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September
Meeting:
Rationality Workshop
Rationality, a central pillar of
Objectivism, is an important skill that can make our lives more rich and
fruitful. Luckily, we can constantly improve and better understand this
skill. At our September meeting, John Drake will moderate a series of
exercises and games to examine rationality in its many forms. From
definitions to integrations, this presentation with audience participation
will help in your own efforts to recognize, accept and make a commitment
to reason as the only source of knowledge.
The meeting will be on Saturday, September 16, at 8 p.m., at the home of
Joy & Jeff Kiviat. Call (314) 469-2723 for directions.
The Education Precedent
With the
presidential elections just around the corner, the issue of education has
become a hot topic. Three recent Commentary articles appearing in the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch have focused on education and, specifically,
school choice and the voucher system.
Casey J. Lartigue Jr., a staff writer at the Cato Institute, wrote on
August 22 about the failings of the public education system. In Washington
D.C., the Financial Control Board stated in 1996 that “the longer
students stay in the District’s public school system, the less likely
they are to succeed educationally.” Lartigue cites the thousands of
students who apply for private vouchers and the hundreds of parents who
lined up in two feet of snow in January to register their children in the
public school of their choice as evidence of the desire for publicly
funded vouchers. Al Gore, steadfastly opposed to school choice, was quoted
as saying, “If I was the parent of a child who went to an inner-city
school that was failing…I might be for vouchers, too.” But, Latrigue
adds, as the Democratic candidate for president, he is very much opposed
to them.
Joy Newcomb Kiviat, a member of the Gateway Objectivists and the research
director for Citizens for Educational Freedom, wrote on August 28 about
the deterioration of public schools in the city of St. Louis and how
publicly funded school choice can help. Adjusting for inflation, per-pupil
spending in St. Louis has more than doubled over the last 30 years. Kiviat
writes, “Today, St. Louis City schools rank seventh in the nation among
major urban districts in expenditures per pupil. Yet student performance
declined by every measure over the same period.” Leading researchers
have found that students using school choice scholarships improve their
performance, behavior, and desire to succeed. The system is now used in
Milwaukee and Cleveland, and low-income parents in St. Louis are desperate
for an alternative to the failing schools here. By enacting school choice
legislation, Kiviat says that St. Louis “can become a gateway to the
future of education, with schools competing for students by offering
diverse and innovative approaches, and effectively delivering the skills
and knowledge our children need to prosper in the 21st
century.”
On September 3, syndicated columnist William Safire wrote about a recent
study on the effect of school vouchers on black students. A team of
researchers from Harvard, the University of Wisconsin, and the Brookings
Institution conducted a two-year study on students in New York City,
Washington D.C., and Dayton, Ohio. Improved test scores by
African-American students using vouchers “suggests a stunning reversal
of their fortunes.” The researchers’ report states “the black-white
test gap could be eliminated in subsequent years of education for black
students who use a voucher to switch from public to private school.”
Safire notes that although both Gore and George W. Bush hold strong (but
opposing) views on public choice, neither one is entering the debate on
California’s and Michigan’s public schools, where voucher propositions
are on the ballot this year.
Quotable Quotes
“A man cannot be a man without a
woman.”
–Louis Farrakhan, speaking in St. Louis to the Fifth Missionary Baptist
Church, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 23.
We welcome submissions of reviews, articles, columns and commentary.
Direct all correspondence to gwobjctvst@aol.com.
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