A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[Hank Chinaski]

http://www.boston.com/business/artic...nefits?pg=full

Unmarried gay couples lose health benefits

Many of the state's largest employers are dropping health benefits for unmarried gay couples, seven months after Massachusetts became the only state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Massachusetts companies, some of which pioneered so-called domestic-partner benefits for unmarried, same-sex partners, said they are now withdrawing them for reasons of fairness: If gays and lesbians can now marry, they should no longer receive special treatment in the form of health benefits that were not made available to unmarried, opposite-sex couples

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Half of what? As non-parochial private schools? Okay, but so what? As public schools? Not according to the data I've seen (which is admittedly at least 10 years out of date since the last time I thought about this).

I believe that private schools are usually more costly and charter schools slightly more costly than public schools, but that parochial schools are much, much less costly, like 1/2 to 1/3 of the average public school cost per student. I'll hunt around half-heartedly for some cite, but that's my recollection of the data I've seen in the last few years. And it's not entirely surprising - free nuns, after all.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by sgtclub
yes, public schools.

Are we including costs of defense of lawsuits?

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
http://www.boston.com/business/artic...nefits?pg=full

I agree it's unintended, but I do think it's fair. The only justification for providing same-sex-partner benefits, but not non-spouse-opposite-sex-partner benefits, was that gay couples can't marry. It was an attempt by the private sector to in some way mitigate a social wrong to which the legislatures/courts hadn't yet caught up.

If MA passes that constitutional amendment, I hope they will reinstitute them.

Question - would the MA cons. amend. invalidate gay marriages legalized during this window, or just prevent any future ones?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I believe that private schools are usually more costly and charter schools slightly more costly than public schools, but that parochial schools are much, much less costly, like 1/2 to 1/3 of the average public school cost per student. I'll hunt around half-heartedly for some cite, but that's my recollection of the data I've seen in the last few years. And it's not entirely surprising - free nuns, after all.

So I found this cite for the proposition:

• Private schools also achieve these results with fewer resources. According to the Department of Education, the average cost nationwide of all private K-8 private and parochial school tuition is $2,300, almost a third the average public school cost of $6,800.

http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/rese...constamend.cfm

Of course, this essay doesn't give a cite for the data, and follows with this completely absurd statement, so I'm still taking it with a grain of salt:

• America has no shortage of gifted teachers or eager students.

And I'd note that the statistic compares apples to oranges. It's comparing tuition on one hand against cost of education on the other.

If significant numbers start moving to private schools, those tuition costs are going to go up, because despite assertions to the contrary, there is a shortage of gifted teachers in America, and private schools will have to compete more for that talent. And their endowments will be stretched more to cover more students.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by baltassoc
So I found this cite for the proposition:

• Private schools also achieve these results with fewer resources. According to the Department of Education, the average cost nationwide of all private K-8 private and parochial school tuition is $2,300, almost a third the average public school cost of $6,800.

http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/rese...constamend.cfm

Of course, this essay doesn't give a cite for the data, and follows with this completely absurd statement, so I'm still taking it with a grain of salt:

• America has no shortage of gifted teachers or eager students.

And I'd note that the statistic compares apples to oranges. It's comparing tuition on one hand against cost of education on the other.

If significant numbers start moving to private schools, those tuition costs are going to go up, because despite assertions to the contrary, there is a shortage of gifted teachers in America, and private schools will have to compete more for that talent. And their endowments will be stretched more to cover more students.

Is the "cost" of parochial school the tuition cost, or the actual cost? I think that parochial schools frequently get quite a bit of financial help, and probably also administration and teaching help, from the churches with which they are associated. And, I'm pretty sure that to the extent the teachers are nuns or what have you, and they live in church housing, they don't have imputed income so you don't have to pay them enough to cover the costs of the housing and the taxes on the amounts that they pay for housing/food.

It's just not apples/oranges.

On second thought, I am not up for this conversation either. Club, go ahead, say whatever uninformed, un-thought-through crap you want, and then as a bonus you can take the silence of balt and me as assent.

You'll be deluded and wrong, but probably happier.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Wow. That's a leap I didn't see. Of course, that may be because I went to public schools in an area where the teachers unions were little more than social clubs.

I don't really feel up to the voucher debate right now, so I'm going to leave it at that.

Since I can't seem to drag myself out of this, I'm going to expand a bit.

I think my view on this debate is sharply shaped by my personal experience: as bad as the public schools I attended may have been, the private schools in the area, all parochial (but none of them Catholic) were much, much worse. Like can't do math at all worse. Like can only read at all so that one can read the Bible worse. Like schools that choose to respond to the evolution debate by simply omitting biology, chemistry and physics from the curriculum, replacing the time public schools waste on those classes with bible study.

For every voucher that would be used to send a kid to a better, happens-to-be-affliated-with-a-church school, at least one would be used to send a kid to a worse, doesn't-just-happen-to-be-affliated-with-a church-but rather that's the reason it's worse school.

That's what I hear when I hear "vouchers." I hear I'm paying for nutcases to send their kids to nutcase schools.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Since I can't seem to drag myself out of this, I'm going to expand a bit.

I think my view on this debate is sharply shaped by my personal experience: as bad as the public schools I attended may have been, the private schools in the area, all parochial (but none of them Catholic) were much, much worse. Like can't do math at all worse. Like can only read at all so that one can read the Bible worse. Like schools that choose to respond to the evolution debate by simply omitting biology, chemistry and physics from the curriculum, replacing the time public schools waste on those classes with bible study.

For every voucher that would be used to send a kid to a better, happens-to-be-affliated-with-a-church school, at least one would be used to send a kid to a worse, doesn't-just-happen-to-be-affliated-with-a church-but rather that's the reason it's worse school.

That's what I hear when I hear "vouchers." I hear I'm paying for nutcases to send their kids to nutcase schools.

The people I know who went to catholic schools are pretty well-educated, like "got into Michigan and I didn't" educated. You raise an interesting point re. how they teach biology/evolution, I just don't know what they do. I do believe that HS sciences are so much wasted time. Sciences are generally a college subject.

The main benefit to sending kids to Catholic schools comes from the principal being able to hit them and expel them. My kids are in public schools and no one is ever hit. Instead loads of kids are found in need of meds. If I had to choose, I'd rather my kid gets spanked to settle down instead of drugged.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
The people I know who went to catholic schools are pretty well-educated, like "got into Michigan and I didn't" educated.

I want to be clear: I'm not slamming Catholic schools. Quite the opposite. I've got a lot of respect for the Catholic system of schools, especially as run by the Jesuits. I just don't think those schools are going to be the primary beneficiaries of voucher programs.

I'm talking about the Podunk Christian Academies. These places are good in the "got into Oral Roberts University and I didn't" kind of way.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
On second thought, I am not up for this conversation either. Club, go ahead, say whatever uninformed, un-thought-through crap you want, and then as a bonus you can take the silence of balt and me as assent.

You'll be deluded and wrong, but probably happier.

I just prefer to ignore you.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I'm talking about the Podunk Christian Academies. These places are good in the "got into Oral Roberts University and I didn't" kind of way.

SS may not post here much, but I know he still reads most of the posts. There is just no reason to get personal like this.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I want to be clear: I'm not slamming Catholic schools. Quite the opposite. I've got a lot of respect for the Catholic system of schools, especially as run by the Jesuits. I just don't think those schools are going to be the primary beneficiaries of voucher programs.

I'm talking about the Podunk Christian Academies. These places are good in the "got into Oral Roberts University and I didn't" kind of way.

So what I think you are saying is that both choices suck, but you are not in favor of moving funds from one to the other?

I don't agree with you at all, and my view is based both on personal experience and the volumes of data out there. But that's probably not good enough for Fringey, because public school = good; vouchers = bad.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sgtclub
So what I think you are saying is that both choices suck, but you are not in favor of moving funds from one to the other?

I don't agree with you at all, and my view is based both on personal experience and the volumes of data out there. But that's probably not good enough for Fringey, because public school = good; vouchers = bad.

Sigh. Why are you attacking me when I said, go ahead and delude yourself? There are few independent studies, and of those how many are actually comparing apples to apples?

But you are a scum-sucking assjack who pegs his grandpa on a regular basis, so that's probably not good enough for you.*

*gratuitous personal attack because I'm overtired.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
The people I know who went to catholic schools are pretty well-educated, like "got into Michigan and I didn't" educated. You raise an interesting point re. how they teach biology/evolution, I just don't know what they do. I do believe that HS sciences are so much wasted time. Sciences are generally a college subject.

Catholics don't take the Old Testament literally, so there is no problem with Catholic schools teaching evolution, and carbon dating, and stuff. I know, because I learned all about the monkey to man thing in sixth grade biology at Extreme Unction Middle School.

Yep, once we burned Gallileo at the stake*, we got that anti-science stuff out of our system.

*Yes, I know that he wasn't actually burned at the stake, but it works better this way.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I want to be clear: I'm not slamming Catholic schools. Quite the opposite. I've got a lot of respect for the Catholic system of schools, especially as run by the Jesuits. I just don't think those schools are going to be the primary beneficiaries of voucher programs.

I'm talking about the Podunk Christian Academies. These places are good in the "got into Oral Roberts University and I didn't" kind of way.

I've seen both. I've seen entire communities deluded into thinking Podunk Christian Academy is some miracle of education and discipline for wayward teens, when in fact it is a hotbed of abusive freakazoids producing illiterates. I've also seen parochial schools sneered at for producing dim, obedient papists when they actually produce students who learned stuff like history, as in what events actually happened (as opposed to the PC revisionist BS I learned at my, unarguably, excellent public school). I agree that a some parents would use vouchers to move their kids into strange, inadequate schools for bizarre reasons. But I still believe that the main beneficiaries of vouchers are poor families stuck in completely fucked school districts.

In any event, I don't think anyone can escape their own school experiences in thinking about the debate, rendering every view annecdotal and relatively worthless. My public schools were superb. The products of a lot of of the supposedly elite private schools on the east coast that I met in my (supposedly) elite east coast university were about on a par with our remedial-track kids. Where I grew up, private school (parochial, military or otherwise) was for the backwards kids with social problems, not the smart, able, well adjusted ones.

However, the next school district over was a complete basket case, despite having about the same per-head funding (though they had a more economically and socially mixed population). In fact, that district was so bad that it was studied by some friends in city planning as the classic example of how to totally fuck up a school system (their conclusion: let the teachers run it; salary demands took precedence over books & plant, seniority trumped ability, social goals trumped educational goals). And the poorer kids livng in that district were absolutely trapped there, and absolutely fucked. Even if only the "cherries" of the bunch could have escaped, however, be it to my district, private school, or into the arms of the Jesus freaks, I think it would have been supremely worthwhile.

IMHO, of course, which is probably worth a pitcher of warm spit.