From: mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.marrou,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: School Choice (was Re: Is this a socialist county?)
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:39:06 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: gelato.mips.com

fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|> jwh@citi.umich.edu writes:
|> >fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|> >|> In article <TJZ-SwA@engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu writes:
|> >|> >In article <1992Aug6.164652.22911@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
|> >|> >
|> >|> >Every person has their own idea on what an education is.  If parents
|> >|> >of a child feel that it is in their best interest to send their child
|> >|> >to a religious school that should be their right.  
|> >|> 
|> >|> It *IS* their right.  What isn't their right is to get it paid for in
|> >|> public monies.
|> >
|> >Who exactly is the 'public'?  It consists of the individuals who 
|> >make up society.  
|> 
|> Yes, but it's not just a herd of individuals.
|> 
|> >When individuals are required to contribute funds
|> >to the 'public' treasury they still should have a say in how the
|> >money is spent, shouldn't they?  
|> 
|> Actually, not really, when you think about it.  In a representative
|> democracy (republic), the individuals get the say about who makes
|> those decisions about what gets spent where.  Each individual no more
|> can (or should) get to decide than they can decide not to pay in the
|> first place (without being penalized).
|> 
|> >All I am saying is that each taxpayer
|> >be allowed to specifically say how/where his/her education money should
|> >be spent.  
|> 
|> I understand what you are saying.  I disagree.
|> 
|> >Nobody is forced to pay for the type of education they
|> >disapprove of, whatever their reasons.  
|> 
|> In theory this might be true, but de facto I suspect it would become
|> common that people would wind up having to pay for religious education
|> that goes against their religious beliefs because that happened to be
|> the school that had the best classes or that happened to be the only
|> one around (the others having been unable to compete, pricewise,
|> because of the ability of the religious school to get cheaper
|> instructors, tax exemptions, etc.).

To further support fred, this is not true at all.  The fact is that schools
are supported by individuals and corporations.  Many of the individuals have
no children, and the corporations are not taxed based upon how many children
their employees have.

The assumption you make in support of vouchers says that the education 
system, public plus vouchers, can get along with out those that have no
children.  If I have no school age children, then I have to pay for an
education I disapprove of, be it an inefficient public system or a
very extremist religios based system, or something in between.

The fact is that I don't support schools and school bonds based upon my
direct use, but on the benefit of having an educated populace.  On that
basis, I do not feel it is in the best interest of society (the only rational
for investing in an education for someone else's child) for children to
receive educations that tell them that they are different from and better
than the child next door.  All religious schools do that, if only
indirectly (I'm going to heaven and you're not).

To meet my needs, we need to improve the quality and efficiency of our
public schools.  Much of that inefficiency is caused by our litigous
society and our election methods.  These are solvable problems, and we
can end up with children that are well educated and who have learned that
there are a lot of different, but similar and equal, types of people
in the world they will live in.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.bush:1231 alt.fan.dan-quayle:2374