From: borden@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Dave Borden)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: The New Education President
Date: 12 Jan 93 16:59:25 GMT
Reply-To: borden@m5.harvard.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA

In article <1993Jan11.194142.8067@kadsma.kodak.com> pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:

>So far, what I've seen of the Republican voucher policy states that we should
>have vouchers that allow the parent to apply the voucher to any form of
>education whatsoever, including private schools of either the religious
>or non-religious variety, or even to home schooling.

>My question is: why stop there? Why should there be a school tax or
>voucher system of any kind? Why not just forget the whole thing and let
>parents use their money to buy their kids an education on the open market,
>without the involvement of any taxing authority?

>Maybe what we have here is an idea (universal public education) whose
>idea has come and gone. After all, the social and economic context today
>is wildly different from the period in which mandatory public education
>was first enacted.

>Some might object that the best schools will still be the most expensive,
>and that there will be talented students who will be excluded from the
>best schools simply because their parents can't pay. I can only suggest
>that we've managed to deal with this problem where post-secondary
>education is concerned (i.e., scholarships, loans, etc.). Why couldn't
>the same ideas work at the lower grades?

This is the obvious conservative/libertarian approach.  But the rest of us
feel that rich and poor alike should be provided with a good basic education,
and that nothing should stand in the way of it.  The idea of scholarships and
loans is not necessarily a bad one, but try to explain that to every poor
family in the ghetto.  Even if the money is available, it's a challenge, at
least psychologically, to go and get it.  A good friend of mine from high
school, from a lower-middle class black family in a New Jersey suburb of New
York city, told me during college that his younger sister was doing really
well in school, that she was involved in all sorts of activities, and that
Princeton (my college as well) would be her first choice school.  But, Princeton
costs so much money and there was no way they could possibly get that kind of
money to send her.  I tried to explain to him that money would be no object to
a young black woman who has been admitted to a school like that, that Princeton
wanted people like her and would make sure she would be financially able to
attend, that my family didn't have very much money either and it wasn't a
problem.  He just couldn't believe it, and it sounded like she wasn't going to
apply.  Now, Princeton is one of the most expensive schools, but the same sort
of thing applies even to less expensive schools - a lot of people will simply
be daunted by the cost, and coming from a background in which they have been
denied opportunity, will not believe that it is possible to work it out.

Also, the current scholarship and loan system often leaves out people who are
in between - a lot of people are over the income limit and don't qualify for
loans or scholarships, but are not affluent enough to come up with the money
themselves.  A voucher system is much simpler - everyone would get one, rich or
poor.  Many private schools would come into existence that would accept a
voucher with no additional payment from anyone who had one; there would be no
financial or psychological obstacles to seeking a good education.  I don't
object that the best schools would still be the most expensive, because that's
always going to be the case.  But a voucher system in which the vouchers are
sufficient to cover the cost of a good education, say $4000 or so, would
enable everyone to get that good education, and many more people to get a top-
notch education than are able to now.

The drawback of such vouchers is that they would not induce price competition,
only quality competition.  That is, schools would strive to provide the best
or most attractive education possible, but would always charge the full amount
of the voucher, never less.  Still, the savings over the current system would
be very significant, and the increase in quality of result could potentially
be enormous.  Your idea of scrapping the universal education requirement and
taxation element entirely has no political feasibility at all in the near
future or even probably during our lifetimes.  I think a voucher system is a
good compromise between the liberal ideal of universal public education and
the conservative ideal of free choice.

  - Dave Borden
    borden@m5.harvard.edu
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