[Vision2020] One Way to Save the State Lots and Lots of Money

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Thursday 18 February 2010 13:51:38 Donovan Arnold wrote:
> Not wasting $60 million???

First, from whom did those sixty million dollars come? After the 
recent Risch rush to regressive revenue raising, changing from richer 
to poorer tax sources, it's likely that those who lost the most to 
their new taxation also stand to lose the most economic opportunity 
to their future lack of educational resources traditionally supplied. 
So, who, exactly, is entitled to judge wastefulness of these dollars? 
  
> Of course, Donovan, would think this is a great idea. Why?

Perhaps because Donovan's thinking is of a meager and insubstantial 
sort, insufficiently well-connecting the relevant relations among the 
parties and facts of the situation? Or maybe Donovan is in a vocal 
mood, wondering if he can yet again stir the Vision2020 conversation.

> Because 16-19 year olds cannot listen to adults and already know
> everything. If you don't believe me, just ask them. They are the
> experts on every subject. They already know far more than their
> parents, grandparents, and the rest of world, combined. :P 

Sometimes good communication among parents and children allows a good 
transition from parental household to the child's emancipation. Other 
times, not. Comments have been made for generations through eons, 
from the ancients onward. Some were notable, as this from Samuel 
Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain):

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could 
hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 
twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 
seven years." 

> Putting teenagers out on their own, IMHO, would be the best way of
> getting them to learn about the real world, that they don't know
> everything, and their parents might not be such the blundering
> idiots that survived only on chance and charity that they thought
> they were, and might be worth listening to. 

Shoving a non-swimming kid into the deep end of a pool is rude, crude, 
uncouth, and perpetuates the ignorance one wishes education to erase. 
Putting unprepared teenagers, without their majority legal rights, 
out into the world is dangerous and risky for kids and parents alike.

Wouldn't it be great if the kids got swimming lessons, and the parents 
got parenting lessons? Adult basic education has a place in society.

> So, I support on their 17th birthday, putting them out on the
> doorstep with a sack of clothes, a bag of Idaho grown potatoes, a
> condom, and their Ipod to give them the opportunity to show the
> world how dumb it is and how profoundly intellectually advanced and
> gifted they are. 

Instead of supporting the better interests of the children's welfare, 
and better long-term relations among parents and children a few years 
later, what you are supporting is curmudgeonly self-entertainment of 
the sort shown in the editorial cartoon of Dick Cheney, in pajamas 
and bathrobe, sitting in a chair aiming the TV clicker at the set 
during the winter Olympics, yelling "When is the "#@$%&^" 
waterboarding competition?" In other words, torture as entertainment.

If the practice of turning kids loose for a year became widespread, 
don't you suppose that some of those kids who didn't talk with their 
parents might talk with each other? And perhaps find ways to show 
their displeasure at their ill-treatment? How about nocturnal 
guerrilla spud-gun attacks through some well-deserving living room 
windows? Has the Homeland Security Office in your neighborhood 
considered whether alternative parenting strategies might prevent 
tuber terrorists expressing their disappointment at being kicked out 
without so much as a GED to attach to a fast-food job application?

> On their 18th birthday they can return provided they sign a
> contract not to do drugs, to shut up until they are 23, listen to
> their parents and obey them, show up for school every day, and
> study as hard as they can. : ) 

Donovan, the market for dysfunctional families appears well-supplied 
already, so adding highly unlikely, not to say, fantasy, contractual 
obligations to these situational tragedies is akin to adding empty 
calories to silly-salads of unlikely mixed ingredients.

> Do this and you will get your $60 million worth of education out of
> them their senior year.

The worth of an education is not measured in a year's performance, but 
rather in a lifetime of achievement.

> Otherwise, they are largely a waste of time and you might as well   
> pay teachers to educate a brick wall, they are at least better     
> listeners

Believe it or not, Donovan, the important active components in the 
education process exist between students' ears, not just teachers'. 
Amazingly, students can learn in spite of their teachers, though what 
they learn may be debatable. Coordinating the two is desirable.

While more attention to the educational and parental transitioning of 
kids to young adulthood may be needed, kicking kids out of childhood 
homes without appropriate sustaining connections is counterproductive 
to everyone.


Ken