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Comment by factorizer | Hacker News Reader

right. why fix the system, when you can be part of an elite?

Because your responsibility is to your kids and not to some idealistic vision of what you could be doing to improve the school system as a whole.

False dichotomy. Your responsibility as a parent is to your children. Your responsibility as a citizen is to run your government effectively.

Captain TLDR above is basically saying "fuck other people's kids", which is abdicating his civic responsibility.

>which is abdicating his civic responsibility

He pays taxes that goes to schools, doesn't he? Otherwise, I am pretty sure he didn't sign a contract that said: "You are responsible for improving the well-being of kids you will never meet."

It's government of, by, and for the people. He is responsible for the health of the country, just as every other citizen is.

And he pays his taxes, outlined by said government. If there is a failure to deliver on the goods/services promised by the government, it's not his responsibility to make up for the shortfalls. It'd be nice if he did, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Government does not promise to magically take care of everything. And even if they did, the citizens run the government. Any shortfalls in government are ultimately the responsibility of the citizens.

You're going to have to point out the contract with my signature on it where I agreed to that. My attorney is gonna hear about it...

It's not a legal requirement. It's a moral requirement. It's your country, your state, your city. It's your government. You are legally allowed to shirk some of your duties, although not all of them, but that doesn't make you less of a shirker..

Parenting is similar: there are a lot of ways to be a shitty parent that don't rise to the legal level of neglect.

Whose morals? Kant's Duty Ethics?

You are making subjective judgments. This is fine. But don't confuse your opinions on "fairness" with an objective reality.

It's the nature of a community, of a democracy. The citizens, as sovereigns, are ultimately responsible.

Don't like it? You can shirk your responsibility and accept your helping of shame. Or you can move to someplace that isn't a democracy.

Or you can opt out of the portions you don't like.

>You can shirk your responsibility and accept your helping of shame.

I will. I don't lose sleep at night based on your subjective opinions, fortunately.

"Of, by, and for the people" is not subjective. Neither is the people replacing the sovereign. Nor the nature of a community as a collaborative enterprise.

So send your kids to private school while campaigning for better state schools.

Nobody has any inherent civic responsibility. They may choose to, at their discretion, participate. Your only responsibility is to follow the letter of the law, in such a way that benefits you the most.

If one believes that the private education sector serves their kids better, so let it be for them. The welbeing of other people's kids is at most a passing concern, and it would be in fact unfair to your own kid if you had the resources to "improve" other kids but not focus it entirely on your own kid.

YOu might think such a philosophy is selfish. I would agree, but only because not everyone is following such a philosophy (and of course, other inherent unfairness in the world, like amount of money you have). But such is the world as it is. I don't hold it against anyone who does the same, for I also would choose to do the same.

Nope. Democracy is strictly a participatory sport.

One's only obligation under the law is to follow the law, but that's a tautology. One's moral obligation is deeper. Of, by, and for the people: that's how we roll.

Citizens who don't do more than the bare legal minimum are parasitic shirkers. Which they are legally allowed to be. But I am legally allowed to point out that they are selfish assholes. And I will.

Your kids will be part of the society you helped (or didn't help) create. Your view is not just selfish, it's short term.

Or part of the broke.

You can try and help fix the system (and probably fail) while your children suffer, or you can opt out of the system altogether and make sure your kids have the best education you can provide for them.

Many people make an entirely rational decision that their resources are best spent keeping their kids out of a broken educational system.

How does being part of an elite come into play when it comes to parents wanting their children educated in the manner of their choosing?

Because that privilege costs a ton of money that only the upper middle class and the elite can comfortably afford?

That said, i agree with imbracio: parents' primary responsibility is to ensure their kids get a good education, rather than worrying about fixing a system that is unfit able in its current state.

A private school education is not really expensive in most of the country. Think around $5000 a year. I know that's not pocket-change to many people, but you hardly need to be "upper middle class" to do it.

It'd be within the reach of more families if they could take the money that would be going towards their child in the assigned public schools with them to the school of their choice. I don't understand why that idea became a partisan one.

Most of the objections I heard were about putting that public money towards religious schooling (the interaction of government and religion being a fairly well-established as a partisan issue).

I'm not necessarily supporting the concept, but this seems a strained objection. It's equivocating the word "public." People who get social security (which comes from the government, and so is just as "public") can use it for religious causes and no one bats an eye.

And SCOTUS has approved vouchers funded via tax credits.

>Because that privilege costs a ton of money that only the upper middle class and the elite can comfortably afford?

It's almost like people should take some responsibility for their kids' futures instead of handing them over to the state and saying "Well free education is right there, it better be damn good!" Doesn't work that way.

(This coming from a guy who went to a not-very-good public school and plans on sending his kids to public school, mind you.)

The best solution to this unfairness is to give everyone a choice in which school their children attend, by instituting publicly-funded vouchers for every student.

What about the case of homeschooling? I'm not familiar enough with the economics of it to say it is cheaper than private schooling. I do, however, know quite a few families that have taken this route and I wouldn't classify them as upper middle class or elite.

Having worked with numerous schools over the last decade I feel there are some serious problems that we as a society need to fix. I do feel that there are other options that are available to parents though.

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