From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Education (Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.)
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:53:46 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep25211132@panther.ai.mit.edu> <qdv99r8@zola.esd.sgi.com>
	<ISBELL.92Sep28161301@panther.ai.mit.edu>
	<9369@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM's message of 29 Sep 92 16:08:13 GMT

mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
|>Are you positing supermarket schools?  A school on every corner as a
|>solution?  In the interim, how would you prioritize your criterion
|>such that you rank each child to determine who goes where?  Charge
|>more?  test four year olds?  their parents?  go by proximity?

|In a word, yes.  The individual schools  get to choose where to locate,
|the school also gets to decide what selection criteria to use.
|Instead of the one size fits all schooling that we are currently using
|(which has been shown to be an abject failure).  Individual schools
|can and will experiment to find the best mix of rules and regulations
|to govern themselves.  Yes there will be some problems converting
|to a new system.  I obviously don't think the problems are as large
|as you do.  But refusing to leave a sinking ship because the water
|might be cold is not good logic either.


Maybe I'm not asking the questions right.  One of the things that
worries me is that some of the "choice"  proponents haven't really
thought this thru:  evaluate, if you don't mind, how these various
choices and approaches to the problems above will actually change the
current distribution beyond "the Free Market(tm) will just make it
work".  After ten years, will we basically have the same set of school
options with the kids who have it worse now having it worse then?
What are the short term costs?  The long term benefits?

What are the *REAL* problems with our education system.  From where do
they come?  Do vouchers, choice or whatever address all of these?
None of these? Some of these?  Does it provide us with the same system
at lower cost?  A better system for more money?  Will it in all
likelihood increase the average but widen the range?

If the end result will be a more "moral" system that isn't much better
than what we have now, then what's the point?  What is our real goal?

This is, after all, alt.politics.liberterian, not
talk.politics.theory.  As such, proponents must provide at least a
sketch of the transition plan and the likely short & long term costs.

What are they?  In the real world, why would I care to vote
libertarian if they are mroe concerned with the theory than the
practice?  Ready to accept in free market approach as an end unto
itself without worry of the impact or the methods for phasing the new
systems in?

|>How does this affect change?  Does it really force improvement of
|>other schools?  How does it address teacher quality?  Student quality?
|>Etc, etc.

|Under a market system those schools that do the best job of teaching
|kids will attract more kids and become more profitable.  Other
|schools will begin to adopt portions of the successfull schools
|program.

This is an assertion.  I don't mind it, but surely you have a more to
support it?  I'd argue that for rural America this whole system will
have no effect anyway--many areas only have one school and there's no
real profit reason to start a new one.  In the case of some inner city
neighborhoods, unless you provide for transportation costs, etc, some
of the inhabitants are "trapped" in their immediate areas.  Why would
the schools that are there be forced to improve (to take an earlier
analogy, the curent supermarkets don't bother to improve service/lower
prices because they have a captive market)?  Why would an enterprising
school-maker want to set up shop for the presumbably high short-term
costs when they can snuggle away in suburbia and charge prices above
the vouchers and have to deal with less problems?

|Those programs that work will be propogated, those that don't will
|be abandoned.
|This is how quality of all involved will go up.

I dunno, man.
--
Peace.
               "Okay, okay... let's see.  Perfect woman.  Nice face,
                great tits, great ass, good personality.  In that order."
          "Why that order?"
               "It takes friends longer to notice a bad personality."
                            - Kyle Baker, _Why I Hate Saturn_
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-

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