Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 10 Aug 1997 20:59:00 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Tim Vanderhoek <hoek@hwcn.org>
To:        Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu>
Cc:        "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@FreeBSD.ORG>, hoek@hwcn.org, softweyr@xmission.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FTC regulating use of registrations
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.3.96.970810202502.3749E-100000@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970810143852.453B-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Annelise Anderson wrote:

> But it may improve the public schools.  They'd have to compete for
> students.  Are enough parents smart enough and concerned enough to
> pick a "good" school?  (I think so.)  Would the public schools be
> left with the difficult children--handicapped, disruptive, whatever?
> I sort of doubt it; but maybe the state then says: here's a difficult
> kid, this is a $3000 kid instead of a $1500 kid.

First, where I'm coming from: :) I tend to think of vouchers as a
way of funding private schools, and not as a way of improving the
public system. 

Vouchers aren't the only way to induce competition among schools. 
The regional rules here (if I remember them rightly ;) are that
you must attend the local public schools (Catholic or public
system, your choice) for one year, after which you are allowed to
attend another school.  I don't know if this applies to k-8.

There are people who take advantage of this, but I don't think
that competition is the magic bullet it is being touted as.  The
fact is, there are too many benefits to going to the local school
to create strong competition.  (Benefits such as the social ones
of having friends in school who don't live far far away, or
shorter transportation (I spend ~hour on the bus both ways to get
to school, and if you think that doesn't suck, you are wrong :).


> It doesn't have to erode; it can be set by formula, related to how
> much the state budget per child is, or something like that.  Of
> course, what you get from the legislature isn't always what you
> ask for.

Phff.  Formulas can be changed.  There will be pressure to erode
the voucher credit.  As soon as parents no longer have children
attending school, they will put on political pressure to lower
the voucher (thus lowering their taxes).  When the voucher is
lowered, this will be much much harder on the poorer parents than
the rich ones (who will be mostly unaffected, since the increase
in the $$ they suplement the voucher by will roughly correspond
to their tax break). 

I want to see those sending their children to a rich expensive
private school paying twice because I don't want to see two
systems, one for those with money, and one for those without.

This is the same reason you can't setup a private medical clinic
in most provinces.  As soon as a segment of the population loses
the incentive to maintain the public system, it will degrade
proportionately.

[Actually, this is not necessarily true.  Financially penalizing
those attending a private school for religious reasons has the
tendency of ensuring that only those who really want to be there
are there - but that's a question of wether or not to accept
funding, not wether or not it should be offered]

[Hm.  It sounds like an awful lot more people use private schools
in the US than here.  Its politically unwise for politicians to
use a private school, for example].


--
Outnumbered?  Maybe.  Outspoken?  Never!
tIM...HOEk




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.GSO.3.96.970810202502.3749E-100000>