spot-on denver voucher editorial
can be found here.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
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1 Comments:
hi say what, thanks for your comments! i think it's wonderful that that you and your wife are so committed to your kid's education. maybe by the time he's school-age there will be more public options available that you will be happy with. i should say that i did go to private school until 8th grade, though in high school some of the smartest kids i knew had been in the fulton county public schools their whole lives.
i want to address your comment that it's unfair that people who send their kids to private school are "paying twice" for their education. when you pay property taxes that go to fund public schools, you're paying for something beyond just the education of your child. the reason schools are funded by property taxes is because it's in everyone's interest to have a productive future work force. we have taxes so that we can support public goods - goods that individuals might not necessarily choose to pay for, but which we need anyway, such as lighthouses. educating kids that aren't necessarily your own is a public good. that's why everyone with property pays the property tax: those with kids, those who don't yet have kids, those whose kids are grown up, those who will never have them. if you run a business, you need workers who know how to read.
now you can argue that public schools don't do such a great job at creating the workforce we need, and i'd tend to agree with you. but the truth is that public schools are doing a lot better than some would have you believe, especially when you take into account the fact that they are expected to bear the burden of all the other problems inner-city, poor kids have.
you also get a lot more for your public education dollars than you think. studies show that areas with better education systems have lower crime rates. if you weren't paying for public school, in other words, you'd be paying more for law enforcement, or maybe security gates around your property.
the idea that private school parents are paying twice for their kid's education is a meaningless soundbite spun by the radical right, many of whom want to see the whole public education system scrapped. it's like saying you're paying twice for sesame street when you choose to get cable. people consent to the government funding public television because they like having it around, even if they don't watch it. the government does not fund other networks, because/therefore it is not responsible for their content. for various reasons we don't want our gov't to fund things like sex in the city and the man show. that doesn't mean they're not good and that people don't have the right to watch them, they just have to pay for it themselves.
same thing with schools. we pay for education because we need it, and we put that money into public schools because that way we have some control over what gets taught. with private schools you have no such guarantee. that doesn't mean parents don't have a right to send their kid wherever they want, or even teach their kids themselves at home. but they shouldn't expect the public to pay for it.
[i'll come back later and add links!]
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