From: cortez@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner)
Subject: Re: School choice: comments and questions
Keywords: School choice, comments, questions, Bush, Clinton, politics,
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 17:46:09 GMT

In article <4802@news.duke.edu> eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK) writes:
>First comments:
>A lot of people have been saying that the Bush plan to give vouchers to
>all parents to send kids to their choice of public, private, or
>parochial schools will result in a more segregated, class-oriented
>education system with the richest people getting the best teachers and
>education environment and the poorest getting the shaft.

For all of the market theory paraded by neo-conservatives, they seem to
have a little difficulty with this rather obvious analysis.
Introducing "market forces" to public education *means* providing the
quality of education commensurate with the individual's ability to pay.
That's really all there is to it, as far as market theory is concerned.

Following from that eminently predictable outcome is a situation where the
less wealthy have less access to quality education, and thus, less access
to higher-paying careers. That's what I call re-systematizing classism, because
it is an example of government action to reverse previous steps that allowed
for social mobility. Reagan and Bush have done a great deal to re-systematize
classism, one often overlooked mechanism being the national debt and interest
payments on that debt. This program would do more than everything else they
have done combined.

The increased segregation is also obvious: the substantial majority of American
blacks and hispanic people are poor. Again, this program would do more than
anything yet done by Reagan and Bush to keep them that way.

>I am a product of both private and public education (private: grades
>kindergarten-4 to 8th grade and now college; public 9th to 12th). First
>of all, the "white flight" that is being cited so often I don't believe
>will happen to the apocalyptic extent that everyone of the boo-birds say
>it will. The private school I attended had only 200 students total
>(present 300) for all ten (now 11) grade levels. I have never heard of a
>private elementary or secondary school with a student body of more than
>500 (although I could be wrong, particularly in larger cities). With the
>added monies, I don't think that these schools can accommodate every
>child whose parents wants him/her to attend, nor will they have enough
>money to expand or enlarge the school, hire new teachers, expand
>administration, etc. There are typically much more capacity for public
>schools (some of the largest can carry 2000 to my knowledge).

What an extremely strange argument. Especially in light of the fact that a
group of conservatives have stated they will build many new private schools
across America if this program is passed. Even if they're just bluffing,
why would there be no new schools? Or no expansion in the existing schools,
which would see a big influx in money from the feds if this plan were adopted?

>What will
>result is that not everyone's choices can be accomodated, but the
>selection process will be much more tighter and competitive to these
>private schools.

The problem with this theory is that there really isn't a whole lot of
basis for competitive selection of kindergartners. Even if some pretense
of selecting on the basis of academic history and perceived potential
was set up, it would obviously boil down to how expensive of an education
the child has had up to the point of application. 

>Everyone else would have to settle for their next-best
>choices. That's how I see it working.

Next-best. Nice euphemism for worst.
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