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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35213)	11/4/1998 12:09:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Skket, I think the point is that everyone wants the best for their own kids, and are willing to compromise their own moral principles to ensure that their own kids come out ahead. Many who offer opinions to the contrary don't actually have kids, so their opinions, though interesting, are strictly advisory. "You no playa the game, you no makea the rules." As someone with kids, I am willing to admit to moral compromise. Hell, I'd do worse than moral compromise if it meant that my kids got a good education. I would like to make the observation that "private school" is, by and large, code talk, in the same league as "safe neighborhood." If liberals ever admit they are speaking in code, we are a giant step further to true democratic discourse. CobaltBlue

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35213)	11/4/1998 1:03:00 AM
From: Merritt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Skeeter: The point of vouchers is that everyone has a choice of where their kids go to school. That's not possible, at present, for low-income kids. There's no reason why "public" schools should go to hell; if they have the ability to draw pupils, then they'll get the vouchers. The rich receiving vouchers is pretty much irrelevant; the middle class may not have to scrimp as much to send their kids to school; but, IMHO, the biggest beneficiaries of vouchers will be those that can't afford to send their kids to a decent school under the present system. Under the pressure to compete for vouchers, schools will be more responsive to the parent's concerns regarding grades and discipline. Unfortunately, those kids whose parents don't really care, will probably fare worse, or maybe the same, than at present...and then there'll be some real zoos that end up with the kids no other school will tolerate. But those are kids that are ruining the education system right now, so I don't know that they'll really be worse off...I do think other schools will be better without them, though. Right now, the thing that designates a school private is that one has to pay extra for their child to attend. That difference may disappear, or will be lessened, with a voucher system. What we now call public schools will still remain, but they'll be funded in a different, and hopefully a more effective, way. The wealthy will always have a more expensive school system, they have it now, and I'm sure they'll have it with vouchers, too. That's not going to change. What will change, is that low-income people will finally have a bigger choice and a louder voice (their vouchers), in what their kids learn, and where they go to school.

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35213)	11/4/1998 1:46:00 AM
From: Richard Nehrboss	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

>>but won't that make private schools into public schools Nope... that would introduce some level of competition into an arena that has none. Therein lies the problem. Richard

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35213)	11/4/1998 6:56:00 AM
From: wily	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Just jumping in here, don't know much about it: Wouldn't the private schools just raise their rates to keep them exclusive? Or, even the less exclusive private schools: with vouchers, now everyone has X amount of dollars MORE than they had before to spend on a private school. This includes the people who already were going to private schools. So tuition that used to be Y, can now be raised to X+Y, and nothing changes, except the private schools get rich and the public schools get even poorer. ???