From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: =>School Vouchers (Amendment 7)<=
Organization: eklektix - Boulder, Colorado
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 05:33:54 GMT

[I've re-flowed Richard's text so it will fit a standard window/display; I
*hope* I haven't scrambled anything in the process.]

wolniewi@boulder.Colorado.EDU (WOLNIEWICZ RICHARD H) writes:

>...It seems to me that a far more relevant analogy is the existing use of
>state and federal funds, through grants and subsidised student loans,
>used to help college students in higher education.

It's an interesting analogy, but the analogy actually brings into focus one
of the more unreasonable aspects of the voucher proposal.  College student
loans are granted primarily on the basis of need: if you need the money,
you should be able to get it.  The voucher system *reverses* this:  Because
a voucher will only pay (very roughly) half the cost of a private school,
you can only use the voucher if you're *not* poor.

>No-one seems to complain that all such subsidies should be reserved for public
>colleges only...

True.  There are various matters of degree involved here, and I'm not sure
they don't add up to a qualitative difference:  A loan is different from a
voucher.  The sums involved are quite different, because not everyone goes
to college.  The amount of subsidy to private colleges that actually is pure
subsidy, not loans (which must be repaid) nor research grants (which repre-
sent pay for work), is pretty small.  Public financing of private colleges
is a small fraction of what it costs them to operate.  I don't see any
similar check on the voucher system, and it looks to me like the drain on
my own pocket could be large.

Something I don't know about (and would be glad to hear) is what sort of
standards are required of private schools.  What is the "accreditation"
process, and does it work reasonably well?

>It is generally believed that it is beneficial to our society that people
>receive a college education, regardless of its source and regardless of
>that person's financial status.  It is hard to see how the goal of providing
>quality education to students would be improved if all public assistance
>was reserved for students at public universities...

But to a good approximation, most low-income students *do* end up at public
universities.  It doesn't seem to have hurt too much.

>...Instead, this would grant a
>monopoly of sorts to public universities (for low income students), which would
>make the less efficient, and would reserve the remaining private institutions,
>which would be fewer, for the wealthy.

I can't see any evidence for this.  (I don't mean it doesn't exist; I mean
I can't see it.)  What is sacred about competition?  Why is it less
efficient to focus funds on public universities?  (Note that universities
tend to be large compared to K-12 schools.  One reason is that there are
economies and benefits in scale, from the "academic community" to the
effective use of costly equipment.)

>Recently in Boulder those of us who are parents have had a clear
>illustration that a government institution with a mandated monopoly has
>no need to listen to the concerns of the people it serves.  Thousands of
>parents in Boulder signed a petition expressing concern over some district
>wide changes that will influence academics, and those concerns have
>essentially been ignored.  And why not?  The Boulder Valley
>School District has nothing to lose by alienating parents...

While I'm on Richard's side regarding the changes, I think BVSD *has* a
lot to lose...and I think the battle is far from over.  The school district
did itself a lot of damage, and right now there's only a momentary lull.

>...Vouchers would provide a solid reason for a public school system to
>listen to the concerns of the people it serves, for the simple reason
>that its budget might be adversly affected if it does not...

Two concerns here:  First, it's hard to use vouchers on a time scale that
will make school districts listen.  People can't just leave on the spot;
there must be private schools for them to choose instead, and you can't
build/staff a school over the summer.  (If rapid flux *were* possible, it
would only make planning a lot harder and cost us more in waste in the
school system...but fortunately the changes will be slow.)  But my more
serious concern is that the school system won't so much "listen" as
"pander".  There's nothing that says we can't hold their feet to the fire
right now, without a voucher system.

>...Ultimately, competition in K-12 education will help focus the attention
>of all K-12 schools on the concerns of the parents and children, which
>primarily involve academic quality...

Again, I can't see any evidence of the value of "competition".  It's a nice
word, but what I see instead is splintering of resources and duplication of
effort.

I don't object to people experimenting with private schools.  I object to
spending *my* money on the experiment, the same way I object to the middle-
school idea (massive expenditure just to relabel things and move students
around).  I also can't see the point of a new approach, untried on the
scale proposed by the voucher system, instead of simply trying to fix
something that *did* work in the recent past.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
   ...Never offend with style when you can offend with substance.
Newsgroups: co.politics