From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 30 Sep 92 20:28:47 GMT
Organization: Deep Thirteen, Gizmonics Institute

Charles L Isbell writes:
>[me:]
>|[him]:
>|>[me:]
>|>|Top ranked private schools are kind of like top ranked restaurants...
>|>| [analogy]
>|>| ... chain and franchise restaurants do branch out
>|>|regularly as they succeed.  These may not have quite the quality, nor
>|>|near the atmosphere or snob appeal of a five-star exclusive, but they
>|>|feed a hell of a lot more people.
>|>
>|>I'm tempted to make a joke about McDonald's as school system, but I
>|>won't. 
>
>|Micky Dee's has a level of customer satisfaction that most businesses
>|envy.
>
>So?  Most cocaine users are pretty happy as well.  Shall we feed our
>kids crack instead of educate them?

Spurious.  Anyone who cannot defeat this argument deserves to take it
seriously.


>|What incentive does the school have to change, now?
>
>I didn't say they did.  I'm just trying to get an idea of from where
>the market incentive to improve really comes.

It seems very clear to me... this may be a fundamental difference
between us.  Businesses of any type that are subject to a free market
must compete for customers.  They do this either by innovation,
pricing, or service.  By improving any of these items, a business will
attract customers to whom the improvement appeals.  In this way, they
effectively increase demand for their product, which yields more
money.  

The bottom line.  It works.

>|you have not answered my original point that even the
>|possibility of transfer into a better system may motivate students to
>|study -- and especially if the possibility depends on their current
>|grades/school performance.
>
>Sure I have.  The same incentive motivates students to study for
>entrance into a better college and more scholarship cash, no?

To a degree, you are right.  Any student already at a school that
offers the classes she needs to prep for college, and teachers
sufficiently competent to impart the relevant ideas, does have the
incentive.  As long as she wants to go to the level of college that
she knows she can earn scholarships at.

Take away any of the qualifications above, and I think the student
might benefit from having the chance to move to a better school.


>|Currently the teacher's union is an extremely powerful political
>|force, with enormous goodwill among the people in general (naturally).
>
>But if that's the case, then we can be happy (as we are with
>McDonald's)--the customers are satisfied (or else no good will).

There is good will towards _teachers_, not the system.  The difference
is obvious.

>Beyond that, is your assertion that privatizing or vouchering
>education will eliminate the teacher's union?

Possibly.  I suspect teachers will still want to unionize because
unions do have legitimate roles to play in the labor market.  However,
the current situation of a monolithic union versus the monolithic
state will vanish.  


>|I dunno about your home state, but in mine it was practically
>|impossible to fire a teacher; the jobs had tenure that had teeth.
>|Sexually abusing a pupil was basically the only thing heinous enough
>|to get you fired.
>
>MIT--as private school--is much the same way, once you have tenure.

As is their right.  Maybe schools under the voucher system will resort
to tenure as a job incentive, to make up for low pay.  But they will
not HAVE to.  That, in a nutshell, is what choice is about.


>Are you against mandatory schooling of kids?  I am aware that many hold
>the view that the parents ought to be able to decide that their ten
>year old doesn't need an education (either at home or in a school).
>If the answer is "no," then I'd be interested in why you'd care about
>improving the schools anyway.  If the answer is "yes" then I'd like to
>ask you what makes you think the state knows better in this respect?

I don't think school should be mandatory -- I think the value of
education speaks for itself.

I care about the schools for two main reasons.  First, I intend to
have kids someday, and I want them to have as good an education as
possible.  I believe in choice because I think my kids will be able to
outperform the average, and they will benefit the most from some sort
of accelerated schooling -- the kind of thing that current schools can
at best clumsily duplicate.

Also, I care about my country, and believe it is much better served by
educated individuals that those uneducated, in pretty much all ways --
voting choice, running businesses, forming social mores, etc


>|I reject your
>|assertion that people have true choice now in their schools.  I had
>|exactly one "choice" for my elementary school, my junior high school,
>|and my high school.  (There was one private high school around, but my
>|family could not afford it.)  How about you?
>
>You do have a choice.  Go build your own private school.  

And where do I get the capital or students?

>Get together with like minded individuals and start another.  

What if there are only a small minority of like minded individuals?
And what if the state forbids this sort of activity?

>Move.  

My school system was the best for a hundred miles around.  But it
could have still been better.

>Lie about your home address.

The state will chastise, fine, imprison, or kill you for breaking its
rules.  You shouldn't need to be a lawbreaker to get by in a just society.


>In practice what's the difference between that and the case (quite
>possible in, say, rural America) where you have vouchers and there's
>only one school in a ten mile radius (and you can't manage the drive)?
>Where's you choice then?  Build another?  Get together with like
>minded individuals and start another?  Move?

Vouchers only open up a market.  Just as expecting to have 50
restaurants in Podunk, USA is ridiculous, so is the expectation of
having much school choice there.  Choice is really a big win only
where there are population concentrations to support a diverse market.

Note, however, that even having two or three businesses competing in a
market, while not exactly the best that can be hoped for, does do a
pretty good job of keeping up product quality, even if they can keep
prices somewhat higher that a true market price.  (Picture here the
Pepsi/Coke competetion.  They try to compete on quality, not price.)


>|They won't.  But interested students could choose to go schools that
>|cater to them, thereby concentrating themselves.  Teachers might try
>|to interest uninterested students in unorthodox ways that would not
>|currently be allowed.
>
>Sure.  But--within the public school context--we actually have that
>happening now (in Atlanta).  With Magnet schools and all that, there
>is already quite a bit of choice.  You can even go to schools outside
>of your entire school system if you are willing to pay a yearly fee.

Why stop there?  Let's break down all the barriers!  Why the yearly
fee?  Isn't that discrimatory against the poor?


>|>Does the voucher, then, help the folx who seem to suffer most
>|>from our current system?
>
>|I don't know.  It is possible that making the wealth transfer more
>|explicit will only make it more likely to be cut by the short sighted
>|cretins the political system favors.  Hopefully though, people like
>|our business leaders and military leaders who need educated workers
>|will press the gummint to keep education spending high.  I think that
>|generally the support for education is good; the problem has been
>|getting the system to change flexibly.
>
>I disagree.  The public just doesn't care enough.  

Well, you and I remain divided on this one.  I think that combined
political pressure of business and military leaders (from the right)
and grassroots activists representing the poor and lower middle
classes (the left) would be pretty much unbeatable in congress.  Hell,
vouchers would basically be an entitlement program, and you know how
the middle class is about those.


>|>Whom will it help most? least?
>
>|We shall see.  Usually, it is the rich and poor, respectively.
>|However, as long as it helps the poor, it deserves support.  All of
>|our schools could use improvement, not just the poor ones.
>
>But, (to steal an earlier sarcastic analogy) given what I will call
>the SUPERMARKET EFFECT(tm), wherein the poor pay more for less quality
>& service, why would we expect it to help the poor?

Because right now we live under a system that I might analogize to the
[SUPERMARKET EFFECT(tm)]^N, for N large.  Monopolies are notorious for
bad service, high prices, unresponsiveness, etc.  Ironically, our
society will not permit monopolies in the production of relatively
unimportant goods like oil or services like the creation of telephone
connections, but we happily allow and even defend them for really
important things like education.


>I'm all for small empirical test cases.  One should not get me wrong
>on this.  But I want to hear that there's been more thought on how we
>get from here to there and a realistic view of who's going to reall be
>helped the most.

I thought the articles (about choice in NYC and Milwakee) posted here
a few days ago were pretty good in this respect.


>For example, are the vouchers paid for by state, local or federal
>taxes?  Do we regulate the schools?  How do we inspect them?  Do we
>require teacher certification?  School certification?  Will we have to
>create new govt. structures (is there a net loss or gain)?   Will we
>allow anti-discrimination laws to apply to the schools?
>
>As a universal requirement, this is different than college, I suspect.

Good questions.  I suspect that any real system getting implemented
would large amounts of regulation in order to make it politically
palatable to any number of concerned groups.  However, ideally I think
the minimum of regulation will work best.


>|>If it helps the kids who already have
>|>access to good schools, private or public, but does little for the
>|>others, what's the point?
>
>|Well, even then I would say it is a good idea.  Only if it actually
>|hurts some people while benefitting other would I say it is a bad
>|idea.  And right now, I honestly don't believe there is any further
>|down a lot of schools can get.  Get desperate.  Try choice.  Maybe
>|you'll like it.
>
>I prefer to test the waters first.  There may be sharks.

When the ship about to explode, sometimes it is best to leap before
you look.  Seriously, I would like to see large scale -- even
statewide -- implementations of choice ASAP.  A pittance here and
there in various desperate inner city systems is encouraging, but
hardly convincing as a nationwide ideal.

-Leonard
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy