Lucky you and I are probably the only ones who see most of these threads.

implies the teacher teaches what he wants, supervised only by his fellow educators, and the school is autonomous of the society, even though financially supported by it.

It is the task of the educator to educate the young, not indoctrinate them with societal mores, or train them to become good little workers.

Ot to paraphrase one educator, “It is the purpose of the university to teach the students how to think, not what they need to know”.

I can’t make it any clearer than that.

C’mon TB. Everbody’s waiting for the gotcha moment, when you demolish me with your scintillating wit and icy logic.

And I put myself in the class of people who want taxes to be as low as possible. Not you?

The “poor man” also said about teachers: “But if you choose a low paying occupation, please don’t whine when the market suddenly doesn’t change to make you filthy rich just because you followed your dream.” Which is pretty much the same as what you guys were saying about the (not even publicly employed) “burger flippers” the other day.

Rework what you meant by “society” maybe. You probably hadn’t thought it through carefully before you wrote it.

The haploids your party is relying on for votes are a vanishing race. And I say ‘good riddance’.

If they want to teach creationism alongside evolution?

“Academic freedom implies the teacher teaches what he wants, supervised only by his fellow educators, and the school is autonomous of the society, even though financially supported by it.

It is the task of the educator to educate the young, not indoctrinate them with societal mores, or train them to become good little workers.

Or to paraphrase one educator, ‘It is the purpose of the university to teach the students how to think, not what they need to know.’”

I completely agree with this, and it meshes very nicely with my ideas of decentralized power and freedom of choice.

You’re the one having trouble getting the square peg into the round hole of “We can’t allow ‘rednecks’ to teach things the State doesn’t approve of.”

You just (to coin a phrase) can’t handle the truth.

You said there were people who “think that government employees – including especially teachers – need to be fired or put on a subsistance wage. And that taxes should be reset to as close to zero as they can get away with.”

I said there really isn’t anyone out there saying those things.

Clear?

Ironically, the poor guy quoted in the original post thinks teachers don’t get paid enough.

Education costs per student have tripled in the past few decades. Salaries for teacher have only gone up by a factor of about 1.5 (constant dollars). You tell me where the money is going. It ain’t making teachers rich, that’s for sure.

Completely unrelated item: The president of the NEA pulls in almost $400,000 a year, and 31 people at that union’s headquarters make more than $200,000 a year.

Then, hauling you back to the point with a hawser, explain that version of your description of “academic freedom” where the government gets to decide what a community is allowed to teach or not teach.