aardwolf wrote:We're talking about government jobs so we have to pay them even if they have no work to do.
. . . . .
The biggest argument against vouchers is taxing people without kids and giving their tax dollars to a private company or a religion. Then there's the question if homeshoolers get to pocket the cash?
Personally I think that particular "biggest argument" is hogwash (and I certainly don't mean to attack
you aardwolf, it sounds like you're quoting a disagreement you've had with someone else). The whole point of socialized education is to pool everyone's money together and make sure all the chilluns learns 'em to read 'n' stuff, whether their parents can afford it or not. The tax money, taken from everyone whether you're in the highest or lowest tax bracket, whether you've got kids or not, whether your kids are in private school or not, whether your business hires only private-school graduates or not, is all pooled together to "make society function" through edumacatin' the rugrats - I mean, future productive members of the labor pool. Given that situation, some people are forced to give their tax money to institutions they vehemently disagree with, regardless of the efficacy & quality of the learnin' those institutions provide. To me, that sounds just as messed up as "giving their tax dollars to a private company or a religion" (and the whole "private company" part of that isn't very meaningful, given that the government contracts with private companies to get work done in just about every other facet of government spending there is, and no one complains about people's tax money being "given" to El Pollo Loco when the local IRS office orders lunch for an employee's retirement).
Kinda comes down to this: the pooling of funds amounts to a societal agreement that "we will spend $X billion on education because we should" and that's a point that's very hard to dispute (not saying it's not wrong-headed, just that in public discourse it's hard to dispute). What to do with that money and how it's apportioned is the next logical question, and as with so many other things it comes down to freedom. Do we let government say that we'll spend the same $X thousand on each kid in the same manner at the same place no matter what the situation, or do we tell parents, "here's $x thousand to spend on the education of each of your kids, and perhaps subject to government oversight like accreditation, blah blah blah, etc., spend it where you want to spend it"? If you think one-size-fits-all standardization is the best, then you'll go with the former; if you think specialization often creates a better result, then you're more likely to favor the latter. At the end of the day, when parents who choose vouchers are given a wide range of options that include public schools, secular private schools, private schools managed by religions as broad as Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Bhuddist, Taoist, etc. etc., at no point are either of these things happening:
1) private company gets a no-bid sole-source contract w/government to supply services (a bad thing which sadly happens all the time in other sectors of government spending),
2) making an "establishment of religion" or in some way
choosing which religion to favor over another, leaning towards establishing a "state religion", which would be going against the 1A. If a family who paid no income tax for 2007 decides to donate their "economic stimulus" check to their church, does that mean that someone else's tax money was "given to a religion"? Yep. But it's not a breach of 1A because it wasn't a government directive to do so, it was the family's individual choice.
aardwolf wrote:A better solution is to lower school taxes and let parents spend their own money how they want.
I certainly agree that that's a better end-state to aim at, but I think vouchers are a more likely and viable half-step towards that goal than jumping right to it (in the eyes of the populace & legislature). A voucher program will put the disparity in quality in full view of the public and demonstrate that the solution you describe is necessary - a fact very few people are aware of right now, mostly because the default opinion is, "The public school system sure sucks, and it needs reform. But not MY kids' school, they're great 'cause they're a Texas Recognized school, woohoo! It's all those
other schools that are the problem."
JT
