Most people have to talk so they
won't hear
- May Saron
I find it truly amazing the arguments that are presented for school vouchers.
We have less and less and less of the *registered* voters actually voting in
elections. Less and less and less of the *eligible* voters are even bothering to
register.
So, we have an argument that the current system is a soviet style, centralized
control over education? In fact, most of the decisions are done locally
and controlled at a very fine level. But guess what? No one cares. Biggest
complaint from teachers? Lack of any participation in the education system by
the community the school serves.
So somehow, merely providing a voucher for the money that would have been spent
in the public school
is going to change this situation? Oh, the market! Yea, that fantastic mechanism
that gives us increasingly unhealthy fast food marketed as something worth
while. That same, oh so efficient mechanism, that markets massive caffeine and
sugar and fat to schools in exchange for a few paltry bucks. That same, oh so
perfect mechanism, that gives us increasingly deadening TV shows. That same, oh
so morally clear institution, that provides porn on demand and cigarettes at a
really cheap price. The same, oh so transparently regulated institutions, that
squeezed $35,000,000,000 out of the California energy market before
destroying themselves in a poof of accounting scandals (while trundling off to
the Cayman islands with the dump trucks o' money in tow).
Now
I believe in the market system, but I'm not so naive to all its problems either.
In claiming the market is a panacea for everything, one has to answer to the long, long
history of fantastic mistakes and stupid idiocies over the millennia.
Just giving people a choice isn't enough. It has to be a *good* choice. As Ohio
has shown, the only private schools that are cheap enough to go to with what the
public schools are funded by are RELIGIOUS schools. Anything secular and good is
way, way too expensive. Again, the MARKET at work.
And the effect of giving the rich extra money is just going to be the rich going
to exclusive schools and everyone else either having the choice of a fine
fundamentalist Christian education (like mine), or trying to eek out an
education in the devastated residual of the public schools that are left.
Anyone who denies this will
happen is just completely loony tunes or being intellectually dishonest. It's
going to take a lot of very finessed regulation to prevent it, and as everyone
points out... I don't think politicians have that skill. It ain't going to
magically happen through some intervention of some invisible hand - we have a
plethora of examples in many other markets which give really vivid lessons of
how this comes about swiftly and inevitably.
And add to that the fact that the very people making these decisions are the
VERY people who don't care in the first place. They don't know who the fuck
their school principal is, barely know their current teachers and haven't voted
in any local school board election anyway. So the fodder for the invisible hand
that everyone is counting on to magically save this system via vouchers seems
piss poor. After all, garbage in, Joe Millionare out.
Geez. Is there some
frickin' magic that I'm completely unaware of? Is there some synergetic effect
that markets have when a bunch of known idiots form into a group and participate
in a market that I must have missed? Yea, that course explaining this phenomena
must have been available to the Republican students in their better schools. Not
to people like me.
And let's not forget that, unlike hair care products, it is a MAJOR decision to
change schools. It's not like choosing a different brand of soup. Speaking
as someone who went to 4 different elementary schools in 3 years, I can tell you
what frickin effect that has had on me. And I'm a really smart guy. Not
super intelligent Princeton material, mind you. But not shabby.
Imagine someone who hasn't had the benefit of adequate vitamins during their
infant years, or whatever I had that made me the way that I was (great parents,
most likely). So there's a BUILT in DISINCENTIVE to CHANGE YOUR SCHOOL. It's a
major, major decision.
And guess what that does to a market? Gee. Just guess.
Now I understand perfectly the frustration with what is happening, but JHCORFC!
Let's get real. We already have a very decentralized system - or at least we
WOULD if enough people CARED enough about it to actually be involved.
But no. Let the
market sort it out. This silver bullet will fix anything without any effort
required. Magically, everything will fix itself merely because the decision as
to what school is now put into the hands of someone who has piss poor choices
and little history of actually making good decisions in the first place.
Show me how it's going to work and get better. Show me how it isn't going to
degenerate into a de facto class system. Show me.
Until you can, well... You ain't got any argument what so ever. I don't believe
in experimenting on the young like that.
So somehow, merely providing a voucher for the money that would have been spent
in the public school
is going to change this situation? Oh, the market! Yea, that fantastic mechanism
that gives us increasingly unhealthy fast food marketed as something worth
while. That same, oh so efficient mechanism, that markets massive caffeine and
sugar and fat to schools in exchange for a few paltry bucks. That same, oh so
perfect mechanism, that gives us increasingly deadening TV shows. That same, oh
so morally clear institution, that provides porn on demand and cigarettes at a
really cheap price. The same, oh so transparently regulated institutions, that
squeezed $35,000,000,000 out of the California energy market before
destroying themselves in a poof of accounting scandals (while trundling off to
the Cayman islands with the dump trucks o' money in tow).
Now
I believe in the market system, but I'm not so naive to all its problems either.
In claiming the market is a panacea for everything, one has to answer to the long, long
history of fantastic mistakes and stupid idiocies over the millennia.
Anyone who denies this will
happen is just completely loony tunes or being intellectually dishonest. It's
going to take a lot of very finessed regulation to prevent it, and as everyone
points out... I don't think politicians have that skill. It ain't going to
magically happen through some intervention of some invisible hand - we have a
plethora of examples in many other markets which give really vivid lessons of
how this comes about swiftly and inevitably.
Geez. Is there some
frickin' magic that I'm completely unaware of? Is there some synergetic effect
that markets have when a bunch of known idiots form into a group and participate
in a market that I must have missed? Yea, that course explaining this phenomena
must have been available to the Republican students in their better schools. Not
to people like me.
And let's not forget that, unlike hair care products, it is a MAJOR decision to
change schools. It's not like choosing a different brand of soup. Speaking
as someone who went to 4 different elementary schools in 3 years, I can tell you
what frickin effect that has had on me. And I'm a really smart guy. Not
super intelligent Princeton material, mind you. But not shabby.
Imagine someone who hasn't had the benefit of adequate vitamins during their
infant years, or whatever I had that made me the way that I was (great parents,
most likely). So there's a BUILT in DISINCENTIVE to CHANGE YOUR SCHOOL. It's a
major, major decision.
But no. Let the
market sort it out. This silver bullet will fix anything without any effort
required. Magically, everything will fix itself merely because the decision as
to what school is now put into the hands of someone who has piss poor choices
and little history of actually making good decisions in the first place.
