Allison Benedikt of Slate delivers a public intellectual's version of the Miley Cyrus VMA display. And she is getting lots of attention, with her name spelled right!
Her lead:
If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person
You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.
Ms. Benedikt is pro-choice prior to delivery; after birth the child becomes an instrument of the state.
I am not surprised by the gusto of the right-wing denunciations; it is the utter lack of support from the left that catches my eye.
LEST YOU WONDER...Yes, Ms. Benedikt does have kids - three, per this recent column, but the oldest is not yet school age.
Whew. The charter school our kids are in is 100% publicly funded.
So I'm a good person.
Posted by: Jeff Dobbs | August 29, 2013 at 04:47 PM
First (snickers maniacally) Don't forget Yay, too!
Posted by: Evil Fact Checker | August 29, 2013 at 04:49 PM
Three kids?
So, she's against ruining schools, but cool with ruining the planet?
Posted by: Rob Crawford | August 29, 2013 at 04:59 PM
TM:
Yes, Ms. Benedikt does have kids - three, per this recent column
I'm not reading anything she wrote - but by the title of that column based on the url, she thinks people who have babies shouldn't get a puppy.
Allison Benedikt is a puppy h8r.
Posted by: Jeff Dobbs | August 29, 2013 at 05:00 PM
Obama is ruining the nation on his own. Let's leave his kids' school out of it.
Posted by: Threadkiller | August 29, 2013 at 05:14 PM
Matt Damon ... call your publicist
Posted by: Neo | August 29, 2013 at 05:16 PM
What is/was the Miley Cyrus VMA display? What is VMA? (other than a USMC A-6 squadron designation)
Posted by: NK(tryin') | August 29, 2013 at 05:18 PM
It's still a bogus argument. Parents with means and with awareness of their kids' substandard schools do what is necessary, through tutoring and outside enrichment, to provide *their* kids with an education; poor families, or families without an educational history to see the shortcomings of the public system, will still be left behind.
Posted by: Ann in L.A. | August 29, 2013 at 05:24 PM
I went to school on scholarship, one wonders has she ever benefited from said institution,
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 05:27 PM
This is where she came from;
http://observer.com/2012/05/village-voice-film-editor-allison-benedikt-to-slates-double-x/
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 05:30 PM
Commons just gave Cameron a time out wrt Operation Camel Butt.
You're on your own BOzo.
Posted by: Account Deleted | August 29, 2013 at 05:38 PM
She's so ponderously wrong on one point,
http://jewschool.com/2011/06/17/26374/why-allison-benedikt-is-right/
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 05:43 PM
Cameron's reaction:
Posted by: Account Deleted | August 29, 2013 at 05:48 PM
RB:
C-Span was running some of the British Parliament discussion this morning. In my opinion the ones speaking for no intervention were making the most sense and spoke eloquently albeit politely.It looks like Bammy 's bacon will be saved because now he can say he wanted to intervene but he lacked a coalition. Drat! I so enjoyed watching him flap in the breeze and look like an idiot. This was a face-saving exercise for him.
Posted by: maryrose | August 29, 2013 at 05:56 PM
Real football!!!! Kickoff in a few.
Woot!
Posted by: Stephanie | August 29, 2013 at 05:58 PM
The dirty little secret about Miley Cyrus is that she's not the least bit sexy, and there's nothing at all attractive about her figure.
Posted by: Danube on iPad | August 29, 2013 at 06:00 PM
maryrose,
He's still playing with the grenade. I just hope no one tells him about what's in the football.
Posted by: Account Deleted | August 29, 2013 at 06:03 PM
Stupid article, Ta\aranto shreds it. Slate just trolling for hits, I think.
The left can't jump in and support her without being racist cause Obama and Jackson and all the others black pols in DC I know of send their kids to private school. So did Marion Edelman.The Clintons, The Gores. *I can stop any time*
Posted by: Clarice | August 29, 2013 at 06:03 PM
This blinkered thinking seems to stem from her willingness to discard the doctrinaire notions of Zionist youth camp, or she may be clueless apriori, tomato, tomatoe.
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 06:12 PM
If everyone sent their kids to the neighborhood public schools, it would probably be better in that the average IQ of public students would skyrocket.
But that is only the first step. Other things must happen after that:
1) High standards must be maintained, for both academic work and behavior
2) Students who fail to meet those standards must be held back and/or kicked out
3) Bad teachers must be fire-able
Those are the basics. Make that happen, THEN we might be able to talk.
But until then, who wants to sacrifice their kids' education to the government school gods?
Still, I do get angry at libs who talk about how they believe in public schools and really want to send their kids to the (poor-performing, diverse) local public school until....their kids hit school age. When the rubber meets the road these libs almost invariably send their kids elsewhere.
They're all talk.
We actually do send our kids to public school but we pay a fortune in property taxes to live in a good school's neighborhood.
Posted by: Porchlight | August 29, 2013 at 06:27 PM
No she's not trolling, she's just clueless;
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/07/14/george_zimmerman_s_brother_on_cnn_trayvon_martin_may_have_been_trying_to.html
Posted by: admiral kolchak | August 29, 2013 at 06:47 PM
Sorry about that, forgor the sock.
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 06:50 PM
For a lot of libs, public schools are the holy grail and will let no amount of negative experiences of others dissuade them from inflicting them on their own flesh and blood. The public high school around here is banking on its reputation from over 40 years ago, which is now just a vague memory.
Posted by: Captain Hate on an iPhone | August 29, 2013 at 07:09 PM
As I mentioned on a thread a few days ago this admin is pushing private schools for public purpose and reminding privates they need to earn tax exempt status and I am seeing the SEL, Whole Child, we are all interdependent, systems thinking, etc for all that tuition. Schools are banking on their reputation for academics but being pressured to change the child and make technology the focus.
Please don't assume there are any true islands from this frenzy at this point.
Posted by: rse | August 29, 2013 at 07:18 PM
I'm so glad my Hatettes are done with school and hope that Hathaway Brown can keep the idiots at bay (although I'm sure there's been some damage already).
Posted by: Captain Hate on an iPhone | August 29, 2013 at 07:24 PM
That jerk Paul Pillar is in the news again..http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/319513-leaked-documents-reveal-us-sees-israel-as-a-major-spying-threat
Posted by: Clarice | August 29, 2013 at 07:42 PM
Yes, he fits in that category, he was legendarily wrong about Syria if I recall,
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 07:48 PM
She also had a kind word for the Wendy gal
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/29/iowa-democrat-prayer-thank-god-for-abortionists/
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 07:51 PM
Wth is this about;
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 08:31 PM
We actually do send our kids to public school but we pay a fortune in property taxes to live in a good school's neighborhood.
That's the key point: If everyone actually did send their kids to public schools, there would be even more division by neighborhood or town/suburb, as people with means would concentrate themselves in places with good schools, bidding up home prices in the process, and making sure the schools stay good. Then the lefties would demand more state and federal resources for schools to offset the quality differences, but the result would just be wasted money.
In other words, kind of like the status quo, only more so.
Posted by: jimmyk | August 29, 2013 at 08:56 PM
carp they are still at it,
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 09:02 PM
Problem with that statement is that it pushes the rest of us to sacrifice what is best for our children in order to support one of the Dems primary constituent groups (teachers' unions), all in the name of bettering their concept of a just society. This is communitarianism, which is contrary to human nature and most people's best interests.
Guess I am a bad person then, but I would do it again if I had the opportunity. Kid just graduated summa cum laude with honors in physics and math, and just started a fully fundrd STEM PhD program. I attribute a lot of that to good study habits learned at that evil private school, along with a boatload of AP classes. Of course, many of the same liberal politicians spouting this sort of nonsense do exactly like I did - sending their kids to the best private schools that they can.Posted by: Bruce Hayden | August 29, 2013 at 09:51 PM
btw, the Horde reminded me, this is Mr. Benedikt's contribution;
http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/national/2013/01/08/update-gawker-getting-death-threats-over-nyc-gun-owners-list/
Posted by: narciso el taino | August 29, 2013 at 09:56 PM
It still astounds me that I'm in a tiny minority in believing public education of any kind is idiotic and bound to be at best sub par. That almost everyone accepts that a significant portion of the population should send their kids to be taught by the the people who bring us the DMV and the IRS is beyond my comprehension.
It's not like there isn't an alternative that everyone could take advantage of were we to eliminate the public school monopoly.
Posted by: Ignatz | August 29, 2013 at 10:06 PM
Congrats, Bruce!!! Which STEM field, and where?
Posted by: DrJ | August 29, 2013 at 10:12 PM
That almost everyone accepts that a significant portion of the population should send their kids to be taught by the the people who bring us the DMV and the IRS is beyond my comprehension.
It used to be that even though public schools were a local monopoly, the fact that people can choose where to live resulted in some pretty good public schools in certain places. That's still true, but the encroachment of state and federal governments, the education bureaucracy with the common core nonsense (which also affects private schools), all threaten to weaken even this limited competition. Still, if you can afford to live in one of the places with good schools, choosing them is quite understandable.
Posted by: jimmyk | August 29, 2013 at 11:23 PM
So if you don't allow your children to have substandard GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE, you are bad.
Posted by: Gus | August 29, 2013 at 11:33 PM