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thejtrain wrote:

frankie_the_yankee wrote:For instance, it's obvious that introducing competition into the educational system by way of vouchers that people could use for private schools would bring up the quality of education in all schools, public and private, just as competition has been such a huge benefit to every other segment of our economy for the last few hundred years. In spite of this, the Democrats proudly beat the drums to maintain the public school (virtual) monopoly while the Republicans stutter and stammer about vouchers, when they even bring up the subject at all.

Oh, man. Don't get me started on the voucher argument. I had one with an elementary school teacher who's the nicest lady in the world.... until you bring up vouchers.
It went kinda like this:

JT: I wish we could get vouchers to enable school choice.
Teacher: But with the state our schools are in we can't afford to be taking money AWAY from public schools!
JT: But vouchers would...
Teacher: We need MORE money to go to the schools, we need higher per-pupil spending!
JT: The current voucher proposal would actually INCREASE per-pupil spending in the public school for each student who used a voucher to transfer to private school.
Teacher: Huh?
JT: Currently the public schools spend about $9000 per student, right?
Teacher: Uhh.......
JT: Right. So it could be said that each student brings with him $9000 in tax money to the public school he's assigned to. The current proposal would, for each single student to transfer out to private school, give a $4500 voucher to the parent to help pay for that private school, leaving the other $4500 in tax money allocated to the same public school, even though the student no longer goes there.
Teacher: Uhh........
JT: So if you had a school with 100 students, that's $900,000 in tax money, divided among the 100 students. If 10 of them use these vouchers to go to private school, the enrollment is being reduced to 90, or by 10%, while the tax money coming in is only being reduced to $855,000, or 5%. The 90 students who remain will then be getting $9500 spent on each of them, instead of the $9000 before. So by 10 students leaving and taking only half their "spending" allocation with them, the education received by the remaining 90 should be improved, right?
Teacher: ... ... ... But, but, it'll be taking money AWAY from the schools!
JT: <shrugs and takes another swig of beer> Whatever.

Apprently this was NOT a math or business management teacher. (I hope not anyway!!)

We're talking about government jobs so we have to pay them even if they have no work to do. . . . . .

The biggest argument against vouchers is taxing people without kids and giving their tax dollars to a private company or a religion. Then there's the question if homeshoolers get to pocket the cash? A better solution is to lower school taxes and let parents spend their own money how they want.

aardwolf wrote:We're talking about government jobs so we have to pay them even if they have no work to do. . . . . .

The biggest argument against vouchers is taxing people without kids and giving their tax dollars to a private company or a religion. Then there's the question if homeshoolers get to pocket the cash?

Personally I think that particular "biggest argument" is hogwash (and I certainly don't mean to attack you aardwolf, it sounds like you're quoting a disagreement you've had with someone else). The whole point of socialized education is to pool everyone's money together and make sure all the chilluns learns 'em to read 'n' stuff, whether their parents can afford it or not. The tax money, taken from everyone whether you're in the highest or lowest tax bracket, whether you've got kids or not, whether your kids are in private school or not, whether your business hires only private-school graduates or not, is all pooled together to "make society function" through edumacatin' the rugrats - I mean, future productive members of the labor pool. Given that situation, some people are forced to give their tax money to institutions they vehemently disagree with, regardless of the efficacy & quality of the learnin' those institutions provide. To me, that sounds just as messed up as "giving their tax dollars to a private company or a religion" (and the whole "private company" part of that isn't very meaningful, given that the government contracts with private companies to get work done in just about every other facet of government spending there is, and no one complains about people's tax money being "given" to El Pollo Loco when the local IRS office orders lunch for an employee's retirement).

Kinda comes down to this: the pooling of funds amounts to a societal agreement that "we will spend $X billion on education because we should" and that's a point that's very hard to dispute (not saying it's not wrong-headed, just that in public discourse it's hard to dispute). What to do with that money and how it's apportioned is the next logical question, and as with so many other things it comes down to freedom. Do we let government say that we'll spend the same $X thousand on each kid in the same manner at the same place no matter what the situation, or do we tell parents, "here's $x thousand to spend on the education of each of your kids, and perhaps subject to government oversight like accreditation, blah blah blah, etc., spend it where you want to spend it"? If you think one-size-fits-all standardization is the best, then you'll go with the former; if you think specialization often creates a better result, then you're more likely to favor the latter. At the end of the day, when parents who choose vouchers are given a wide range of options that include public schools, secular private schools, private schools managed by religions as broad as Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Bhuddist, Taoist, etc. etc., at no point are either of these things happening:
1) private company gets a no-bid sole-source contract w/government to supply services (a bad thing which sadly happens all the time in other sectors of government spending),
2) making an "establishment of religion" or in some way choosing which religion to favor over another, leaning towards establishing a "state religion", which would be going against the 1A. If a family who paid no income tax for 2007 decides to donate their "economic stimulus" check to their church, does that mean that someone else's tax money was "given to a religion"? Yep. But it's not a breach of 1A because it wasn't a government directive to do so, it was the family's individual choice.

aardwolf wrote:A better solution is to lower school taxes and let parents spend their own money how they want.

I certainly agree that that's a better end-state to aim at, but I think vouchers are a more likely and viable half-step towards that goal than jumping right to it (in the eyes of the populace & legislature). A voucher program will put the disparity in quality in full view of the public and demonstrate that the solution you describe is necessary - a fact very few people are aware of right now, mostly because the default opinion is, "The public school system sure sucks, and it needs reform. But not MY kids' school, they're great 'cause they're a Texas Recognized school, woohoo! It's all those other schools that are the problem."

JT

HankB wrote:I'm firmly of the opinion that a lot of Republicans are liberals at heart, and really didn't like the original "Contract with America" any more than the rest of the GOP platform, and proceeded to undo the best parts of it as fast as they could. (Former senator Phil Gramm even made a speech asking in effect "Hey, WE won - why are we undoing our own platform at the behest of the Democrats?)

And when real Republicans try to take back their party, they run head-on into corrupt officials.

At the Nevada state GOP convention, the power brokers didn't like the results, so they declared the meeting recessed (without a motion, second, or vote, as required). It seems they'd rather send zero delegates to the national convention, than to let their delegates vote for the remaining candidate who took the most votes at their statewide caucus.

And at the Nueces County convention, the leaders didn't even bother gaveling down objections to an obviously rigged delegate panel, they simply ignored the howls of protest, gaveled the meeting closed, and didn't care that they were breaking the law.