An Example of Avoiding the Problem

There's an interesting retort by Doris Marie Strom in the Rapid City Journal today to my column about preschool a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for me, since she illustrates what I said about people not wanting to deal with the root cause of the problem), the writer just pooh-poohs what I said with a scattergun approach to try and discredit it.

Let's look at the first problem:

I object to his assumption that pre-school teachers would be unable or not allowed to adequately supervise the children in their educational environment...Surely our children are educated and protected by caring teachers in public and private school settings as well as by parents in home settings.

She may object all day long, but I think you'd be hard pressed to make a case that the children currently in the education system are adequately supervised. This isn't the fault of the teachers in most cases; rather, the student to teacher ratio is often too high, and our litigious society has tied the hands of teachers so that they can't deal with discipline in a swift, firm manner we did 40-50 years ago.

As for the quality of education, if public school students were receiving the same quality of many homeschool students, then homeschool students wouldn't be outperforming public school students so often. And my daughter wouldn't be several grade levels ahead of her age--she'd be on a par with those in public school.

Here's another glaring fallacy:

Can anyone truly argue that poverty is not a factor in producing broken families?

Can you say, "Oh yeah!" Poverty doesn't cause broken homes; broken homes cause poverty. She has the cart before the horse. The assumption that poverty is the cause of our societal ills is a Marxist, class envy myth. Though I only had 500 words in which to both make the case that preschool isn't a good idea AND point out the root cause of the problem Rounds wants to fix, I think I did a fair job of accomplishing both. This writer is just more comfortable resting on Marxist myths than, as I said, "facing the root causes of our troubled children."

She didn't like my ideas to fix the problem by

"more family support like pre-marital counseling for better marriage choices, reducing divorce, discouraging addictive behaviors, and removing obstacles faced by parents and teachers with instilling discipline and respect.” All this without spending money or having government backing.

I didn't say we had to do it without spending money or government backing (though it would be good if parents and average taxpayers were more involved). In fact, in my Dec. 19 column on education spending I called on "administrators, school board members, lawmakers, and most of all from parents" to give teachers the support they need to educate and maintain a conducive learning environment in the classroom.

The same goes for the family support I mentioned. I'm all for minimum government intervention (that's why I said in the preschool column, "If we’re going to get involved with families..."), but government intervention has largely been the cause of broken families, teaching people to rely on government institutions rather than relying on themselves. It's taught people that if they make stupid decisions, they can fall back on the government to bail them out. It's taught people that if they have sex outside of marriage and get pregnant, the government sugar-daddy will take care of them. It's taught people that if they want a quick divorce because the shiny has worn off their marriage, there'll be no questions asked. Government has taught selfish, misguided people that if their little Johnny is corrected in school, it'll damage his little self-esteem...and government will entertain the putrid arguments of a bunch of lawyers who will sue the school into being afraid to maintain discipline

All this--and more--government intervention has brought us to the sad state of affairs we're in. Unfortunately, it'll probably take reforming our government approach to get us out of it and back to the point where people can start acting like responsible adults and taking care of things themselves and governing themselves like mature people.

I could go on, but I think you get the point...that is, if you're brave enough to get the point.

Here's what I said at the end of that preschool column on Jan. 30:

Do we have the courage to face the root causes of our troubled children? Doing so will require making judgments, even (gasp) moral judgments, and few have the stomach for this. We would have to say that some behaviors are not only wrong; they are counterproductive and place children at a disadvantage. Facing the problem would require us to curtail the choices of parents who engage in self-destructive behaviors that bring their children down with them.

To face the problem, we would likely have to look in the mirror, and there are few of us who are willing to take that bold step. It’s easier to throw money and government at it.

This lady's response proves some do not have the courage to take that step. Her criticism of my supposed inconsistencies is only a veiled plea to maintain the status quo of throwing government money at the symptoms without dealing with the root causes.