From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: pro-choice and school vouchers
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc 
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:06:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.074558.12818@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
becka@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rebecca Lynn Sparling) writes:

|>In article <casivils.727566210@node_508ba> casivils@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov
|>(craig sivils) writes:
|>>Tit for Tat,
|>>
|>>Why are so many people who claim to be "pro-choice" against the right of 
|>>an individual to use public money for their children to attend the school 
|>>private or public of their choice.
|>>
|>>                                Craig
|>
|>'Fraid I can't give you statistics on this (just deal with it, DODIE)
|>but I'm pretty sure that California spends more per student to get
|>shot at and ignored in public school than my parents paid for a *wonderful*
|>private education... (my high school must have been doing something
|>right that the huge bureaucracy they call the "State Government"
|>wasn't) I don't know how this compares to other states 'cause I've
|>never lived anywhere else, but I wouldn't be surprised if the stats
|>were similar...
|>becka
|>-- 

In what way can opposition to government subsidy of private education be termed
"denying choice". If you can afford it you can make the choice, if you can't you
don't get to make the choice. Unless you are a socialist that is the ideal
society.

If like me you are a socialist then you have to separate out two sets of
issues:-

	1) Is there a role for non state provided education

	2) Should the state subsidize education which requires the parent to pay for
it.

If it is a case that a school is popular with the parents and it is cheaper for
the state to buy education from it as opposed to providing education itself then
provided other criteria are met there is no reasonable objection provided that
the education is provided free.

The problem comes when an area has more schools than are needed, is the state
going to be required to keep all the schools open indefinitely at half capacity
or should it be allowed to rationalize. This ultimately is a question of whether
people want to pay higher taxes to run schools inefficiently.

If the parent is going to have to pay extra for the schooling then it is not
acceptable for the state to provide a subsidy. Such a subsidy could only
advantage people rich enough to afford to excercise it. Since the sole
justification for subsidy within a capitalist or mixed ecconomy is to enable the
socialy disadvantaged access to rights which would otherwise be denied them it
does not make sense to subsidise the rich.

The intermediate position and hold that a voucher or subsidy scheme should be
means tested etc so that the poorest families get free education and the richest
ones get no subsidy at all although prima facie fair is in fact no more than an
extension of the tax scheme. The question is whether rich people with school age
children should pay more tax than those without school age children. This is the
opposite of what most people consider to be desirable since in general people
prefer to get a tax break during the most costly period of their lives, ie when
they have children, and pay it back when their expenses are lower.

All in all the school vouchers issue boils down to "is this a sensible way to
spend tax dollars". If the US people want to pay additional taxes to pay for a
voucher scheme then fair enough. However if there is additional money avaliable
in the ecconomy for the state to appropriate it would seem that providing an
adequate health care service would be a higher priority.


--

Phill Hallam-Baker