Mike Angwin wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
RJ>After all,  they've gotta be responsible for the way they're spending o
RJ>money, right?
 MA>       That argument would most assuredly be used to exercise
 MA> control over education even in a voucher system.  Government
 MA> would, without a doubt, attempt to exercise control by various 
 MA> certification programs at least.
At least.  I'd say "will" rather than "could" in there.
 MA> Somehow, if we enact such a system, we need to create ironclad 
 MA> prohibitions against government interference in the educational 
 MA> industry.  That would be no small task to accomplish.
I don't see this happening.  What strikes me as being far more likely is that 
we'll end up with those schools that accept vouchers being subjected to more 
controls than what they have to deal with now,  and a push overall towards 
the kind of mediocrity that we're trying to get away from.
RJ>
 MA> The institutions which exist today as public schools would be 
 MA> free to continue to operate as publically held corporations if 
 MA> local communities desired to operate them as such, but their 
 MA> incomes would be whollely dependent upon the parents of 
 MA> children electing to use those institutions and the vouchers 
 MA> they obtained without the use of force to compel attendence.
RJ>I don't see this scenario as being at all likely.  What way do you see 
RJ>persuade (if not compel) governments at all sorts of local levels to go
RJ>this approach when they're now used to supporting schools from *all*
RJ>taxpayers?
 MA>         Since this is a state issue more than a federal one I 
 MA> would suggest each state will have to wrestle with this point 
 MA> individually and, of course, find some means of doing so 
 MA> without forcing federal intervention.
The point is,  we're looking at a situation where they're taking money from a 
*large* group of people,  and expecting them to cut that back to only taking 
money from those who are directly benefiting from the situation -- the 
parents.  I don't see this as being at all likely because it goes counter to 
the general trend in the way that government at all level likes to do things, 
spreading the pain across all of the citizens until they don't feel it much.
 MA> In Texas, for instance, Washington has taken over control of 
 MA> our prison system because we made it self-sufficient and felt 
 MA> prisoners ought work to support the costs of their 
 MA> incarceration. Washington disagreed and a federal judge now has 
 MA> to approve everything we do, an intolerable situation but one 
 MA> we must now live with. Nevertheless, if we being to make 
 MA> positive changes in education on a local or a state level, we 
 MA> can almost be certian we will face federal intevention. 
This is not a good thing.
 MA> Still I thing we have to try and the only way to compel 
 MA> government to loosen it's control of education is to generate 
 MA> popular support for an alternative program such as a voucher 
 MA> system. If the people of a state desire something, it can be 
 MA> accomplished.  The only question is how far Washington will go 
 MA> to suppress their will.
"Compel government" is an interesting pair of words.
RJ>Worse yet,  in some instances,  is stuff like what we have around here.
RJ>addition to the usual patchwork of local governments we also have schoo
RJ>districts that appear to have equal taxing authority,  local taxes are
RJ>almost equaled if not exceeded by the assessments from those guys...  :
 MA>       We've suffered another setback to local control of 
 MA> education, via the federal courts, here in Texas.  At presnet 
 MA> local school districts are responsible for generating their own 
 MA> tax rates and funding education with their districts.  
 MA> Washington looked at Texas and decided this system was unfair 
 MA> to poorer areas of the state, intervened, and demanded we more 
 MA> equally distribute funding.
Oh yeah,  things have to be "fair"...     :-(
 MA>  As a result, manyu districts have had to either raise local 
 MA> taxes dramatically or cut their own quality of education to
 MA> provide funds to be redistributed in accordance with federal 
 MA> guidelines.
Of course.
 MA>       What Washington has failed to take into account is the 
 MA> widely variable cost of quality education in Texas.  We have 
 MA> districts that are as urban as the most urban areas of New York 
 MA> and Los Angles, and other districts that are larger than some 
 MA> states but have fewer pupils than you and I have toes.  We have 
 MA> areas where only English is spoken, and areas where only 
 MA> Spanish is spoken.  We have a system of colonias along the Rio 
 MA> Grande that defies federal municiple organization, and we have 
 MA> three of teh ten largest cities in the United States.
 MA>       Washington's interference in education in Texas, based 
 MA> upon the understanding of social, ecconomic, and organizational 
 MA> structures that government is accustomed to, is not only 
 MA> disruptive to our way of doing things, but defies application 
 MA> to satisfaction of anyone. 
I think that the same could be said about the feds interfering in *anything*, 
when you get down to it...
email: roy.j.tellason%tanstaaf@frackit.com 
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