20. no you can't, its not the progressive way. We need to destroy one another while the other party

unites for victory.

:sarcasm:

[verges]

8. My guess would be security.

He's a public figure. Overall, it would be cheaper (I'm guessing) to send kids to private rather that having to put in place all the security (above and beyond) that would need to be put in place to protect the kids.

[rpannier]

9. Because he chooses to

Why do my kids go to public school?
Because I choose to. I can afford private but choose not to.

This is an idiotic talking point being used by a man who is running one of the worst presidential campaigns ever

[Rebellious Republican]

11. Because he can, lots of people do, so what! The problem I have

with the vouchers is that public schools are required by law to take the FCAT to compete for funding. Yet know one wants to require private schools to take an FCAT that would receive those same public dollars from the failing public schools. The purpose of the FCAT (supposedly)is to provide some sort of checks and balances to insure that our children are getting the best education possible with our tax payer dollars. Why are they not holding private schools to the same standards for the same tax dollars, I say no FCAT for private schools then no tax dollars.

Some excellent reading can found here... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Neil+Bush+FCAT+materials+company&btnG=Google+Search

And here...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Private+schools+financial+abuse+vouchers+in+florida&btnG=Search

Go ahead an educate yourself a little reading goes a long way!

[Patchuli]

15. It is a better education!!

That is a sad thing to say, but true. I went to school for my first four years of elementary in a private Catholic school. My father later then sent my sister and I to public school. There is an incredible difference in the curriculum, for one. It is up to government to improve public schools and by not constantly cutting teachers, staff and budget would be a great start! By not forcing teachers to teach to testing mandated by government would be another huge plus. I work in public education and know first hand how much we get chinzted by the government.

Obama wants his kids to have a better education. If you can afford the tuition, why not?! That doesn't mean that Obama will not work to improve the public education system and I'm willing to bet that Old Grumpy McBlame sent his kids to private schools as well.

Another thing for the old fart to bitch about...

[JDPriestly]

23. That's why I asked. If you really know education from the inside,

you know that the best prepared teachers are found in the public schools.

My children went to the infamous L.A. public schools and did much better than their friends whose parents sacrificed to send them to private schools. My mother went to a one-room school and is at a very advanced age still a brilliant woman.

It's not the school you send your kids to, it's how you raise them at home that matters.

People send their kids to private schools because they are snobs. Work to make public schools better. Work to make sure your children are doing more than required at school, and they will learn.

We made sure that our children had an educational outing each weekend -- a hike in the woods or a trip to the museum. We always did something together that gave each of us the opportunity to learn something.

Private schools are a waste of your money. You are better off spending the money on tutors if your child is having trouble in school.

[bicentennial_baby]

24. Excuse me?

"People send their kids to private schools because they are snobs"

:wtf:

I went to private schools from age 7-18. Why? Because public school and I didn't mesh well. I asked to go, and they let me. Alternative private elementary and middle school, and then private boarding/prep school for HS. My brother tried private school, he didn't like it, so he went to public school. My parents are hardly snobs. But thanks for being so judgmental.

Also, I now attend a public University.

[JDPriestly]

27. You and public school did not mesh well. Precisely.

My children, and most poor kids, go to public school whether they mesh well or not. One of the good things about public school is that the kids learn to mesh with people who may be very different from them. That is precisely what I like about public school.

You don't get to live your life in a world in which you mesh well. That's not what it is about. It's best to start early to deal with the fact that life is not about meshing well. It is about dealing with the reality in which you find yourself.

[bicentennial_baby]

28. Um, no...

By "mesh well", I mean that I was "different", and my 2nd grade teacher would openly mock me in front of the other students. It was highly traumatic at the time. My parents were not, and are not, wealthy. They busted their asses to be able to provide me with an education that allowed me to excel, which I did.

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, frankly. But, it is obvious that you have some issues. Public school isn't for everyone. Get over it.

[JDPriestly]

31. Are you still "different"?

If you are, join the crowd.

I have a daughter with an extremely high IQ. She used to play for hours with a girlfriend of hers in our neighborhood who had fetal alcohol syndrome. My daughter had an extremely long concentration span. Her girlfriend would pick up one toy after the other playing with each a very short time, get frustrated and then go on to the next. I watched my daughter patiently letting the other girl have her way, playing along with a gentle satisfaction and strange pleasure in watching her girlfriend enjoy herself her way with the toys.

I could not figure out what was going on in my daughter's mind. How could a child be so patient? Why didn't she ever lose it?

So, one day I asked her, "So, how do you like playing with S?" She answered, "Well, she's different." And then she looked up at me and said, very slowly and seriously. "But, so am I."

That's what my kids learned in public school along with what Korean kids eat, a little Spanish, why Jewish kids celebrate Passover (the favorite holiday of one of my children -- did not raise them as Jewish) and that color and ethnic background and language do not separate us. Prejudice, impatience and hatred do. We are all "different." That is what public schools are about -- everybody being different.

Your teacher should have been reprimanded if not fired. She did not get it.

[Patchuli]

30. Some of them are

and some are in private schools. Once again, it does depend on the desire of the student to learn. And of course, any child who has a good home education and parents who care, will do well. I'm speaking from experience when I say my education was advanced in the private school. My mother sent us to Catholic school because she was a devout Catholic, not a snob.

I will have to agree to disagree with you. There are benefits to a private education but it's not for everyone.

[JDPriestly]

26. GWB and his brothers and sisters went to private schools -- the so-called best private schools

'Nuff said. It's a waste of money.

[Patchuli]

29. It's a waste of money

if the student won't bother to learn. Private school can be an excellent education for a mind who wants to learn. * is an incurious person who doesn't/didn't want to learn. Big difference!

[Danieljay]

19. If I have the money, I'm damn sure sending my kids to private school. n/t

[JDPriestly]

25. Don't be fooled by the private school bit.

My kids went to public schools. They had many opportunities that the private schools kids in L.A. do not have.

If you keep your kids close at home and you supplement the education they get at public schools, they will be much better off in the public schools than in the private schools. Mine were. Save the money for college. Don't spend it on the early grades.

Read to children every day from the time they are very small until they want to read for themselves or they want to read to you. That is the secret. Take your children on educational outings. Always attend school events. Make sure your children have a social peer group that is healthy and that accepts them. (We took ours to a Unitarian church where the youth group was great.) Private schools are a money-making gimmick. I have had several friends who taught in private schools (even very well known ones). They were not nearly as well qualified or capable, I am sorry to say, as my friends who teach or have taught in the public schools.

On the whole, private school teachers are not as well paid as public school teachers. They are not as professional. They often look upon private school teaching as a kind of temporary or second-rate job. They don't look forward to pensions. They are not required to take the constant accreditation courses. Public schools are much better. They need more support and funding. Wealthy people object to them because they don't want to share -- because they are selfish.

Does Obama support public schools for other people's kids, for poor people's kids, but not for his own?

My children have done extremely well, gone to the best graduate and undergraduate universities after going to public schools in L.A. They were able to obtain backgrounds in science that they could never have obtained in a private school. They had the best qualified teachers in those fields. One of my daughters competed with a group of private school kids in her study group in an advanced chemistry class and did much better than the private school, rich kids. That is just one example of how much better prepared public school students can be than private school students.

The reason that private school students do better on objective tests such as SATs is that their parents, on the average, are better educated and perhaps, if you believe in intelligence measures, more intelligent. It isn't the schools. It's the backgrounds, the support at home that makes the difference. Don't waste your money on private schools. Spend what you have on enrichment and on university for your kids and send them to public schools.

[Danieljay]

32. I get you point, but I think you are generalizing a bit. I'll make sure I pick right one, thanks.

[Trajan]

5. All that chiding ....

I would rather be chowdering ....

[bluestateguy]

7. My taxes are not going for some rich kid to go to Exeter Academy

Or some white kid in Mississippi with racist parents who send their child to an all-white academy, or some kid with parents who hate Jews, Muslims and gays and send their child to a fundamentalist school with dubious academic credentials.

I'm all for private schools. If it's that important to parents then I'm sure they will find some way to pay for it.

[ejbr]

10. McLame & Co.

don't care about diminishing the quality of public schools for those families that want to live together and enjoy each other's company. So, he would force them to send their kids to Allah* knows where in order to enjoy a quality education, yet losing those precious years together of maturation, rites of passage and intimacy.

*No, I am not muslim, but some of these so-called christians are beginning to work my last fuckin' nerve. So, if one of those trolls are reading this, I hope I can return the favor.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Difference is that Obama used his own money. Not public funding to send his kids to private school.

[janetblond]

14. OMG! McCain just on CNN ...

"Give incentives to teachers who graduate in the top 25%".
ROFLMAO!!
McCain graduated in the BOTTOM ONE PERCENT at Annapolis.
OMG!! How funny!
He's got some nerve!

[Patchuli]

16. Republican = Hypocrisy

No kidding, huh? Mr. 894 out of 895 students....

[knitter4democracy]

17. Many of my education colleagues were in the top 25%.

Our two valedictorians were pre-med and business, I was salutatorian in English (Secondary Ed track), and the gal right after me was also an English, Secondary Ed track major. Many in education are in the top 25% and want to be teachers. He's full of it.

[Imagevision]

22. What;s it have to do with foreclosures, Iraq/Afgan the economy???

[rocktivity]

33. Why stop at SCHOOL vouchers, John?

Why not housing vouchers so these poor people can live in Beverly Hills, or clothing vouchers to they can shop at Saks? If our public schools have problems, the answer is to FIX them, not close them!

:headbang:
rocknation