On Feb 26, 2009, at 10:12 PM, David B. Shemano wrote:
Sean Andrews writes.
I think you're missing the point: the goal is not to increase the
choice of the individual schoolchild: it is to increase the
quality of
schooling for all school children. The innovations of some charters
might help to do this, but the way it is set up, it basically takes
money from the system that is required to serve everyone equally and
funnels it into the system with no such mandates.
I too very much appreciate what Sean Andrews writes, because it
makes the issue ever more crystal clear. I exactly get the point
and want to stress that, intentionally or not, you are agreeing/
conceding/making explicit my very point. That is why I am so
surprised that Max Sawicky was so defensive.
When you boil it down, it is your position that it is better not to
give school choices to parents because if you give them choices,
that will consequentially lower the quality of the schools that are
not chosen. In other words, it is immoral/should be illegal/etc.
for individual parents to make decisions that you admit are better
for the individual parents and their children, if there is some
hypothetical negative result for the other children and the
neighborhood school. This is a naked utilitarian. cost-benefit
argument that I personally find abhorrent. You cannot avoid the
intent and effect of your position -- given the choice (pun
intended), it is more important to you that little Johnny go to the
neighborhood school to improve the neighborhood school, than little
Johnny go to a school that will maximize the educational value for
little Johnny.
There is a leap of logic in the above. What Sean wrote is this:
P1: The goal is not to increase choice but to increase quality for all
children.
What Shemano massages it into is:
P2: It is important that Johnny improve the school rather than
maximise his educational value.
The leap of logic is in assuming that Johnny (or his parents) maximise
his educational value, *relative to others*, by going to a charter
school. This may or may not be true, but is a question that requires
discussion.
Shemano's equation of "choice" with "quality" is of course consistent
with his "abhorrent" libertarianism.
--ravi
--
Geekery: http://ahren.org/code/
Inanities: http://ravi.tumblr.com/
Opinion: http://0sum.org/
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