Spot, Bad Dog!

Okay boys and girls, it's time for a confession. As most of you know, Spot is a champion of public education and that he is the implacable adversary of anyone who is not. Whenever Spot writes about public education issues and he needs a handy avatar for the Forces of Darkness, he often chooses, inter alia, Captain Fishsticks.

Why, oh why, Spotty do you do that?

To tell you the truth, grasshopper, because it is so much fun. Sticks can usually be counted on to deliver howls of indignation and outrage in reply. The latest go-around, represented by the two links above, is an example.

In this latest little dust up, Spot wrote that Sticks must be unhappy about this article in the Star Tribune which describes how well Minnesota public schools do in preparing children for adulthood. Right on cue, Sticks begins his wounded yelping, complaining about this latest unearned blot on his escutcheon:

Spotty assumes that because I argue that parental school choice would improve overall public education, I must regard any achievement of public schools as necessarily a bad thing. I must hope that public education fails, and consequently I‘m willing to sacrifice a child‘s education for the sake of political points. He assumes that the argument for school choice rests solely on public school failure. Nonsense!

Whatever you say, Sticks.

Of course, "school choice" has always existed. Sticks just wants the government to pay for it, or rather even more of it. And inevitably, that has to hurt the public school system.

Real school choice occurs, of course, when the public picks political leaders, including school board members.

Funnier than Sticks, however, are his loyal vassals who rush in with affirmations:

Best post in six months Cap'n.

My antagonists at the SPPS never could not grasp the fact that I was trying to save the public schools they were working so ferverishly to tear apart.

The obvious fact that asking for passage of bi-yearly, multi-million dollar excess levy referendums to "maintain excellence" in the face of a 40% graduation rate, and even worse test results on the most basic of basic tests, was killing them never occured.

This smack-down is gonna leave a mark...I guess one could say that you just gave Spotty a spotty! Swiftee

And here's another:

I haven't seen the study, either, but there is one just released which says that we have increased education spending nationwide by 77% ABOVE inflation, over the last 20 years, while academic achievement has languished. (That means stayed pretty much the same, for those who graduated recently.) [J. Ewing is invited to produce the study.]

Those involved in the "ongoing criminal enterprise" known as public education CANNOT acknowledge that their systems are failing children, just like cocaine dealers cannot acknowledge the harm their "product" does. J. Ewing

The redoubtable J. Ewing even found his way over here to leave a comment on Spot's earlier post. How do we find rhetoricians such as these?

You're known by the company you keep, Sticks.

You shouldn't really complain about a mention from Spot, Sticks. Without it, you wouldn't get any liberal readers for your libertarian screeds. It's a little like poking a caged bear with a stick, however: initially thrilling but not all that satisfying in the long run.

That doesn't mean Spot will stop.