From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 1 Oct 92 14:57:21 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep30094920@panther.ai.mit.edu> <60777@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu's message of 30 Sep 92 20:28:47 GMT

leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) writes:
|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.

Eh?  I couldn't parse that.  There's a conjuction or something
missing.  In any case, the "level of customer satisfaction" and
quality aren't necessairly dependent on one another, which is my
point.

|>|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.

...except for supermarkets.  Why not?  One possible reason is
that--for all intents and purposes--the supermarkets in the inner
cities have a captive market.  The citizens can't leave because it is
economically prohibitive.

|>|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.

Maybe I benefit from having been in a truly horrible school "in the
inner city" for a year.  The students who wanted to do well and
perceived that it was in their best interest did well anyway.  They
would have benefitted from being in another school (I know I did)
perhaps, but the motivation came from them (and the teachers responded
to it) irrespective of that option.

|>|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.

As I recall, there was an argument about the union (implying that it
was bad and a reason for the poor state of our schools).  You said
that it still had goodwil.  Taking your point on McDonald's, I noted
that they apparently had high customer satisfaction, so then their
"badness" or duplicity in the low quality of the schools seems
irrelevant (either that or your point about McDonald's is irrelevant).

|>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.

So?  If the end result is going to be the same, then why go thru the
trouble (and cost) of changing systems?  Is this a moral crusade more
than a practical one?

[...]
|>|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?

At this point, we should just go directly into the Economic
Discrimination in Liberteria thread where the Lib party suggests
removing all anti-discrimination laws, people protest that that throws
group out of the market, and they reply "go build your own banks &
restaurants".  When I say "whence the capital"?  They just argue that
it ain't relevant.

As to where you get the students, I'll provide the stock Lib answer:
"if there are no customers, then the business (by definintion) doesn't
deserve to survive.  Such is the Free Market(tm)."

|>Get together with like minded individuals and start another.  

|What if there are only a small minority of like minded individuals?

See above.

I'd be interested in a reasoned argument why this doesn't apply here
(but does everywhere else).  I suspect you don't belive that it does
apply.

|And what if the state forbids this sort of activity?

The state doesn't... or else there wouldn't be private schools, now
would there?

|>Move.  

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

So?  That might be the case even with a private school.

|>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.

They never bothered me about it.  It's like a law against spitting,
never really enforced.

|>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.

Of course.  But I wonder (aloud) how we reconcile the "trapped"
customers in the middle of a crowd (the inner city and the suburbs for
example) with the notion that it will help them.

|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.)

MMMMMhmmmm.

Let me ask you:  hypothetically, what would you say if we kept the
system as is, but managed to vastly improve education anyway?  Would
you still push for the vouchers or would you not really care?  What if
one could demonstrably show that vouchers lead to a weaker system?

I'm asking this because I'm curious about the real motivations here
(someone in emailed asked about the motivation for an opposition to
choice).

[...]
|>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?

As discriminatory as paying higher prices for a better product in a
choice system.

[...]
|>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.

I must ask the obvious question:  given your belief in all the above,
why do you think that this public pressure isn't brought to bear *now*
an improve the schools, vouchers or not?  Or would you argue that our
current fascination with the subject is exactly that?

|>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.

A valid point (if I think our current system is SE(tm)^n).

So, then, you think that a choice system will result is a bifurcation
like we have now, but with the absolute improvement being positive?

[...]
|>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.

I think I get you, but could you answer each of the questions above in
turn?  I'm interested in your responses.

[...]
|>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.  

Well, that's true unless you can stop the explosion by throwing the
bomn overboard (I wonder how long we can carry this analogy?).

|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.

You'll have to test it on a community level before you can get it on a
state level.

--
Peace.
              "If God had meant for us to vote,
               he would have given us candidates"
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-