Mike Angwin wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
RJ>I don't see this happening.  What strikes me as being far more likely i
RJ>that we'll end up with those schools that accept vouchers being subject
RJ>more controls than what they have to deal with now,  and a push overall
RJ>towards the kind of mediocrity that we're trying to get away from.
 MA>        Ah but the power of the private sector may be being 
 MA> underestimated here.  Under the present system of direct 
 MA> control and operation of schools government influence is 
 MA> everything.  If we went to a competitive voucher system little 
 MA> schools would sping up all over the place and the sheer number 
 MA> would defy such tight control by government.
"Little" becomes less practical as the administrative overhead increases,  
and as long as any of them are taking government funds,  or involved in 
government programs,  the burden of paperwork will increase to the point 
where those who are good at that sort of thing will tend to survive better.
For an example of this look to the program algor is pushing to get internet 
into the schools.  The subsidy amount somehow or other got tied in to the 
degree of participation of the schools in the _free lunch program_!
 MA>     Somehow, we have to find a menas to extract government from 
 MA> education.  It's like cutting out a cancer that has spead 
 MA> throught he entire body, but if the patient is to survive it 
 MA> has to be removed.
Not just from education,  but from a great many other aspects of our lives,  
too.
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>       Unlike most Libertarians I am not opposed to the concept 
 MA> of universal support for education.  We were all, at one time 
 MA> or another, given the benifit of an education ourselves and we 
 MA> all, directly or indirectly, benifit greatly from having an 
 MA> educated population.  Still, we need to develope a means by 
 MA> which we can all contribute to the education of future 
 MA> generations without submitting to government control of 
 MA> education as a characteristic of that means.  Somehow we need o 
 MA> develope and implement a doctrine of separation between 
 MA> education and state, a formidable task.
Yep!
RJ>The point is,  we're looking at a situation where they're taking money 
RJ>a *large* group of people,  and expecting them to cut that back to only
RJ>taking money from those who are directly benefiting from the situation 
RJ>the parents.  I don't see this as being at all likely because it goes
RJ>counter to the general trend in the way that government at all level li
RJ>to do things, spreading the pain across all of the citizens until they 
RJ>feel it much.
 MA>          I think it a bit idealistic to assume that parents 
 MA> themselves can, or should, bear the full weight of the cost of 
 MA> their children's educations.  Philosophically, of course, that 
 MA> would be the perfect solution, but in practical terms I just do 
 MA> not see this as a feasible option.  The result, if we did this, 
 MA> would be millions of children obtaining no education at all and 
 MA> the long term social ramifications, which would be increasing 
 MA> crime, lack of skilled workers, deepening social divisions, and 
 MA> potentially destabilization of the democratic process itself 
 MA> would be self destructive costing us far, far, more than we 
 MA> could hope to gain.
Sure.  But any other solution whatever is going to need something along the 
lines of what we've got now,  a tax structure or whatever you care to call it 
that requires *all* to subsidize the process.
 MA>          We generally agree we have a shared responsibility for 
 MA> defense becuase we all mutually benifit from being able to 
 MA> defend ourselves from foreign agression.
I don't see most of what's being spent in that area as being actually applied 
towards defense,  though.  Do you?
 MA> We generally agree that we have a shared rsponsibility for law 
 MA> enforcement, a judicial system, and a penal system, because we 
 MA> all mutually benifit from removal of threats to our own safety.
Again,  the form that this stuff seems to be taking is way beyond what one 
would think is required to do the job.  We have twenty-some-odd federal 
agencies now that have SWAT teams.  We have courts that are seriously 
clogged, to the point where someone charged with a serious offense can 
languish in jail for over a year before they come to trial (and how's that 
for making a mess out of your life,  even if you should happen to be found 
innocent?),  but those same courts are getting more and more involved in 
civil matters which no government agency really has any rights getting 
involved in...
 MA> I also believe we have a shared responsibility for the 
 MA> education of all of our young because we all mutually benifit 
 MA> from a skilled workforce and a stable democratic process.
Yep, but do we really want to continue with any sort of a government 
"solution" to the problem?
 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. 
RJ>This is not a good thing.
 MA>       No, it is not a good thing, but it does demonstrate the 
 MA> degree of intervention that Washington is willing to deploy to 
 MA> prevent states from exercising the rights accorded them by the 
 MA> Constitution.  Any good federal laywer will tell you point 
 MA> blank, state's rights died with the Civil War. Welcome to 
 MA> federalism.
That's why I spend a lot of time in the 10TH_AMD echo.   
 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.
RJ>"Compel government" is an interesting pair of words.
 MA>        In a democratic society, given ample support for a 
 MA> proposition, government can be compelled to act.  It may, as in 
 MA> the case of the Viet-Nam War, require things to go to the point 
 MA> where we are tottering on the edge of open revolution before 
 MA> government is willing to react, but we can compel this 
 MA> government to act.  It merely takes a strong enough desire on 
 MA> the part of the electorate to so compel it. 
The problem with that is that so much of the population doesn't seem to want 
to get involved,  doesn't want to be bothered.  And if that's not bad enough, 
we've got all sorts of pressures for people to act that way,  towards 
conditioning people not to get involved,  not to stick their necks out...
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>        And most of these base their taxes on property, which is 
 MA> a VERY bad way to tax people.  I still like the idea of a sales 
 MA> tax as the only form of tax allowed any governmental 
 MA> jurisdiction.  That way, each time we purchase something, we 
 MA> can see a breakdown fo the real cost of government.
I still have problem with that.
 MA>       Ideally, if a voucher system wer to be implemented, I 
 MA> would prefer funding here to be doing via a statewide sales 
 MA> tax, not a property tax.  I find all taxes to be offensive, but 
 MA> if I am going to be taxed, I want it out in the open so I can 
 MA> see exactly what I am being asked to pay.
The biggest single problem I have with it is that there's no way I can see 
that you're going to ever get something like that implemented _instead of_ 
what we have now,  it's going to end up being _in addition to_ it.
 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.
RJ>Oh yeah,  things have to be "fair"...     :-(
 MA>        You know there is something to the doctrine of fairness, 
 MA> but there is also something to allowing an individual school 
 MA> district, if such districts are allowed to continue to exist, 
 MA> to place more emphasis and a larger invenstment into the 
 MA> education of the young in a specific area.
 MA>        Consider for a moment, if you will, particular community 
 MA> and parental needs.  Does a west Texas, agriculturally based 
 MA> community, with a school district, honestly have the same 
 MA> practical needs and educational requirements than the community 
 MA> around NASA and the Johnston Spacecraft Center have?  Children 
 MA> often follow int he footsteps of their parents and be this a 
 MA> genetic or enviromental trait, it is nevertheless a fact of 
 MA> life.  With standardized, centrally controlled education, we 
 MA> end up teaching cattle ranchers children calculus and physicists
 MA> children how to castrate calves.
Hey,  at least that uniformity makes the job of those administering things on 
the federal level easier...
 MA>        Like it or not, there are regional and community needs 
 MA> that if neglected only disseerve the educations of our young.  
 MA> Centralized educational control and standardization of 
 MA> cirriculums, mostly transfixed on urban areas, bypasses these 
 MA> local needs.
No argument there, but that's too logical, and most of the time the feds 
aren't going to see that as enough justification to butt out.
RJ>I think that the same could be said about the feds interfering in
RJ>*anything*, when you get down to it...
 MA>         So very true...  
email: roy.j.tellason%tanstaaf@frackit.com 
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