Originally Posted by
HowardRoark
Furthermore, I am also against the redistribution of wealth; when you say that someone who sends there kid to a $30,000/year prep school should NOT be allowed to get a voucher too, I consider that a redistribution of wealth.
You are turning your back on the current problem of a disgracefull distribution of educational opportunity. The stats on how poor kids are performing in and after school make us worse than a third world country. Without a redistribution of resources, nothing will change.
Originally Posted by
HowardRoark
Basically, I think every kid in the country should get a voucher worth whatever they currently receive via public education and they should be allowed to go wherever they want with that money; private, public or parochial.
This is an ideological pure approach that will make a bad situation far worse. The public schools will be choked for funds, and left to deal with ALL the students with behavior problems, the special ed kids who require $100K of staff to deal with each of the them, and the poor kids who can not afford the incidental and direct costs of getting to private schools. And the vouchers will of course raise the cost of private schools.
You started out complaining about your friends in education who tremble at introduction of competition into their business. Well, if it done in the unchecked way you advocate, it will destroy public education. How well is that Invisible Hand working in health care? 60M people have none. Your Ayn Rand Ideologically Certified approach can not work for all services that government delivers.
Originally Posted by
HowardRoark
For what it’s worth, the people who jump for joy at the prospect of this are single black mothers. And yes, this WILL bring the lowest third to a much higher level of education.....Vouchers would by far have at the biggest impact on the lowest third of society.
Empty words. Who is going to build all these wonderful private schools in the inner city? I understand on a small scale it could help a select few.
You've created a free market where the quality of education is going to be tied directly to the amount that the consumer can afford to pay, just like with automobiles.
I have been open-minded to vouchers because I know there are some conservatives who genuinely want to use market forces to improve education from top to bottom, AND they are practical about it.