From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Reader's Digest on prayer: amusing, or scary?
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:28:00 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

Charles Board writes  (embedding several, mainly my original):

In article <1992Nov06.142129.7643@bnr.ca> ingrcfb@bnr.ca (Charles Board) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.164022.20975@digi.lonestar.org>, gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:
>|> bcash@crchh410.BNR.CA (Brian Cash) writes:
> 
>|> As a rule private schools, religious and secular, cost about half the amount per
>|> pupil that public schools spend.  I verified this personally while looking for
>|> a school for my daughter.  Public schools would learn to spend less if they  had
>|> to compete on an equal footing with private schools, and the quality would 
>|> improve.  It's the same thing as $90 hammers and $3,000 toilets.
>
>Why do you think so? It seems our best parallel evidence runs directly against
>this argument. Do YOU know of any public universities that spend less money and
>offer higher quality than they did before the spigot of government money was
>turned on after WW2? A voucher system would touch off a spiral of out of control
>costs similiar to the one we see in higher education. 
>
     [rest of my embedded original deleted]

This is a valid concern.  There are a number of alternatives.  One of them is to
start with partial vouchers.  Another would be to allow some degree of tax credit
to parents who send their children to private schools.  I like the idea of the
parents themselves having a substantial personal stake in their childrens' edu-
cation, so long as they don't have to pay twice.

The availability of public money always stimulates creativity in developing new
ways of getting it.  But at present a single uniform system gets it all and has
very little incentive to do anything but get more and spend it unwisely.  At 
least with a choice system the schools would have a direct bottom line responsi-
bility to the parents rather than to the system above them.  This in itself
would mitigate the excesses.

As for the universities after WWI, the spigot was not turned off but continues
to this day.  I think they are a special case.  They -- the private and public
universities and the government -- have become intertwined in a competitive race
for research and have become very negligent of their main responsibility for
teaching.  I know several professors who affirm this.  This is a separate
subject which deserves further treatment.  One example that might be very
fruitful to investigate would be the GI Bill, which was a kind of voucher
plan for WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam veterans. We could learn a lot about 
both the successes and failures of a partial voucher system from it.  

But it is valid to raise the question, how to distribute the vouchers, which
schools qualify, and how to prevent costs from getting out of hand.  I have
no question that, especially if it were done on a local community level -- i.e.
city and county government -- it would work.  But you are right to raise the
flag. Choice is not a magic bullet that will work without further thought.
It will be interesting to follow the Wisconsin and Harlem experiments to see
what they learn about this.  I think the solution will largely come with
experience.  I am all in favor of not rushing in too quickly.  But the fact
remains that the greatest spiraller of costs is a monopolistic state institu-
tion funded by public money.

So the range of possibilities would seem to be:

1. Public only (n/a See former USSR, China, Cuba for examples)
2. Public plus private with no vouchers (or tax breaks) for private
3. Public with choice among public only plus private with no vouchers
4. Public plus private with partial vouchers for private
5. Public plus private with full vouchers for private
6. Full voucher choice between public and private
7. Partial voucher choice between public and private
8. No tax based funding for public or private schools (a or n/a?)

I realize this is getting away from religion/atheism into the realms of
politics and education per se.  But it is refreshing to deal with practi-
cal matters for a change.

Sincerely,
Gerry Palo