From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 2 Oct 92 12:30:27 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep28232318@panther.ai.mit.edu> <60739@mimsy.umd.edu>
	<ISBELL.92Sep30094920@panther.ai.mit.edu>
	<9387@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM's message of 30 Sep 92 17:54:42 GMT

mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:

Parts of this are not really aimed at Mr Wilson.

|>|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?
|Are you claiming the McDonalds is addicting?  And strenuously reject your
|claim that most cocaine users are happy.  McDonalds makes a product that
|a lot of people like, at a cost that most people can afford.  If you
|do not like it, then don't go.  That's the beauty of choice.
|BTW, how are we supposed to take it when you denigrate people whose
|choices you disagree with.

Oh, stop it.  I've been attacked as a statist and told how I believe
this that and the other by everyone who can't seem to tell the
difference between questioning the assertion of the inherent
wonderfulness of vouchers and "defending the state" to worry about the
sensitivity of the McDonalds crowd on USENET.

Personally, I like Mickey D's.  I also like fatty foods.  I can do
that and still appreciate the irony of someone saying that vouchers
will be wonderful for education--we'll get the equivalent of
McDonald's. 

The point of my reply, for the subtle-impaired is this:  customer
satisfaction is not necessarily a function of quality.  I'd say that
most folks think they'd be more satisfied with a govt system more like
ours than Liberterian's would like--does that mean Liberterianism is
worse?  Of course not.

Jeez.

|>|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.
|That's easy, those schools that don't improve will cease to exist.
|That's plenty of motivation for most people.

This, for the last time, is an assertion.  Bad things can thrive even
in a free market.  You shouldn't pretend that they can't.  I can see
it now:  "since our candidates know they won't be reelected if they
can't solve our problems, the free market indicates that they will."

Really, I sypport choice as an idea; however, the inability of 80-90%
of the a.p.l crowd to foresee any problems with the system and to
refuse to deal with the practical matters really turns me off.

Some of you act as if your political ideology is a religion, the free
market your god, Ayn Rand your Christ and USENET your pulpit.

Again, there is a difference between "questioning vouchers" and "being
an evil statist defending the evil heretical system."  If you can't
see this, then put me in your kill file and pray to Ayn Rand for my
soul, okay?  If you can see this, then engage the questions.

|>|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).

|I don't believe that the NEA has a lot of good will.  They have a lot
|of clout and a lot of politicians are scared of them.  But that is
|not the same as having good will.  The NEA has also effectively
|used PR to get people to believe that they are actually interested
|in the children's welfare.

Well, 1) I didn't say they did, the other poster did and I just took
the assertion and ran with it and 2) PR is free market at work, so I'm
not sure what that has to do with anything.

|>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)?

|By creating more than one employer you make it more difficult for
|one union to dominate the field.  How many private school teachers are
|unionized.

I dunno.  How many auto workers are?

|>|>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."

|But you did imply that the average parent can't be trusted to make these
|decisions for themselves.  If not the parent then who?

I did not!  I just said that our choices may not improve the system.
We could force the current school system to improve if we got together
and did it.  We just don't.  "Choice" won't matter on a large scale if
parents don't demand the service or accept the "NEA PR" or can't
really move from the nearest school or whatever.

This is not the same as saying someone cannot be trusted.  It's quite
orthogonal.

|>You do have a choice.  Go build your own private school.  Get together
|>with like minded individuals and start another.

|How do you pay for this school.  With vouchers, the funding is automatic.

Again.  So?  See "economic discrimination in Liberteria" thread.

|>Move.

|Only works if you can afford a house in the appropriate neighborhood.

Now apply this to the other thread.

|Houses in good school districts usually carry a price premium.

Ibid.

|This also seems like a drastic solution for a problem that good be solved
|simply by allowing the students to choose their school.  Finally,
|what do you do if you feel that the best high school and the best grade
|school are in different districts, and you have both high school and
|grade school aged children.

Move when your child's age changes.  You should place your kids
appropriately. 

|>Lie about your
|>home address.

|Do you really believe that breaking the law is the best way around a
|beaurocratic bottle neck.

No, but it is an option.

|>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)?

|Any parent who won't get up a few minutes early to drive their kids to a
|good school probably don't care enough to get the kids to the best
|school anyway.

You assume they have a car.  Oh and from my mother, who was working
three jobs and couldn't pick me up after school:  %(*&*^&*&(*!

|>Where's you choice then?  Build another?  Get together with like
|>minded individuals and start another?  Move?

|A perfectly adequate schooling can be achieved in schools with only a few
|students.  Wasn't too long ago that tutoring was normal.  With vouchers
|if you don't like the current school you can start your own.

You can do that now.

|>|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

|A good start, but it doesn't go far enough.

Of course, many think that vouchers don't either.

|>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 should the students have to pay a fee.  Their parents have already
|paid the school taxes to support the local schools.  The school should
|pass the money that would have been spent on that student to the
|school that the student chooses to go to.  (Sounds a lot like the
|voucher system doesn't it.)

Agreed.  Of course, in a voucher system you might still have to pay
more.

|>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.

|Once again you indicate a belief that the average person cannot
|be trusted to make judgements for themselves.

Here we go again.  Speaking of rational human beings bringing their
own prejudices into play to come to the wrong conclusion.

|(Actually this opinion of Congress is quite rational, unfortunate, but still
|rational.)  People like the crook who steals from others to support
|them, but the do not like the crook who steals from them to support
|others.

So you think people can't be trusted to do the right thing?

Do you see your observation having any effect on a voucher system?

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

|I have yet to see any evidence of flexibility.  Oh that reminds me, the
|magnet schools you mentioned above.  They were but in place to satisfy
|the courts desegregation requirements.  It was an attempt to avoid having
|to bus students to achieve integration.  Without the impetus of the
|desegregation lawsuits, these magnet schools would never have been started.
|IE, on their own they never would have done it.

Wrong.  The magnet schools sends Black folx to other Black schools.
Can't help it in Atlanta.  This school is a school that specializs in
Math & science.  There are others for performing arts, communication,
etc.   You're thinking of something else.  Start over.

The system came into being because enough parents demanded it.
(In fact, there were more White folx at the school I started at than
at the school where I ended up)

|>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?

|The SUPERMARKET EFFECT(tm) is a very bad analogy.  Stores in poor areas
|tend to be small and hence less efficient.  They also suffer from higher
|crime rates and have to pay more in insurance.  This means that they
|have to charge more to cover the overhead.

I'm not talking convience stores.  I'm talking huge supermarkets.  And
the numbers don't support the price changes.  I outta know.  I live in
one of those neighborhoods back home.  Driving 12 miles away I can
save a lot of money.

|>And I still want to know how we phase the program in.  Who gets
|>priority for a school the first 10 years?
|If we do it first come first serve, then we will prolong the phase in
|period.

Okay.

|If we do it by price then more people will enter the market as suppliers
|and that will shorten the phase in period.

Expand on this.

|BTW, do you honestly feel that if we can't help everybody, we shouldn't
|help anybody?

No, but I suspect we'll just help the people who need it least.  IF
that's the case, then how do we help the others?  What else must be
done?

|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?

|Why should parents worry about who attends these voluntary schools.  If a
|student causes trouble, he should be expelled.

Come on.  Why do we have White flight?  Whether parents should worry
or not, I suspect they will.  Do you disagree?

|BTW, I believe that public schools do have a role.  They serve as the
|school of last resort.  The public school will be required to take any
|student that applies.

Hmmmmm.  I'll getback to you on this.

|Why do you consider the voucher system to be more redistributionist then
|the system we already have.  The school taxes are already being collected.

I don't.  Others will.  Of course, this does move the property taxes
and divide them by the population instead of keeping them in the
neighborhoods (I think... am I wrong?).

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

|You don't get it do you.  There is a lot of incentive.  If the schools
|do not shape up, they will lose all of their students.  

There are words missing after "up" and "they".

|It takes very little
|to start a school.  All you really need is a place to meet and some textbooks.

Then, my point above about starting your own school in the current
system is conceded by you?

|These can be found in the Inner City and in rural areas.  (BTW, why are we
|capitalizing Inner City?)

Inner City(tm).  Running USENET joke.

[... gotta go, will answer the rest later ...]
--
Peace.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the
 Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals,
 we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If
 oxygen, that means we can breathe."
                -- Vice President Dan Quayle
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
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