Whenever you quote Tea Party organizations, I get the same warm, fuzzy feeling that I get when Doug quotes Dewey; or when my Board decides to implement a ‘new’ reform that was already discredited in California ten years prior. A number of bloggers on this site have successfully argued that the American situation does not translate well in Canada - and yet, here you dredge it up again.  BTW, this is the same Heritage Foundation that fought Clinton on health care reform and is now fighting ‘Obamacare’ - an issue we put to bed in an earlier century.  In many ways the Heritage Foundation are Amish - if it wasn’t that way when the US was founded, then they don’t want it.  Health Care and modern education are ‘hochmut’, but defense spending, now that’s good.

Mr. Wainscotting, is there anything about the video - other than its provenance - that you find problematic? Any inaccuracies? Misrepresentations?

I just watched this video.  Something crossed my mind as it was being ‘made simple’.  I couldn’t help but see the parallels to a socialist society in the analogy the video made between Districville’s grocery stores and zip-code schools. 

When the analogy was concerning groceries, it seemed just like socialism; the government provides a general service for all residents, which is organized by them and structured by them.  Unfortunately, there is limited capital so everyone gets Spam to eat, withered produce and small portions.

  I have never thought that school catchment areas within school districts are in fact the same principle as Districtville’s grocery store analogy, which is, in turn, merely state run socialism.  Am I correct in thinking that socialism could again be the conceptual flaw behind school failure? 

Here is a thought I like from Herbert Swope:

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody.