"Tebow Bill" dies in Virginia Senate

[Va Lefty]

The bill which would allow home-schooled students to try out and participate in Varsity sports was killed in committee by a vote of 7-8.

"You knew the ground rules when you opted to home-school your kids. You made that choice and that is your choice to make," Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw told Steve Henderson of Suffolk, who home schooled two of his children.

"I understand, sir, and what I would say is, we pay our taxes, too, and there's no difficulty in taking our money," Henderson replied.

"Your taxes also purchase an F-22 jet fighter, but that doesn't give you the right to fly it," Saslaw shot back.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/14/3234477/va-senate-panel-sacks-tebow-bill.html

[stlsaxman]

1. WHAM-O!!!

[NutmegYankee]

2. BOOM! Nice comeback. Nt

[frylock]

18. that was well played.

[NutmegYankee]

29. Indeed it was! nt

[Drunken Irishman]

3. That last quote is awesome.

[Johonny]

4. Ironically Tim Tebow couldn't fly the Jets either

[iandhr]

5. Don't remind me.

[Hard Assets]

7. At least Tebow's getting his ass thrown out of the Jets

Right?

Cutting him loose would be the only kindest thing for the Jets. Seriously.

Let him play for Montreal Alouettes. I hear they're in need of an idiotic QB for an idiotic HC they just hired.

[iandhr]

8. Yup

[davidpdx]

31. I send my advanced condolences to whichever team is unlucky enough to end up with him

[Brother Buzz]

10. Ouch!

[bigwillq]

11. BWAH!

[arely staircase]

13. rim shot, sim shot

crash!

[frylock]

24. beautiful

[fishwax]

43. hehe

[uponit7771]

58. +1

[avebury]

6. Great comeback! nt

[AsahinaKimi]

33. This!

[obxhead]

9. Excellent

I hope we also continue to strike down the voucher programs that would give tax breaks to private school children.

If you want to send your children to private school that's fine, it is a choice you can make. You shouldn't get a tax break for it.

[Heather MC]

12. Why not if they are not using the public school system.

Last edited Fri Feb 15, 2013, 05:06 PM - Edit history (1)

For the record my boys r in public school. my county has a great public school system

[FSogol]

14. Because a public school system promotes the public good. A private school system

only benefits the rich.

[elehhhhna]

30. not so fast,

i'm not rich and my kids a junior in a private sober highschool. she's been in recovery for 2 years.

we get partial scholarship but it's not cheap. some kids are on full scholarships and their families are not even middleclass - they're in jail, actually, but that's another story...

sober highschools for kids in recovery. a worthy private school niche. sadly there are only 3 or so in the country.

[FSogol]

40. not so fast. Don't you think that's a special case and

not representative to the general statement I was making? I don't have a problem with private schools, I was making the case for a public school system. Best wishes for you junior.

[obxhead]

15. I dont' have kids at all.

I don't have any children. Should I get a tax break since I'm not using the public schools either?

Our taxes go towards all kinds of programs that we don't utilize or agree with. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fund them.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of programs that I don't use. That doesn't mean I shouldn't help those people that do use them.

[The Wizard]

25. And a desirable school system

increases property values.

[Lochloosa]

19. Another reason would be the problem of "recruiting" the best players.

Which HS would they play for? The one in their district, or the "powerhouse" HS football team.

It would open a big can of worms.

[arely staircase]

21. oh yeah

eom

[obamanut2012]

27. That's why they want this, to get college scholarships

By playing for the powerhouse prep teams. Taking a team position from an actual student of said high school.

Boo effing hoo.

[midwest irish]

74. online school

A school district near me has the best (no hyperbole) wrestling program in the country. They constantly win the state title in several weight divisions. Its a real-life brick-and-mortar school, but they have a program where you can attend the school online and it counts the same as living in the district, thus you can play sports there. So premier wrestlers who live hours away (not in a district that borders this school's) enroll in this school via the online program and just show up for practices. They can and do recruit.

[arely staircase]

20. because they benefit from it nevertheless

by living in an educated society.

if home schoolers are exempted, why not exempt everyone without a school age kid? the answer is we wouldn't have public schools

[Heather MC]

22. ok thanks

[obamanut2012]

26. Should I get a tax break never having had any kids?

[Heather MC]

44. i remember being single no kids no mortgage

tax wise i was skrewed. i had no deductions to claim except charities. Maybe single people could an extra tax break.

[obamanut2012]

47. Should people without kids get a tax braek?

Yes or no?

[Heather MC]

50. look i am not going to start calling my congress man on this issue

i am just saying single people with no kids, no home, are at the bottom of the tax totem pole when it comes to tax breaks. Now I solved my personal situation by purchasing a home 23. boom tax break heaven.

In the interest of not having another DUer go off on me for thinking out loud i don't care either way.

[kestrel91316]

54. Bully for you - just up and bought a house to help your tax situation.

Do you realize how many hard working single Americans can't simply do that, either because they can't possibly make enough money to pay a mortgage, or don't have a prayer of saving up a down payment? Do you have ANY idea what housing costs in some parts of the country??

[Heather MC]

55. Ok so do you think single people deserve a tax break?

i bought my house in the 90's before all hayle broke lose in the housing market. There is no way i could pull that off in today's market with the meger salary i had back then.

[Gormy Cuss]

59. You had no deductions because the tax code is designed to favor those with children.

You weren't screwed, you were paying at a rate appropriate for your income.

[sendero]

65. And those children....

.... will contribute a lot of money to the economy. And they cost WAY more than the piddly tax breaks are worth.

People who bitch about taxes because they don't have kids are clueless.

[Gormy Cuss]

75. They'll contribute the most if they are educated

and that's one of the reasons public education is funded by taxpayers. If we paid taxes on a cafeteria plan the social inequities in this country would become so great that revolution would be likely.

[randome]

70. I gave you a heart for the inevitable embarrassment that will occur...

...when you realize you misspelled 'public'.

[Heather MC]

85. lol i always do guess i perfer the other word more

Thanks for the heart!

[frylock]

16. good..

start up your own league.

[alp227]

35. Funny how conservatives politicize personal responsibility.

They slam poor people who dare buy a snicker bar with ebt card or public schools that offer ESL to immigrant kids but demand taxpayer funded vouchers to send THEIR special little angels to Creationist Theological Indoctrination High or let their home schooled kids leech off actual school (public OR private) extra curricular programs.

Simple. if you want your kid to play, kid HAS to be student, even if some classes may be too "ANTI CHRISTIAN" for your family's hyper delicate beliefs.

I got to send this story to Mike Malloy.

[frylock]

45. or introduce legislation to prevent sharia law while wanting to impose their christian version..

of the same type of oppression. really wants to make you smack them upside the head and ask "what the fuck are you thinking?!!"

[Blue_Tires]

79. They don't even need a league...

There are dozens of youth/amateur athletics programs in every community...

Not only that, but if this became law it would have been ripe for maximum exploitation/abuse from day one...

[MissMarple]

17. I can't agree.

Some home schooled children do take classes in public school. They should be allowed to particpate in sports and clubs if they are enrolled. Home schooling is appropriate and desirable for many children. I want the best for all of our children. Coming in just for varsity extracurricular sports should be left up to the school. Individual differences must be considered. I am a former educator and have a masters in special education. Our focus should be on what is best for the child. I just wish we were better at that. Peace.

[alp227]

36. In that case the student IS enrolled at the school.

My view is that extracurricular activities should be open to students only, depending on how admins define who is and not. Students in distance learning/ alt programs should be allowed too. But not if student get education exclusively from non school resources.

[MissMarple]

42. In most cases, I would agree.

[obamanut2012]

23. GOOD

[RB TexLa]

28. Here in DFW there is a home school sports program that participates in the private school league

If the private school leagues want to allow these programs they can have an avenue where the students can participate in interscholastic sports.

[WoodyM90]

32. Should they also be allowed

to run for class president or homecoming queen?

[southernyankeebelle]

34. Why is there so much dislike for Tebow? I don't know much about football anymore but

if he won the big college trophy at the end of the year he must be a good player. Just wondering. It seems even players don't care for him.

[Egalitarian Thug]

37. It has a lot to do with the fact that he is a self righteous, self promoting,

not-good-enough-for-the-pros entirely manufactured phenom that has only gathered such notoriety as he has because he promotes a huge confidence scheme masquerading as religion.

[southernyankeebelle]

38. Well now I get that. I always thought he was all show and nothing else. I alway

thought God wanted us to pray and not be a show off in private.

[Logical]

46. I am an atheist and think religion is a joke but tebow to me has never....

Been anything but a nice guy. Polite, does volunteer work, charity work and really nice to fans. I will take 100 of him for every hotdog arrogant bar hopping athlete who gets DUIs and arrested.

[Egalitarian Thug]

49. Nice enough, but was never good enough.

He's not some monster or anything, but his greatest talent has always been self-promotion. Michael Vick, though I despise him without reservation, is and always has been much better than Tebow at everything on the field. Tebow got pass after pass because he is white and born again. Not good enough on the ground to be a running back, not good enough in the air to be a quarterback. But he got the press because of his PR.

[Sissyk]

63. +1

The sports media couldn't stop talking about him. Looking under every stone, listening to every word, just waiting for him to say something disrespectful so they could talk about it for a week. lol!

He hasn't murdered any one. He hasn't been a drunk driver that killed someone. He hasn't shot his leg or dick off. Just a polite, nice guy.

But, he can't play NFL QB. And as a long time Tennessee Vols fan, I didn't like him at Florida either! lol

[alp227]

39. Great college career, mediocre pro career despite high expectations.

Or his excessive christianity? Right now Review seems to be another Rob Johnson one-season (2011) wonder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tebow#Professional_career

[southernyankeebelle]

41. I am so out of the game of football. I refuse to watch the game anymore. I don't

even know who Rob Johnson is. I lost interest when the Baltimore Colts left Baltimore under darkness and I stopped watching after that. I like the Redskins for awhile but just fell off watching them. The Baltimore Colts were such a great team when Johnny Unitas played.

[LibertyLover]

52. Give the Baltimore Ravens a try -

they are a good team and have done much in Baltimore to ease the hurt of the Colts leaving town in the middle of the night. Not only that, but as a team and as individual players, they are very active in the community. And they have Brendon Ayanbadejo who is not afraid to speak out in favor of marriage equality and anti-bullying. This past season one of our idiot Maryland state legislators wrote a letter to the owner of the team, Steve Bishotti, on legislative letterhead, demanding that Bishotti silence Ayanbadejo. Not only did Bishotti decline to do so, quite forcefully too, but he encouraged Ayanbadejo to keep speaking out.

[southernyankeebelle]

61. Oh am sure they do good things. I'm just so disappointed with sports in general.

These people play a game they aren't Gods. I mean even the Olympics has become so disappointing.

[LibertyLover]

71. True dat!

n/t

[GoneOffShore]

56. In fact give all the Baltimore sports teams a try.

Was down from Philadelphia in Baltimore auditioning Oriole's fans for MASN (Maryland Area Sports Network) and they are the most enthusiastic, fun people around. They are disappointed when the Birds lose, but over the moon if they beat the Yankees just once a season. Philly fans would be grouchy if the Phillies took the World Series, the Sixers won the NBA, the Flyers got the Stanley Cup and the Eagles beat Dallas in the Superbowl and took every other award out there in one year.
"Bunch of chokers, they'll lose next time."

[southernyankeebelle]

60. This all sounds greek to me. Sorry, LOL. I'm lost that livin feeling for sports of any

kind. It has become so disappointing. Nothing but money making machine.

[GoneOffShore]

68. Totally agree - I don't even follow Nottingham City any more.

But living in Philly we're constantly surrounded with the all the sport nonsense so some of it is picked up by osmosis.

If I'm at someone's house and they have it on I might watch. Or I'll watch the Tour de France when that's running.

And if I want to nap, a golf match is ideal.

The rest of it is bread and circuses.

And as far as sport in schools is concerned my feeling is that it should be intramural and informal only. No team uniforms, nothing hyper organized - just kids kicking or throwing a ball around.

Athletic departments take way too much money away from actually educating kids.

And by education I mean to think critically and skeptically.

[southernyankeebelle]

73. I totally agree with you on the athletic departments getting and taking away from real

education of kids. Why don't they concentrate on science, math and vocational classes. Oh yes, golf is the best nap taking program on.

[GoneOffShore]

78. I'm all for the math and science but

without literature and art we would all end up engineers.

And some of us aren't cut out for that.

[mnmoderatedem]

62. Truthfully, Tebow wasn't even a one year wonder

Time and time again, he would play mediocre football for 95% of the game, and pull it out a win with one drive in the end. The Broncos defense kept him in the game over and over and over, and the media would focus solely on Tebow and ignore that the Broncos defense repeatedly carried the day. Which is why you heard the behind the scenes grumblings from Broncos players disparaging Tebow. I don't blame them, it would piss me off as well.

One decent performance in a playoff victory over Pittsburgh, and the media acts as if he's Unitas Montana and Brady rolled into one. Follows it up with a mediocre playoff loss to the Patriots and the media completely ignores it.

To say Tebow was a media creation is the sports understatment of the century.

[Dawgs]

82. The expectations for his pro career were VERY LOW. His mechanics were and are terrible.

Your right about everything else.

[liberal_at_heart]

48. it's not just christian fundies who home school

I think with Race to the Top we're going to see more and more democrats homeschooling. Do we really want to deny kids the chance to participate in social events at public schools because they are home schooled? We all pay taxes, so whether we put our kids in public school or home school them the taxes are paid. It's not like people would be using a service they aren't paying for. I'm struggling with this very issue right now. Trying to decide if I should home school, put my son in private school, leave him in public school, or maybe a combination of them. I will not wait around for politicians democrats included who are not interested in properly funding public schools. My son will get a good education, no matter what I have to do to make it happen. Kids should have all the opportunities we can give them. We should not punish them because the adults believe something we don't believe or because some chose to home school when public school has failed them. The kids should always be the priority. Anything else is just petty, and that is doing a disservice to the kids.

[riqster]

51. Every student who does not attend a public school helps cause that school to fail

Because schools get funding from multiple streams, and many of them depend on the number of students enrolled. So when parents home-school their children, or place them in private schools, the public schools take a huge financial hit.

It's even worse when the money is taken from the public schools and handed to private schools that are not held to the same standards as are the public entities.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: by starving public schools of the resources they need to excel, the parents ensure a lack of excellence at those public schools they are helping to destroy. And instead of acting like fellow citizens if a democracy, they act like it is only their individual interests that matter.

It is a sad day indeed, when even self-professed liberals are willing to use the same selfish arguments as the Right, and to cause the same sort of harm to our society.

[GoneOffShore]

57. Thank you for that very cogent analysis.

I've been saying this for years.

We must have "good, great public spaces": i.e. Education, Healthcare, Transportation, Parks, Theatre for a civil society to flourish.

Public schools are where citizens are nurtured to make a better society, not just a consumer society.

Except in very specific and extraordinary cases I am against home schooling. It helps to destroy the public system.

One would think that if one has the energy to home school ones child, one has the energy to help make the public system better.

[liberal_at_heart]

64. so am I just suppose to let the school district use my kid so they can have good

statistics? I don't think so. My kid is not a statistic. They are forcing my special education child who cognitively is a at a 5th/6th grade math level to take a 8th grade math curriculum. He is failing both math and science. The science classroom is too fast, too crowded, and too chaotic for my autistic son. I'm just suppose to bend over and say thank you sir give me another? I don't think so. Just like millions of other parents I will do whatever I have to do to make sure my kid gets a good education.There sure seems to be an awful lot of democrats who care about the majority of kids but you put a case of an individual kid in front of them and they just expect parents to sacrifice their child to the public school alter. Not this parent.

[riqster]

66. I understand that individual students have individual needs

Having a fair few kids of my own, believe me I get it.

So, where are you going to take your child? And who will pay for that education? How accountable will that provider be?

Too many parents see a need to take their child AWAY from a situation, instead of taking them TO a better situation.

When I was in a similar situation, I had no alternative to the public school system. And I made myself such an expertly painful thorn in their collective paw, they provided the services required.

The law is on your side IF you stay in th public sphere and fight your case. When you go private, you're pretty much left to your own devices.

There, an argument for the individual, since the community is not important to you.

[GoneOffShore]

69. Well done again.

[liberal_at_heart]

80. you can think whatever you want of me. I don't care.

I have seen threads on this site where dozens and dozens of other parents have admitted to either home schooling or putting their kids in private school when the public school failed their children. That is very reassuring for me. I will know what the right thing to do for my own kid is and that is what I will do. I have fought the school district. I didn't work. My school district has a policy that every 8th grade student must take 8th grade math regardless of cognitive ability. I have tried to fight it. I lost. Hell, the courts can't even get our state government to properly fund our state let alone one school district to properly take care of one student. My state has been found in violation of its own state constitution for not fully funding k-12 public school education. Have they done anything to fix the fact that they are in violation of their own state constitution? No. Will I continue to fight so that future generations have a better public school system? Yes I will. But my kid can't wait years for court decisions. He needs the proper learning enviornment right now and I will make sure he gets it.

[riqster]

81. Lucky for you to have resources and options

Lots of us don't. We have to keep our kids in public schools, and lack your ability to run away from the problem.

On edit: the fact that I had to keep my kids in public schools turned out to be a blessing in retrospect: that school system is now a better place for lots of other kids, not just mine.

[liberal_at_heart]

84. My husband is on disability and we have a $925/month health insurance premium

I wouldn't exactly say we're in the lap of luxury. In fact, I just took up coupoing. But I tell you what, I would give up my insurance. I would give up every indulgence and necessesity if it meant getting my kid the education he needs and deserves.

[riqster]

86. As would we all

The question is how to do it. I suggest a news campaign, easier now than it was then. That is what broke it loose for us? Public Shaming of the school and the district.

[obamanut2012]

67. this

[liberal_at_heart]

83. maybe tying state and federal dollars to enrollment is a bad idea.

That is probably what is preventing us from creating smaller class sizes.

[HappyMe]

53. Good.

That's the best comeback line ever.

[Baitball Blogger]

72. They allowed it in Florida.

[calimary]

76. FABULOUS retort! That goes into my quotes collection!

"Your taxes also purchase an F-22 jet fighter, but that doesn't give you the right to fly it," Saslaw shot back.

BEAUTIFUL!

See, THIS is what we need to do. Clamp a big ball 'n' chain around their ankles and hobble them completely. And that ball 'n' chain is something I'm sure they won't recognize or find familiar: THE REAL-WORLD TRUTH.

They've drunk so much of the CON-artists' Kool-aid that's been force-fed to them for at least three decades by now that they're incapable of rational thought. And they need to be reminded CONSTANTLY about how things really are. There is NO pie-in-the-sky. You will NOT magically become rich by continuing to vote republi-CON. There is NO "liberal media" (although there is INDEED CON-crackpot media GALORE). The study and pursuit of science is NO evil plot to negate the Bible. There is NO sinister black-helicopter plot to come and snatch their guns. There is NO "New World Order" or any such thing (except in the minds of the paranoiacs and other assorted berzerkos). The UN isn't some diabolical plot. And the "evil" intrusive gummnt doesn't exist - except the one of THEIR OWN design and creation that's pretty damn suppressive of minorities and women and the poor.

[legaleagle_45]

77. "Your taxes also purchase an F-22 jet fighter, but that doesn't give you the right to fly it,"

Dang, might have been fun.