From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 04:14:11 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Oct4103250@panther.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
}I ask questions and people just say "free market."  I ask who
}will it help the most?  the least?  how do we move in the short term?
}who pays?  I get "free market."  That isn't an answer.

Actually, I don't recall you're having asked those questions yet.  The other
night I attended a meeting of ExCEL, the group that's gotten a school voucher
system on the CA ballot for 1994.  One of the most vocal supporters there was
a black lady professor of Black Studies at SF State.

The answer to your question is: Who's getting screwed the worst by the public
schools?  It ain't the teacher's unions - they're getting pay raises in inverse
proportion to the private sector (in other words, their salaries have been
going up while private sector ones have been going down), and their kids
tend not to be in the public schools.  It ain't the politicians - they send
their kids to private schools; Al Gore went to St. Albans in DC.  It's the
middle class and the poor who are getting the shortest end of the stick.

Blacks, especially.  They are dropping out the most, failing the most, they
aren't getting hired as teachers as much as anyone else.

And they have been fought tooth-and-nail to get their kids taught that they
have a racial history to be proud of.  Not perfect, not as good as others,
but respectable nonetheless.  The first part of respect for others is self-
respect, and these kids are told in many ways that they're worthless.  They
can't get a job at or above the minimum wage, so they think that their
labor is worthless unless they deal crack.  Many of them turn to crack
addiction because they're told that their misery is predestined and un-
changeable.

Black Muslims don't have these problems as much.  They believe in self-
reliance, so if they're addicted, it's their responsibility to discipline
themselves.  They get taught that they can be successful because others who
were like them have been successful in the past.

Vouchers were first promoted by Milton Friedman and other libertarians.  Then
the liberals caught on in the 1960s, but they got taken to the cleaners by
the teachers' unions, which are now the largest, biggest spending lobbying
groups in the USA.  Now businessmen have figured out that these unions have
delivered unempoyable graduates.  3 out of 5 students graduate with only a
7th-grade level education or less.  60%!  This is admitted by Albert Shanker,
head of the National Federation of Teachers, which just merged with the
National Education Association, which was already the biggest union in the
country (aside: private sector unionization is way down, while public sector
is way up).

Vouchers have worked for low-income housing assistance recipients wherever
the housing market hasn't been frozen by rent control since the early years
of the Reagan administration.

What will they do for Us education? Diversify it.  Diversify curriculum,
structure, management, teachers.  USA's public school monopoly is a stagnant
monoculture, the biggest socialist atrocity left on the face of the earth.
The Berlin Wall has fallen, but it hasn't.

It's going to.  Colorado will have a K-12 school voucher initiative on its
ballot this fall.  California will have one in 1994.  It has great chances
of passing in both states.  The Tax Revolt started in these states.  The
Term Limits movement started there, and term limitation initiative will be
on the ballot in 15 states this fall.  The opposition, the teachers' unions,
know that we'll win unless they can make the public believe that they aren't
doing that bad a job after all.

}|BTW, the only problem you have brought up so far has been lack of
}|competition in rural and inner city areas, and I believe that I have
}|responded adequately.
}
}How so?  I think that's a very big problems, don't you (given that
}this competition is the central driving engine for quality in these
}arguments, right)?  And you haven't really answered it.  And if you
}think those are the only problems I've mentioned (how do we get there
}from here?  how can people be convinced to enact it in such a way that
}any power that the system has isn't diluted?  how do we address the
}perceptions that generated the bifurcation in the first place?  how do
}we pay for transportation costs?  who sells the buildings?  etc), then
}you havn't been listening.  I've saved all my articles.  If you'd like
}I can mail them to you.

Actually, rural areas have had choice systems in place for centuries in
some areas, where it's cheaper for them to get their students schooled in
nearby towns than to build their own schools.  They don't have the sort of
problems you're concerned about.

}Another one.  I have a problem with people (ie you) who tell me I
}can't grasp basic economics just because I dont' buy assertion after
}assertion.

That's not what I've read people claiming about you.  They haven't said that
you CAN'T grasp the fundamentals of economics, but that you DON'T.

}The idea is simple (you may be able to read it in t.p.theory).  All
}anti-discrimination laws should be repealed.  Counter: this pushes
}folks out of the economic game.  Well they can build their own
}businesses and banks.  Counter:  since the banks and businesses
}discriminate, whence the capital?  Doesn't matter, the moral
}imperative of repealing the laws are more important than the
}consequences.

Counter: minorities that are discriminated against produce their own capital,
if they are permitted via the absence of regulations, barriers to entry, etc.
Asians have founded their own banks back prior to WWII, with a hostile
majority and, hence, government.

}Well, you aren't Perry Metzger, but I've been told more times than I
}care to count that poor parents shouldn't have kids if they can't
}afford to send them to school.  If you can't afford to move where the
}good schools are, then don't have kids.
}
}Would you disagree with this argument?  Was that you who said that
}about people who choose to live in rura areas or was that someone
}else?

I'd amend this position a bit.  They shouldn't have children if neither they
nor anyone else is willing to afford their schooling.  Libertarians only
oppose "publicly" financed and delivered charity.  We fully suport private
charity which, BTW, increased in real terms by unprecedented levels during
the supposed "Decade of Greed," the 1980s.

}Beyond that:  what are the best ways to pay for vouchers?

If we're going to have any taxes at all, it should be sales tax, because
they're the least intrusive, hidden, etc., although they should be abolished
and replaced by voluntary fees eventually, because they're still regressive
theft.

}Where have voucher/choice programs been enacted?  What are the
}results?  What sort of resistence did it face?  Was this a
}suburb-to-subrub magnet program (in effect)?  Was it an
}inner-city(tm)-to-inner-city(tm) magnet program?  How was it paid for?

Wisconsin, NYC... the results have been 2nd graders that could read and
understand and discuss Shakespeare, the Odyssey, graduation rates that soared
up to 98%... In Wisconsin, Black State Legislator Polly Williams had to form
a coalition with Republicans from the suburbs (she's a Democrat from the
inner-city) in order to defeat the liberals who were in the deep pockets of
the teachers' unions.  They weren't magnet programs, which haven't done much
good while still under the thumb of the teachers' unions and their pawns.
Most of the students stayed in the schools; the threat of their leaving was
enough to get the improvements.

}|Your assuming that the school that you choose will not have a busing
}|system.  Several of the private schools where I grew up had buses.
}|Mostly the bigger ones of course.
}
}Who pays?  Will the vouchers cover it?

In CA they will if the Parental Choice in Education Initiative passes.

}|I'll try again then.  The presence of vouchers make it possible for more
}|such schools to form.  
}
}Which does not refute the claim that it can't be done now.  It's
}difficult, but so what?

The point is that vouchers will make this easier for those who can't afford
it presently.  In CA, the average cost per student in the public schools is
$5200.  The proposed initiative would guarantee at least half that for
vouchers.  The average private school tuition is less than $2500.  These
are per year, both, of course.  This will have its greatest effect at the
margin, i.e., for those too poor to send their kids to private school now.

}Hmmmmm.  What would you do if it became clear that only the rich (or
}the *EXTREMELY* dedicated) ar really helped by a voucher system?
}Given the small problem of the lack of competition in rural and inner
}city areas, this remains a possibility.

For the CA initiative, this is covered by language barring present attendees
of private schools from partaking in the voucher system for 3 years.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
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