From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:49:20 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep28232318@panther.ai.mit.edu> <60739@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu's message of 29 Sep 92 17:50:00 GMT

leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) writes:
|Charles Isbell:
|>[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?

|>|Charles Isbell writes:
|>|>I really don't see any reason for this to happen one way or the other.
|>|>Unless you address the problem of where the kids who want to leave
|>|>some school and go to a "better" one go while they're waiting, it seems
|>|>to me that they'll just stay where they are and nothing will happen.
|>
|>|Obviously they will stay where they are, and for that year, they will
|>|be frustrated.  Meanwhile, though, things may be happening!  For
|>|instance, their parents may be down at the PTA railing about how
|>|Exclusivity High teaches calculus and has a dress code, and gets
|>|regular 1600 SATs... this may help to change the local system so that
|>|eventually, the local students don't want to leave any more.
|>
|>Why doesn't that happen now?

|It does.  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.

|>|Or, maybe the students will study harder because they know that
|>|Exclusivity High requires straight A's for a year to get in.
|>
|>Hmmmmmmm.  Given the competition for MIT, Harvard, Stanford or
|>whatever, I'm not sure why that doesn't happen now.

|Money, primarily.  Why study hard if even if you do get in (nothing
|assured here) you have no idea how you will pay for it?  College
|funding is probably a slightly separate issue from school
|vouchers/choice.

I have never paid a dime for school.  If you study hard and bust it
up, as we all know, you can get any number of scholarship and
fellowships.  Get a 1400+ on the SAT or 97%tile on the GRE.

|In any case, 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 studies to study for
entrance into a better college and more scholarship cash, no?

|>|Or maybe the students will start a petition to fire Joe Incompetent
|>
|>I dunno.  There are always complaints about teachers now.

|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).

Beyond that, is your assertion that privatizing or vouchering
education will eliminate the teacher's union (as it has the GM
worker's union, presumbably)?

|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.

|>The missing mechanism in all this, of course, is the Free Market(tm).
|>I do not take this as a magic bullet that will automagically explain
|>why all these things that can be done now, but aren't will happen
|>under the voucher system.

|It is the difference between social and individual choice, which I
|outlined in my original followup.  (Nice oxymoron there.)  Getting
|society to jointly undertake these sorts of actions in the polical
|arena is slow, cumbersome, and more often than not just ignored.

Hmmmmmmm.

|>Perhaps the McDonald's analogy has merit:  with the taste of our
|>citizens, I'm not so sure that giving them "choice" (which I think
|>they already have for many of the important things in schools) will
|>improve our system (that is the goal?).

|The old state-knows-best argument.  

I find that most annoying.  I don't think the "state knows best."  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 admit it is compelling to many
|people, especially those in government positions who want to feel
|useful.  But I think that people -- even uneducated people, even the
|underclass (nice euphemism) -- can make just as good a decision for
|themselves as the government can.  And I reject your parenthetical
|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.  Get together
with like minded individuals and start another.  Move.  Lie about your
home address.

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?

|>|>If a good school is to "expand" it must find some faculty which are
|>|>going to have to come from somewhere.
|>
|>|Sure, they are out there.  I fancy myself a good teacher, and I even
|>|like teenagers.  But I can earn $30K starting easily in the private
|>|sector.  I am not interested in being paid $15K to teach 7 classes per
|>|day of 30 uninterested students each.  That is a hell of a lot of
|>|work; if anyone doubts it, they should try it.
|>
|>Will the vouchers suddenly make them "interested students"? 

|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.

|>If not, how will we attract new teachers?

|Pay.  As I said, I suspect there are lots of people that would be
|interested in teaching if the pay were more commensurate to what they
|can get elsewhere.

Agreed.  I think you've skipped the first requirement:  different
certification procedures.

|>|I think that teacher salaries in general would rise.
|>Where will the money come from?  Will you have to charge students more
|>money?  

|Taxes, I suppose.  (Let us be realistic.  Income taxes are not
|vanishing in the forseeable future, especially with the huge deficit
|the bastards have run up on us.)  I have seen estimates on this group
|that public schools currently cost 6-9K/pupil/year, and private ones
|are less.  Anyone have a pointer on real data on this?  

Please post to the group if you get more info.

|>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.  It's like the
incumbent problem:  90% think Congress sucks, but almost as many
thinks their reps are doing a good job.

In our school system there is a great number of very good schools.
The parents there are happy.  They are not willing to help (in the
form of taxes or whatever) the schools with no surrounding tax base,
they resist (ie flee) from "them" moving in either the schools or the
neoghborhoods.  The residents inside the bad areas, hae neither the
clout nor belief in their own abilites (nor the time--my mother worked
3 jobs at many times:  a PTA meeting?) to do anything about it.

|>Is our problem more systemic than the really bad schools with gunfire?
|>Who is the real target of the vouchers?  

|The government, and the layers of useless bureaucrats that add nothing
|to education but subtract pay.  The rigidity of the system.

A worthy target, but I think the system is much more flexible than you
give it credit for.

|>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?

And I still want to know how we phase the program in.  Who gets
priority for a school the first 10 years?  Do we honestly think we can
package this so as not to scare off the suburbian voters who are more
likely to be satisfied with their educational environment?  Will they resist
the "busing" (one could easily couch vouchers in those terms) of
dangerous gang members into their schools or the "socialist
redistribution" of taxes?

|>|And even teachers could use hope.  What incentive do they currently
|>|have to think up innovative new ways to teach?  
|>
|>Love for the students?

|Hard cold cash also has its effect -- but what I was really thinking
|of as I posted that is that by changing the system so that innovative
|ideas are actually encouraged and *implemented* because they are
|innovative, you encourage people to develop them.  Why work hard on a
|new teaching method if everyone else cares naught?
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You make my point for me!  There will be little incentive to improve
the Inner City schools (or the rural schools).

|>|The point of vouchers is really choice,
|>|and that can be done without vouchers.  We could choose to pay our
|>|teachers more.  [We could choose ...]+
|>
|>|Will we?  Which, if any, of these prescriptions is correct?  The
|>|strength of the voucher idea is that it implements choice at the level
|>|where it matters: the individual student.  "Choice" at the societal
|>|level always seems to leave out the 49% in the minority.
|>
|>I see this argument, but it sort of begs the question:  does it
|>*really* in the way that matters, in the real world, empower the
|>people who are least empowered?  

|I don't know.  Let's implement it and find out!  Seriously, if the
|analogies to other market mechanisms hold valid, it does.  And if the
|timid steps that have been taken towards educational reform are an
|indication, it does.  (I am thinking of magnet schools here.)

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.

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.

|>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.












--
Peace.
                             "You get your freedom by letting your enemy know
                              that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then
                              you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it."
                                                  -- Malcolm X
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    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
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