[Vision2020] Why I'm going to vote Yes on the Levy

[keely emerinemix]

Thank you, Paul!

keely




> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 20:59:25 -0800
> From: godshatter at yahoo.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Why I'm going to vote Yes on the Levy
> 
> Just a few reasons:
> 
> I can't underestimate the value of education in our community.  Forget 
> evolution vs. intelligent design, think basic math skills, a sense of 
> history, simple reading skills, a knowledge of the language we speak, 
> and a basic understanding of science.  Where would we be today if we 
> didn't value education?  Do you like that computer you're reading this 
> with?  Are you happy to know that the hospital is just down the street 
> if you have some kind of medical problem?  Would you rather drive to the 
> ocean, or walk?  The more data we have to live life, the better it will 
> become.  The more we all know, the better off we all are.  This 
> prosperity results in real-world economic development.  This makes us 
> richer as a community.  Our poorest people are richer than much of the 
> rest of the world.
> 
> So, education is important.  But why not educate everyone individually?  
> Why centralize it?
> 
> Well, first you have economies of scale.  There is more to learning than 
> just sitting around the teacher on the floor in a semi-circle, listening 
> to him or her reading you stories.  You need books and supplies.  You 
> need places to work, and you need prepared lessons.  Centralizing all 
> this makes sense.  Why expect every family to buy a microscope?  Or a 
> bunsen burner?  Or a wall map of the US?  Why dump a substantial amount 
> of money individually when we can spend less by centralizing it?
> 
> You also have the benefits of specialization.  We teach our teachers 
> about one particular subject until they become experts on it.  Why ask 
> everyone to learn everything about all subjects?  We also teach our 
> teachers how to teach.  It's not simple, and just faking your way 
> through it is not recommended.  Why expect all of us to learn this?  
> Granted, it's probably very useful, but we have a limited amount of time 
> and a limited number of neurons.  Learning all this takes time, and the 
> ones who have learned it the best cost money.  Yet we need them desperately.
> 
> Public education is the great equalizer.  People who can't afford to 
> teach their children, whether it's because of finances or time 
> commitments or lack of knowledge in some areas, will still be able to 
> give them an education.  Every child, no matter their background, has 
> the opportunity to excel in their learning.  Who will become the next 
> great physicist, or mathematician, or musician?  It's also a great 
> springboard.  Who will be in the right place with the right set of facts 
> and the knowledge to make use of them and do the next great thing?  
> That's why I want to live forever.  So I can see what people keep coming 
> up with as the world progresses.
> 
> Another reason for centralization is the changing nature of the world we 
> live in.  All of us spend much of our lifetime unlearning things we 
> learned as children.  Some of it was simply our misunderstandings as we 
> developed and are simply later correcting.  Other facts, though, have 
> simply been shown to be wrong.  Look how much physics has changed in the 
> last 50 years.  Subjects like history change as we realize more about 
> our past.  Geography changes as world events progress.  Even with 
> relatively slowly changing fields, such as mathematics, new ways of 
> imparting knowledge to others in these areas are found.  Teaching 
> incorrect knowledge is probably worse than not teaching that knowledge 
> at all.  This corrected knowledge needs to be assimilated, and it's 
> inefficient to have to teach every homemaker just to have them teach 
> their kids the next day.  It's more efficient to have those specialists 
> I mentioned previously get updated on their subjects.  It's faster, 
> because they are subject experts, and there are fewer of them to teach.  
> It's also easier to require that they get updated on their subjects. 
> 
> So why support this levy, specifically?  Because, in my humblest of 
> opinions, every penny we can afford to throw at it we will see back 
> again a hundred-fold in the future as a community.  I'm sure there's a 
> line out there past which any increases will not help.  I think we are 
> so far away from the breakpoint that it's silly to talk about it.  Also, 
> the appropriateness of this levy has been put into question.  Show our 
> community that we know how important education is by voting Yes on this.
> 
> Paul
> 
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