I’ve also seen US teachers spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to stock classrooms.

I spent a lot of time in European schools and I’ve never heard of teachers having to stock their own classrooms or fundraise for things like playgrounds, etc.

  • @jjjalljs
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    944 months ago

    Conservatives, mostly.

    Conservatives believe in neither education nor government. It’s no surprise that when they have power, they fuck up both of those things.

    Also racism. A common facet of conservatism. It’s part of why conservatives don’t like public programs- the wrong sort of people might benefit.

    • @nutsack@lemmy.world
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      184 months ago

      the conservative point ive been hearing is that government shouldn’t spend money on education, because the real problem is fatherless households. im not really sure what to do with it

      • BrerChicken
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        114 months ago

        “Fatherless households” is just racist code for black families.

      • @Xanis@lemmy.world
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        84 months ago

        Find out what they believe causes a household to be fatherless. Follow their logic string by asking follow-up questions based on their most recent response. Either they’ll run out of justification quickly, or they’ll back themselves into a corner. From here you can leave it be as they’ve essentially ended up causing them to question their own understanding.

        One way of many.

        • @nutsack@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          they believe it is neo-marxism, atheism, liberalism, black culture, the lgbt movement and its sex positivity. godlessness, basically. “the left” are sodom and gomorroah. no idea how to argue with that because there’s not a lot of objective fact in any of it.

        • Jojo
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          13 months ago

          Also find out what consequences they expect a child being “fatherless” to bring, and compare that to what actually happens when a child has a healthy household without a father in it.

      • Kit Sorens
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        84 months ago

        That’s a smoke screen. Another is the “liberal brainwashing machine” school system scare. What they fear is the statistic that higher educated individuals trend towards populism and progressivism. They see higher education of youths as a threat to their political base, which turns into “spineless parents sending kids to liberul brainwashing camps funded by the gubmnt.”

      • @jjjalljs
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        54 months ago

        I mean, if someone is saying that they’re probably coming from an afactual, emotional, space, so you’d have to engage with those rules. Try to make them trust you and see you as part of their in-group, because if they see you as an outsider they’re extremely unlikely to listen. This is true of everyone, but especially true if someone’s emotionally invested in a topic.

        Or they’re a troll who knows what they’re doing. Online trolls you can’t really do much about. Real life trolls you can apply social pressure.

        If you were going to try to engage that point on facts, which is probably a waste of time, I don’t even know where to start. Are there statistics backing their claim or is it just made up entirely? Is it a dog whistle for racism? Have they read “The New Jim Crow”? Why does this problem preclude spending money on education? If fatherless households were a problem, should the government address that? How so? Would investing more in education be a long term solution to this problem, too?

        There are so many questions. Most of which are likely to be wasted because the person holding this position is likely uninterested in facts, but has some feelings they’re justifying with words.

        • @nutsack@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          if you asked ben shapiro he would probably suggest subsidies for religious private schools, religious leaders in government, policy based on religion, changes to family law, enforced marriage upon pregnancy and that sort of thing

          • @jjjalljs
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            34 months ago

            Those are all terrible ideas. Shapiro is some combination of stupid and evil though, so this would be on brand.