Peter Koepke 
Member since Nov 15, 2012

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Recent Comments

Re: “Charter, magnet, and private schools harm public education”

The quality of schools is largely about the quality of parents. If parents are paying attention, students will study and will be supported, bad teachers will be replaced and good ones will be attracted. Anything else is a work-around. Parents send their kids to charter or private schools because they are frustrated with the state school system, not because they like to pay twice, once in the form of taxes and once in the form of school fees. The school budget is typically the most expensive item on any community's annual budget and how much money goes toward the education plays an important role but nothing compares to parenting!! Rich zip codes have better schools not because they have more money but because have a mostly more involved parent body.
However, to your point, you are completely right, all private schools take talent away from public schools (although they have to make their tax contribution, even as though they don't choose the benefit of schooling their children publicly), but every parent first cares about the education of their child, not about mitigating the disintegration of the local school district. The answer is complicated and would involve anything from parental instruction to the way we look at teachers and education in society.

9 of 10 people like this.
Posted by Peter Koepke on January 10, 2013 at 12:50 PM

Re: “The GOP must become genuinely conservative or remain irrelevant”

People just want to get on with their lives. They want to raise their kids, send them to school, work, have some money left over to enjoy themselves here and there. They don't want to be "self deported", they don't want some bozo to redefine rape or a woman's ability to self abort in case of rape, they largely believe in science not fantasy, they want a chance to do well, no matter what background , gender or sexual orientation they belong to and they want to be able to see a doctor when they're sick. Most people have no problem with gay marriage, some like weed ( now there is some extra tax income), some like guns ( too cheap!), all would like lower taxes, less debt for the nation, and the freedom ( that word is overused!) to pursue their dreams. Nobody wants to see only a handful of guys to make off with most of the nest-egg. Whatever leader and party come closest to these ideals for a majority of the diverse electorate will get to run the shop for a while. Lets not get too excited, this is not rocket science!

8 of 8 people like this.
Posted by Peter Koepke on November 15, 2012 at 9:38 PM
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