From: nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle)
Subject: Re: Chelsea's school ...
Organization: Psych Department, Indiana University
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 22:47:10 GMT

mike@execu.execu.com (Mike McCants) writes:
>Nathan Engle writes:
>>IMHO before we start handing out what are essentially tax refunds for 
>>disgruntled parents

>No one ever claimed there should be any relationship between taxes
>paid and school choice money handed out.

    Perhaps, but that isn't exactly what I was claiming either. It does 
(still) seem to me that Bush's school choice plan was intended to give 
control over the spending of education dollars (some of which come out 
of my pocket) to people whose stated first intention is to take those 
dollars out of the public system so that they can redirect them into 
their own favorite private or parochial school - basically a grown-up 
equivalent of taking their baseball and going home because not everybody 
is willing to play by their rules.

>>At that point maybe it will 
>>become obvious that tax money paid for public education is not tagged for 
>>the personal use of any individual kids,

>State aid to schools is based on the number of kids attending.
>Fewer kids => less state aid.

>"Everyone" computes $4000/child ($80,000 per classroom) and says
>"we need more money".  If they had fewer kids to teach...

>If a private school closes down and their students go to public
>schools, your taxes will go up.  If a $4000 kid was given $2000
>to go to a private school, why shouldn't your taxes go down?

    Excuse me for mentioning this, but aren't you now suggesting that 
there would be some relationship between school choice dollars and 
taxes? I thought that about 4 paragraphs ago you were saying that 
nobody was claiming that such a relationship should exist.

>>enjoy benefits as a result of living in a 
>>society which provides its citizens with a basic education.

>Too bad the US does not qualify as such a society.  The US provides
>the opportunity, too bad most citizens are not interested in taking
>advantage of that opportunity.

    If they're not interested in taking advantage of the opportunity in 
public schools, why is it going to be any different when they transfer 
over to private schools? The public schools have their problems, but I 
don't think that lack of motivation or placing a low value on education 
is one of them. The values school children carry into the classroom have 
a definite tendency to reflect the values that the parents display at 
home, and I'm not convinced that unmotivated kids are going to be any 
better students in private classrooms than they are now in public ones.

>  A few dollars to allow those who
>would like to get a good education to separate themselves from
>those who are not interested might go a long way.

    I'm sure it would go a long way. I would imagine that the gap between 
public and private schools would become even more pronounced, and with the 
departure from public schools of the last students who really care I would 
imagine that the peer group values in public schools would become even 
worse than they are now. I certainly can't argue with the fact that it 
would result in change, but I'm not sure that I would call it progress.

--
Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
Psychology Department               Indiana University
nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu      nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
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