Reader Raymond F. Tirana posted a comment in which he described the end goal of the libertarian overhaul of school funding. In Kansas, Florida, and other red states, he says, they are trying to shift responsibility for funding and providing schools from the state to parents. This will not only exacerbate segregate but increase inequity. Of course, they will do this under false pretenses, claiming to “widen opportunities” and to “save poor children from failing schools.” Don’t believe them.
He wrote in a comment:
What will really happen once the state offloads all responsibility for educating children: Inevitably, the budget will be slashed each year (Kansas is already enacting a flat tax that will decimate the State’s ability to raise revenue – people remember Koch Industries is based in Kansas, right?) until the public schools are forced to fold and Kansas parents will be lucky to get any crumbs from their masters to be used toward the education of their kids. This was Milton Freidman’s fantasy, and we are close to seeing it realized in Kansas, Florida and other states, as parents sit by and let their children’s future be stolen from them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think it more plausible to use their own words. The rich complained, back when we didn’t listen to them, of paying for their own children’s private school tuition yet still having to pay taxes so their children could attend public school.
They are in it to extract their tax moneys back into their own pockets.
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Yeah, tax $ is a bitch: it’s occasionally used to benefit the 99% instead of the individual.
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I don’t disagree, but it’s so crazy I think most people would find it hard to believe. The evidence is certainly there for anyone who looks however. It’s truly tragic, this slow murder of maybe our nation’s greatest public good. Our schools were once the envy of the world. No more.
In earlier times, Americans understood that public education was essential for maintaining democracy. Schools were often among the very first things new communities would establish for themselves. But, we seem to have forgotten what community means, too. And we so long ago conflated democracy with capitalism, and citizen with consumer, that I am not sure anyone much knows the difference now. More’s the pity.
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Helen stated “In earlier times, Americans understood that public education was essential for maintaining democracy.”
Were the reactionary xtian theofascists to get their wish there would be no need for non-xtian schooling, i.e., public schools, only xtian private schools. By defunding the public schools they believe they will hasten that xtian theocracy in America. So best not to fund the public schools now. The xtian theofascists don’t want to maintain democracy.
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Duane,
Who do you blame for people like Helen not knowing the substantial role that the Catholic Conferences are playing in
the demise of public education?
Why does Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education and Notre Dame professor Nicole Stelle Garnet who is credited as the most influential legal scholar advancing religious charter schools operate without scrutiny by media and public school defenders?
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I suspect that the libertarian aspect pales in comparison to the regressive xtian theofascist aspect. My guestimate would be 10:1 theofascist to libertarian.
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The fiction of corporate personhood is the
catalyst that converts libertarians into fascists.
Corporate Libertarians are the only ones wielding any power these days — all the rest are nothing but ventriloquist dummies.
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I suspect the money spent by the theofascists is supplied by libertarians.
Theofascists pay no price so it will continue. They pay no price because the most significant sect can not be named.
Ohio’s experience with Issue 1 on the ballot on Aug.8 and the dioceses of the state’s major cities provides corroboration for your primary premise.
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“They are trying to shift
responsibility for funding
and providing schools from
the state to parents.”
TRYING to???
Taxpayers have always
provided the funding. The
tax and transfer
system funds institutions,
based on
BELIEF.
(an acceptance that a statement
is true or that something exists.)
Public, private, or religious
beliefs are all funded by the
taxpayers.
Call the system what you may.
Demand what belief is “worthy”
of funding, compared to the
others.
Hurry, start the meaningful
change clock to see how
long it takes to shift the
source of funding, to validate
the strategies in use.
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Privatization generally benefits the wealthy and shifts the costs to the working class through higher taxes.
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A libertarian vision for the US would turn the US into a third world nation where the rich live in walled enclaves with private security and the poor roam the streets living by any means they can. It’s not quite what the founding fathers envisioned in The Constitution. It would be a country where democracy goes to die.
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These libertarian visionaries go right along with Fascist visionaries that are current in leadership positions in Florida, Texas, and others. Put the two together then the United States would quickly become a third world country easily taken over by the likes of China and weak Russian. Maybe that is their end game.
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Wealthy libertarians like Charles Koch who funded Paul Weyrich (the right wing Catholic co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, ALEC and the religious right), are aligned with the Catholic Conferences to privatize education.
The executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference was formerly with the Koch Foundation and EdChoice.
Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education regularly conducts summits for school choice. Note Dame’s Nicole Stelle Garnet is described as the most influential legal scholar advancing religious charter schools.
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Correction- Koch network
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There is not one country on the planet, past or present, that has ever followed the libertarian ideology. Libertarianism encourages chaos and crime. Communism under Stalin and Mao will be pale in comparison to the dangers of a living in a libertarian country.
Once the libertarian insanity is entrenched, the many will never be safe. We will live in a lawless land with armed gangs, militias and malignant warlords waging wars with each other 24/7, and target practice will be anyone that doesn’t belong to an armed group. For those of us who are not heavily armed and live in bunkers most of the time, they will be used for target practice.
There will be no choice. Everyone will have to belong to an armed gang or militia to have any semblance of safety and security.
We already see this happening in the red states and it is only going to get worse.
Only billionaires have the ability to build armed fortresses with private armies. There will not be any roads that will be safe unless you are with a heavily armed group with armored vehicles.
Billionaire don’t worry about roads. They can fly everywhere and live anywhere. Watching what was the working class always at war with the neighbors will be their entertainment.
Reminds me of the violence in Beirut with Lebanon always on the brink of total collapse.
This is what the libertarians are working for.
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Exactly. Just wait until the ESA, voucher, or whatever the name becomes an “entitlement” in 10 years.
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Good point
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I once had an online discussion with a libertarian nudnik who said that he shouldn’t have to pay for the education of other people’s kids. Education should be up to the parents; the parents should either home school or pay for private schooling out of their own pockets. In other words, no tax funded public schools for this libertarian jackarse. He doesn’t believe in a commons or a common good, just small minded selfishness and social Darwinism on steroids. He even stated that fire fighting and the police should be privatized and not be funded through taxes. Totally insane.
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Search Catholic common good on the internet. The definition that the sect uses is what makes Catholic schools at the expense of public schools a worthy goal.
Bill Barr said religion should be introduced at every opportunity. He wasn’t rejecting
the common good.
He was defining it differently.
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So, the morons at the Hillsborough County School District just released a curriculum mandate that restricts teachers to using excerpts from the plays of Shakespeare rather than entire plays. Why? Well, the district says that this is because of the sexual content of the plays and because they want to make sure that teachers are concentrating on preparing kids for the state tests.
Oh, and the school district repeatedly refers to the works of Shakespeare, in this Taliban-like mandate, as “novels.”
Sickening.
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Hillsborough is one of the largest school districts in the country and includes the city of Tampa.
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Here’s where you can let Hillsborough know about what you think of the fundamentalist barbarousness of this decision:
https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=-f2oEP_CDU6cGR_iwYgWSlfHKK0R9cNEu-CHNB5dB91UMTBZUldKQUcyMzEwU1BJSVA2UENZUUY4SyQlQCN0PWcu
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Done.
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Thank you, Diane!
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Thanks Bob,
I left comment.
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Thanks, Linda!!!
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Shameful!
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