On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 16:25, David B. Shemano > Every one of your posts, every one (with the possible late > exception of Max Sawicky), was nothing more than an admission I > was right > about how you think, which I will repeat for the > umpteenth time: even if going to a charter school was better for > little Johnny, you would oppose little Johnny going because it is > not in the best interest of the abandoned school and remaining > children. There is no need for you to tell me you are correct in > thinking how you do and I am wrong for not agreeing with you. It > really is not necessary. > > David Shemano
No I question, a) whether parents are actually in the best position to sort out the data on what education is actually, objectively best--my wife is a teacher, at public charters no less, and she sees endless examples of this. The ones that actually work are where the parents act as something other than consumers, when they and the community take an active role in their child's education, not approach it (whether in, charter or non-charter, public or private) as simple consumers of a good or service, which is what you are advocating in your basic understanding of the scenario. and, therefore, object to b) using public funds through which parents can be manipulated by private interests into thinking their alternative allocation of those funds is objectively better simply because they are allowed to allocate them privately. On this, I reject your basic scenario which says it is self evident that the in question institution is obviously, objectively better. I suppose if this is absolutely the case, if we can absolutely declare that one of these institutions is objectively better, I'd question 1) it is only objectively better for Johnny 2) if it is objectively better for others as well, shouldn't they also be allowed to attend 3) how we would therefore manage access to what you insist will be a scarce public resource (other than increasing the price of the resource which would basically just re-introduce the class/income stratified cost limitations of the already extant public/private divide.) 4) why the goal of public policy--or, more likely, community activism-shouldn't be to make this resource less scarce. You, in your elegant denial of any pragmatic concerns except for those of this isolated individual in favor of name calling overlooks what are fundamental questions of public policy that would need to be answered were a simple, market oriented model of vouchers introduced. I must assume--though you've never actually stated it--that this is the kind of thing you have in mind. If Johnny's parents are convinced that a private school is better, obviously they are free to pay for him to go there and romp with the other elite offspring. I don't think this is a progressive issue, I think it is a basic question of the use of resources in a democratic state funded by universal taxation. But if you want to make it about "choice" or "liberty" or whatever libertarian trope, I guess we'll just have to disagree that those exhaust the issue. s _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
