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>
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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
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