On Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 19:12:16 (-0800) David B. Shemano writes: >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. >... >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.
Let's be naked, then. Yes, the idea is to limit choice to improve schools for all, and here is a very good example of that: let's suppose that when parent A chooses charter school B, charter school B is then given permission to bulldoze the nearby public school, thus depriving all the other children of their education. Do you support that, Mr. Shemano? No, of course not. The point is the social cost to others of improving the benefit of one, and the creeping destruction that this then imparts to the lives of others, typically less affluent others. And, how do you square your abhorrence of this scenario to the fact that we all have to pay for national defense and that we are not allowed by law to farm that out to charter agencies? Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
