Re: Public Schools

[Mushroom <mushroom@moscow.com>]

Doug Wilson wrote:
> 
> Dear visionaries,
> 
> Allow me to begin by reiterating what I said at my first entrance -- don't want to wear out my welcome. I am happy to do my very own personal imitation of declining enrollment. All I need is for someone authoritative to say the word. Scram, Wilson, or something like that.
> 

The beauty of Vision2020, of course, is that no one will say
"Scram" because this is as much Doug Wilson's forum as
anyone elses. I was pleased to have Doug participate; he
writes well and seems less of an ogre than second and
third-hand stories told by liberals might suggest. Isn't
that so often the case?

I understand that he refers to public schools as "government
schools" in order to make a point. Should it be of any
interest to him, I certainly think the point has been made.
It reminds me of the rightwing congressional Republicans 10
or so years ago, who insisted on referring to the Democrat
party rather than the Democratic party.

There is a more common use of the term "government schools"
-- they would be schools operated by the government at
overseas army bases or places where there were dependents of
U.S. citizens who needed educating. They would be government
schools, not public schools, because no elected board was
responsible for them.

I think someone else, not Doug Wilson, introduced the term
"modernity" into the Vision2020 discussion. I may be the
only person, but I'm not particularly open to being asked to
debate using a specialized vocabulary and then having a
website offered in case I want to bone up on the concepts
I'm not familiar with. (You can teach an old dog new tricks,
but probably not by emphasizing his ignorance right off the
bat.)

Don Coombs