From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Reader's Digest on prayer: amusing, or scary?
Date: 5 Nov 92 16:40:22 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

bcash@crchh410.BNR.CA (Brian Cash) writes:
>
>> Gerry Palo writes:
>
>> The best solution is to get the State out of the business of running
>> schools.  Let the parents decide which school to send their children
>> to, religious or otherwise.  If the funding for it must come from 
>> everyone (on the basis that the whole society's welfare requires that
>> all children be educated, and so even childless adults must pay their
>> share), then transfer the funds by voucher (very un PC, I know).
>
>Doesn't this concentrate education in wealthy areas?
>There are private schools.  If you want your child to 
>have a specific type of education, they can go to a private
>school.  Too expensive?  Would be in your system, too. 
>Right now I pay for public schooling.  In your system
>(the system you support, that is), I would pay NADA!
>The full burden of keeping the kids in pens would fall
>on the parents.

The contrary is true. Wealthy people can send their kids to private school in
any case and often do.  In practice the voucher system has had the most dramatic
and positive effects in poor neighborhoods and ghettos, wherever it has been
tried.  Check out Milwaukie (Polly Williams) and Harlem.  A real voucher system
would revitalize and transform our whole school system especially in the inner
cities.

I have no basic objection to no vouchers at all, as long as there are no public
schools at all.  I really believe that the vast majority of people, including
poor and lower working class people, would produce an infinitely better system
than the public schools have today.  But there is something to be said about the
whole society taking at least part of the burden of the education of its children.
I have no objection to that. Vouchers would permit general public funding of
schools and at the same time freedom of choice.  My own preference would be 
partial vouchers, so that parents would have a little more personal stake in it.
Practically speaking, I would even accept partial vouchers while letting
the public schools continue as before. The validity of the principle would
demonstrate itself in short order.

As a rule private schools, religious and secular, cost about half the amount per
pupil that public schools spend.  I verified this personally while looking for
a school for my daughter.  Public schools would learn to spend less if they  had
to compete on an equal footing with private schools, and the quality would 
improve.  It's the same thing as $90 hammers and $3,000 toilets.

Your point about science being not dogmatic begs too many questions to
go into at this juncture, as does the implication that science can prove
that the Gods don't exist.

No I don't want Shinto prayers. See my previous and original postings.  If
Japan had won the war, our public schools would have Shinto prayers.  But
why can't a Shinto Japanese send his kids to a school which has them? Or
an eclectic parent send his kids to a school that has a smorgasboard of
prayers?  Or an atheist send his kids to a school that has none and positively
affirms atheism?  I'd even go along with Wiccans having their own schools.

I send my children to a Lutheran school. But if tomorrow the government
decided to make Lutheran education the standard for public schools I would
not want to send my kids to such a public school.

Sincerely,
Gerry Palo