Asymmetrical Information

Go, Jane!

That said, let's not go demonizing teachers, most of whom are doing a difficult job under challenging circumstances. The union leadership, OTOH, deserves what it gets.

Secondly, I don't think Repub strategists are about to demonize suburban homeowners.

However, I loved your defense of vouchers. Here is an interview with Polly Williams, famed for her work introducing vouchers to Milwaukee.

And the school voucher idea is credited to that noted evangelist and race-baiter, Milton Friedman. As an old Chi-town gal, you were probably just being modest.

I am intrigued by the new Dem meme that school vouchers are for racists. Maybe they have lost too much ground on the church/state separation idea, and need a new objection. Or maybe they are sincere? Naaah.

Very good analysis. Unfortunately, I think you're wrong. The vast majority of Democrat voters (and Republican voters)won't approach the issue in a rational manner. Too few will take the time to investigate what is being said and done by the two parties but will instead base their opinion on snipets of data.

On the plus side, from a Republican point of view, it will be hard to tar the entire Republican party as racist as long as George W. Bush is president. He simply doesn't come accross as an evil man. Which will make it difficult for the the Democrats to get much traction on this issue.

I agree that the military as an institution has helped blacks. But I think I stand by my statement that equating support for the army with support of blacks is a real stretch.

On vouchers: my only point is that racial justice wasn't the *original* reason for conservative support of vouchers. Thus, blacks do not give them much credit for supporting it.

I'm generally in favor of experimentation with vouchers, although the evidence in favor of them is pretty mixed so far.

(However, in fairness to Preston, I guess his list was better than Lott's panicky list of all the good stuff he had done for blacks in his press conference last Friday!)

Oh, and one more thing: what *did* you do to your sister when you were seven?

I am neither a teacher nor a homeowner in a good district, and I'm opposed to vouchers too. Public schools are there for the good of the community as a whole, and I support them in that light. Obviously removing all the good students from the public schools will undermine them. I have no objection to parents putting their kids in private schools, but I have no interest in subsidizing that.

Parents say that they since they aren't using the public schools they should have those tax dollars to spend on private school. I don't buy that argument. They have the same obligation and interest that all taxpayers do to support the public schools - regardless of whether or not they personally are using the services of the public schools.

OK, since you brought it up, here's my big problem with the whole Trent Lott story:

There are a lot of people (Jane's "7-year olds") who are currently compiling lists of all the racist things Trent Lott has said & done over the past 20+ years. My question is where were these people for 20 years? How come they haven't been screaming for Trent Lott's immediate dismissal each and every day (or at least on election days)? Why is an off-hand comment at a 100th birthday party the straw that breaks the camel's back, requiring us to become immediately outraged by all of these past events at once? Could it be because Lott is now the senate majority leader on the eve of a senate with a 1-seat Republican majority? Nah...couldn't be...

It seems to me that one of two things are true:

1) Lott is a racist who has pretty well managed to hide his beliefs from the rest of the country for many years, and his statements about Strom Thurmond exposed him for what he truly is, or

2) Lott was asked to say something nice about a 100-year old colleague, and thought it would be clever to reference the man's presidential campaign from 54 years ago, never once considering that the substantiative issues of that campaign could possibly be considered relevant today.

I'll admit to knowing next to nothing about Trent Lott, so I can't really say which is the case. His comments alone, however, don't prove one over the other in my book. His "suddenly racist" voting record, if anything, leads me to trust #2 over #1.

As to Mike Rose's comment, no one has any "civic duty" to subsidize incompetent money-wasting public education systems full of bureaucrats and propagandists for collectivist causes. If anything, one's "civic duty" is to abolish public schooling. In too many places, the education system is a net negative for "society as a whole". In any case, individual rights are far more important than the greater glory of the State or "Society". This is yet another issue where the Democrats agree with every totalitarian who ever ruled.

I'm not sure what good it would do anyone for my daughter to go to a bad public school. She would get a bad education and would probably end up disillusioned and unprepared for college. Her attendance would not do anything to improve the school since she'd just be one student among many. My own campaigning might help, but I'd be a parent with a full-time job trying to change a powerful, entrenched civil service bureaucracy. I don't have time.

Instead, I'll fork the money over to send my daughter to a better private school. I'd love to get some of the money I pay to the public school system back to make it easier to pay her tuition. Right now, I'm not sure how we're going to pay for her and her soon-to-be born brother.

My wife and I make decent money, but are hardly rich. We have a modest house and modest cars (a ten-year-old car and a newer Saturn). Getting back even half of what I pay in property taxes would make a big difference in our ability to get our children educated.

I'd love for our public school system to get better, but nothing is going to change it overnight. I'm not willing to sacrifice my own children for some vague principle that doesn't really have any concrete way to improve the schools.

Bolie IV

As to Kevin Drum's comment that Republicans didn't originally support vouchers to help blacks: so what? The only relevant issue is are they the most likely party to deliver vouchers? I doubt many blacks would oppose a better education for their children because they're still sore that Republicans weren't supportive for the right reasons.

Regarding Robert Speirs comments on the public school system, that may all be true. But the issue that he raises is whether public schools should exist at all. My point is that as long as public schools exist, then everyone should be paying to support them, and that not using the public schools is not a good reason to exempt someone from paying school taxes along with the rest of us who don't have kids in public school.

As I say, I think articles of this sort are silly, like Democratic articles that endeavor to "prove" that Democratic presidents are better for the economy. The issue's a little too complex to be reduced to an 800 word article.

But I do think that on these two items, Republicans are probably better than Democrats for minorities, whether or not said minorities will vote on that fact. I find it very interesting that the highest ranking African Americans in the government have been appointed by Republican presidents.

As for what I did to my sister, you'll have to ask her. . . I've forgotten all about it, as befits the Oppressor.

But most voucher advocates aren't advocating cutting school taxes. They're advocating using those school taxes to let parents find a better education for their kids.

Isn't it a little loathesome to tell some poor parent that they've got to lean into the strike zone and take one for the team by letting their child go uneducated so the other, even worse, children can have the dubious benefits of their kid's presence? If you are neither a suburban homeowner nor a teacher, I'm guessing that you fit the following criteria:

1) You have never attended school in a failing district

2) You are never going to live in a failing district

3) You do not have kids.

I would like to think that no parent could willingly condemn other people's children to a hell they would never tolerate for their own. On the other hand, there's the entire Democratic Caucus disproving me.

I've found the public schools in Florida are rather good. Qualified by "so far"; my oldest is in first grade. The big problem is not the rather good schools, it's the "C", "D" and "F" schools.

At present the educational system hasn't provided much in the way of explanation as to why the bad schools are bad. To me, it appears that the bad schools are located in the parts of town where the transient population is the highest. By transient, I mean people who move around a great deal, for whatever reason. The Hispanic population also seems to have trouble; even in my daughter's first-grade class there's a boy who doesn't speak English, and refuses to try. There's actually a school for kids who don't speak any English, but I gather his mother won't send him there.

Jeb Bush has attempted to reform the educational system here, and has succeeded to some degree. I can't say I agree with everything he's done, but you have to admit there's something wrong when a state's public schools show marked improvement, and there's STILL students being promoted without meeting the requirements for promotion. I really, really like the idea of competency testing for teachers.

I would like to think that no parent could willingly condemn other people's children to a hell they would never tolerate for their own.

I haven't seen a recent list of the number of Congressfolks who send their kids to private schools in Washington, but my impression is that most do. Public education for the masses!

Oh, and as to your opening sentence, "the left half of the Punditariat", very good! Now, is the singular "pundidiot"?

Regards,

A few years ago, at the office Christmas party I had the chance to speak to the principal at an elementary school in Queens. His comment on the headquarters of NYC education, 110 Livingston street, was simple and to the point. “If they back cement trucks up to that place and started pouring, nobody would notice until the next union negotiation.” That sums up the problems of large city schools, the kids don’t matter.

A humble suggestion to those in the blogsphere. Get a group of attorneys with contract and labor experience and get a copy of the current contract of the NYC, DC or Chicago teacher’s union contract. Go over it with a fine toothcomb. Get all the attendant letters of understanding. If you want proof that the kids are irrelevant to the system, it will be in the fine print. If anyone with relevant experience wants to try NYC, here is as good a place to start as any. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_6.htm

My son is still a few years away from going to school, but even in the days when I couldn't see myself ever having kids I had no complaints with my tax money being spent on schools, on the theory that an educated citizenry benefits society as a whole. But unless you truly believe that a publicly run school is always the best way to achieve that, then I don't understand why you would have a problem with an element of choice being introduced into the system. If a public school is doing a good job then there is no reason why students would leave it for a private school. If it isn't, then why would you want to protect it? If the end result of a voucher program is more students being educated at better schools for the same cost per student to the taxpayer, why should anyone care if they are publicly or privately run?

Is anyone protesting the existence of private schools, or arguing they generally do a worse job of educating or tend to cost more on a per student basis? Or is the debate driven solely by a combination of self-interest and a knee-jerk opposition to anything currently being delivered publicly ever being privatized?

My hesitancy about vouchers is caused by several things. First, and most importantly, contra the last poster, I am not at all convinced that vouchers will result in "more students being educated at better schools for the same cost per student to the taxpayer." That's the real issue.

What does a voucher do? It takes some money away from public schools and gives it toparents to use to help pay private school tuition. Now, most private school tuitions are considerably higher than the value of vouchers, at least in the programs (and private schools) I've seen. Maybe parochial schools would be affordable, but can they handle large volumes of kids?

So who does it benefit? The biggest benefit is to those that are already sending their kids to private school. The next beneficiaries are those who can almost but not quite afford to send their kids to private schools, and now the voucher pushes them over the top. Again, a benefit to the most well off students who least need it.

In return, the public schools are getting their funding reduced and having some percentage of their best students skimmed off and sent to private schools, making the school even worse. Despite claims to the contrary, I can't see how slashing funding and removing the top students would result in better schools. So those that can already afford it get a few thousand extra dollars a year, and those who can't are left even farther behind.

And more and more parents are opting out of the system and hence have less incentive to keep it going or pay taxes to fund it, and the downward spiral continues with another round of funding cuts and student exoduses. Basically, vouchers are a half-step towards privatization of education, a step that is likely to continue to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Sabotaging public schools and then using the effects of this as further evidence for how bad public schools are.)

Having said that, which is admittedly a worst case scenario (although the case that I find most likely), I think the school systems are in bad enough shape that I'm willing to give vouchers a chance. But I think school choice, which doesn't involve any net decrease in public school funding or payback to those already sending their kids to private schools, is a better bet to try first.

I've heard lots of complaints about unions, but am not sure what can practically be done about that. I also think the way some of the testing/accountability programs are set up provide perverse incentives for teachers as well, but that's a different argument.

Anyway, both choice and vouchers are things that need to be tried on a smaller scale before taking them national. Some places are already experimenting. Good for them, and let's look and see how those experiments work before taking big steps.

The World's Most Good-Natured Liberal Economist, recently pointed me to U of Chicago's Derek Neal's paper:

http://economics.uchicago.edu/dneal/jep.pdf

From which:

than any other group. Using the public school graduation rate for urban African-americans and
Hispanics as a baseline, my estimates of the effect of Catholic schooling imply at least a 26
percentage point increase in high school graduation rates. Further, while I find modest attainment
gains among urban whites, I find little evidence of gains from Catholic schooling among suburban
students regardless of race.2 ....I find no evidence that positive selection into Catholic schools on unmeasured student traits affects the estimated impact of Catholic schooling....>>

The justification for a public school system (as opposed to a private school system financed from public monies) is society benefits from the majority having a common understanding and appreciation of our country. This is one of the ways we have built a common "American" culture. In this way, the public school system has helped to unite and strengthen our country.

This is a different benefit from simply having an educated citizenry. Having a common education helps to foster a common understanding and should foster communication across social and economic classes. These are goods that are in addition to those obtained by providing each child with a solid education -- the ability to think critically, math skills, job training, etc. These additional benefits are what justify the funding of a public school system.

Unfortunately, these benefits are more theoretical than actual. Today, public schools do more to divide than unite us. How can this not be so? We can't even agree on what we our children taught besides the three R's. Do you want to teach the children of our country that homosexuality is a normal, even laudable, lifestyle? That George Washington was a racist? That global warming is a certainty? That premarital sex is normal and that abstinence before marriage is an unhealthy and unobtainable goal? If you want to teach these things, don't be surprised that a lot of parents don't want these things taught to their children (and don't want their tax money spent on teach them to others' kids). If you don't want these things taught, don't be surprised that there a lot of folks who do want them taught and do not want to allow parents the option of opting out.

So, since we cannot agree on what our kids should be taught, maybe its time to abandon a public school system that can no longer be justified. The benefits of an educated population can be obtained by public financing of private schools.

Quite predictably, the topic of this discussion has changed from 'Are Republicans Racist?' to school vouchers. I support vouchers, but I still think it's pretty funny how conservatives always shift to that topic whenever racial discussions come up.

As to the original question, the latest ABC News / Washington Post poll shows that among Republicans, only 35% think Lott should resign as majority leader, and 56% think he should stay. You can draw your own conclusions as to what that means. To me it indicates that there’s still quite a bit of racial insensitivity among Republicans at large.

And let's not forget President Bush, who had no problem speaking to the ‘execrable’ Bob Jones U., and still won't say that Senator Lott is not fit be majority leader. Perhaps this has something to do with with the polling data mentioned above? We know how important it is to Bush to not alienate his base.

Sure, the Democrats have their demagogues on the race issue like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, but neither of them has ever even been a candidate for the Democrats in a general election. Lott and Bush, by contrast, are the two most powerful Republican office holders in the country.

Really, the criteria for judging political virtuousness are really simple: Are you willing to tell your supporters things they won’t be happy to hear? And are you willing to take a stand on principle even when it will cost you votes?

Judged this way, the Lott example is instructive. Because Lott has had a long history of doing this sort of thing, and it was only when he made a statement that was so obviously indefensible that he became a political liability that conservatives started to criticize him.

On the other hand, the very reason that folks like Lott and Thurmond originally switched from being Democrats to being Republicans was that the national Democratic party was willing to stand up for civil rights even if it meant losing white support in the South, while the Republicans were only too happy to welcome the racists into their big tent.

Yes, that was a long time ago, but it’s still quite relevant to understanding today’s political situation, especially in a cases like that of Senator Lott and Bob Jones U.

I’m not saying that Republicans haven’t made a lot of progress on the race issue in the last twenty years. But there’s still a ways to go. Until we get to that point, racism is a legitimate political issue.

More from the Derek Neal paper:

The “teacher effects”
literature supports the notion that a crucial task in managing a school is identifying, retaining, and motivating talented teachers.

However....the personnel systems that govern compensation among public school teachers are inflexible even by government standards. ....

...a number of empirical
results in the literature on teacher labor markets suggest that public school personnel policies are inefficient and further that large scale vouchers might create important changes in the practices that govern hiring, promotion, and pay among teachers....

It is reasonable to suspect that [a school] district could increase the quality of
its math and science faculty while sacrificing little or nothing in terms of the quality of its
humanities faculty by simply raising wages for math and science teachers while simultaneously
reducing wages for humanities teachers.

Hoxby (2002) provides strong suggestive evidence that charter schools and private schools
do deviate from public school salary schedules in just this manner.....

Ballou and Podgursky (1995 , ch. 6) present evidence that private schools
employ a much more flexible wage structure. .... salaries in private and charter schools do vary with the few measured characteristics of teachers that are correlated with measured performance.

Hanushek (2002) reports that teachers with stronger academic records and test scores do perform better in the classroom, and Hoxby (2002) shows that, compared to salaries in the public sector, salaries within the private and charter school sectors vary more with the SAT scores of teachers and the quality of a teacher’s undergraduate institution. Hoxby also shows that charter and private school teachers come from more selective colleges and report higher test scores than teachers in neighboring public schools.
-----------endquote---------->>

RC -- you do realize that post gave an example of every tactic the Dems use to associate Republicans with racism that I criticized in my post?

I admit I'm surprised that only 35% want him to go. On the other hand, the issue is not being so widely covered that this is proof of Republican racism. Democrats, who are predisposed to believe he's racist, are assuming he's a segregationist. Republicans, who have heard only the remark and don't know the history any more than the Dems do, are taking his word that he isn't. That's hardly evidence that 56% of Republicans want us to go back to pre-civil rights. I just don't think that Republicans, especially younger Republicans, are voting on race the way the Democrats would like to believe they are. Other than opposition to AA on grounds of fairness and divisiveness, both of which are legit, I don't see it. And while I think that Democrats like to believe that the reason Republicans carry the south is that they're all closet Klansmen, the data I've seen seem to show that at this point it's got a lot more to do with the Democrats' hostility to religion, and historical southern aversion to both taxes and regulation, than it does with race. But I could be wrong.

When African Americans are polled on the particulars of affirmative action -- a 200 point preference on the SAT's, for example -- they poll against.

Here.

80% of african-americans support continuing affirmative action in a CBS/NYT 1997 poll.

Here.

African-americans are evenly split when asked if it is ok to prefer a minority job candidate over an equally qualified non-minority job candidate.

African-americans are 2-1 against choosing a black college applicant over an equally qualified white candidate.

The opinions of minorities on affirmative action are compliated, but "when polled on the particulars african-americans poll against affirmative action" is misleading.

Jane G:

I think that Democrats like to believe that the reason Republicans carry the south is that they're all closet Klansmen, the data I've seen seem to show that at this point it's got a lot more to do with the Democrats' hostility to religion, and historical southern aversion to both taxes and regulation, than it does with race. But I could be wrong.

Let's add a strong military and gun owner rights to that "issues" list.

anon.. you missed the point.. they poll against (or split on) the policies, as you cite, but you say that janes point doesn't quite add up??

RC one of the major factors that is circling is to not let the other side win one... this is just generally a play with less connected people who identify repub and have an antipathy towards dems (kind of like texas yellow dog democrats, julia roberts' republicans are evil quotes etc)

lots of commentators are saying that "I hate trent, but I don't want dems to seem like they won on this, it'll just embolden them"

as for bush... if he demanded lott resign (which he strictly has no power to do anything about) and then it doesn't happen he'll be comletely eviscerated and the republican party will be incredibly damaged for a long time... he's trying to make lott go but the situation is fluid (only greens, libs, and people with incredibly safe and minor seats can just blindly leap...)

RC,
Not that I was alive then, but anyone remember "states' rights". I am sick of people equating a stupid statement with bigotry. I don't know (frankly neither do you) if Lott is a bigot, and I don't care. He has to go simply because he has made an ass of himself too many times, he can no longer serve as an effective leader of any party in the Senate (not that he ever really has.)

As to why the discussion devolved to vouchers. Well, that is an issue that will be decided by the incoming Congress. Lott is damaged and will do or say whatever he can to appease, which may prove damaging to vouchers in the Senate.

Actually Jane, except for talking about events of over twenty years ago, I don't see where I used any of the tactics you talked about.

And I never said that the majority of Republican voters want to go back to pre-civil rights, or are closet Klansman. But I do think that the evidence shows that race is still a siginificant issue, especially among Republican primary voters in the South. And I do think that mainstream Republicans have long pandered to racists in their midst, even if they don't actually share racist views.

As for Bush, I think this another in a long line of issues (compassionate conservatism, school vouchers, a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, free trade) where he talks a good game, but is unwilling to do anything that might cost him votes.

"Now, most private school tuitions are considerably higher than the value of vouchers, at least in the programs (and private schools) I've seen." That's because most voucher proposals so far are paying less than half of what the public schools get per pupil. Around here, public school costs run over $7,000 per student. The Catholic school tuition is about $5,000 (for non-catholics, whom I assume are not subsidized at all by the Catholic charities). The Catholic schools do a better job in general. They are definitely more efficient.

However, they do have an inherent advantage when it comes to educational quality - they can count on parents, even non-catholic parents, sharing certain attitudes. The school can use sensibly strict discipline, and expect the parents to back them up rather than suing. The school can assume that the parents actually care about their kids' education, and will help see that homework gets done. And if these assumptions prove untrue in a few cases, send them back to the public schools. Note that this isn't about getting rid of problem children - they can handle problem children very well with parental support, but the bratty parents have to go.

Successful private schools don't have to have the catholic attitude towards discipline and conformity for success, but they don't get a whole cross-section of the community, either. E.g., Montessori schools (for example) are going to get parents who are well-to-do, highly interested in their kids education, and share a good many other values. If vouchers or school choice programs create a privately-run school that gets the same pot-luck of students and parents as public schools, they might have the same problem of being too busy keeping order to get in much teaching...

OTOH, the biggest problem with public schools outside the ghettos may be simply that they are unionized. Thirty-some years ago I was fortunate enough to be in a really outstanding public school system - with one exception. One middle-aged male teacher in the junior high was appallingly bad. He obviously detested kids. He didn't teach at all. The next year, some poor new hire had to catch us up on two years worth of English...

And so my parents starting checking on him. Yes, the neighbors remembered him from when they were in school 20 years before - and he had been utterly incompetent then too. But he couldn't be fired for it under the union rules. So unless he got caught molesting students or something, he stayed there until retirement.

Teacher's pay was pretty low in those days, in fact a man could make almost as much sweeping the floor in an auto plant as teaching in the public schools. (Of course, there was the 11-1/2 month vs 9 month difference.) So I have to conclude that the main reason that incompetent stayed in a job that obviously made him miserable was that he was afraid he was incompetent at everything else, too. For any man who could be competent at something else, teaching only made sense if he loved it - and that made him a good teacher. (Women didn't have so many career choices back then - but getting married and staying home was still quite respectable, and a better choice than pretending to teach when one couldn't.)

Most of the other teachers were pretty good, and two teachers were quite outstanding. Both of them were gone two years later. One became headmaster of a prep school, and the other quit teaching entirely. The low pay, which by union rules was the same as the incompetent's aside from length-of-service adders, was definitely a factor here. However, the pay has gone up considerably since then, but the average quality of teachers has gone down. This should not be at all surprising, since there is still no real quality control, let alone better pay for the better teachers. Let's put it this way - if you pay $1 per bushel for oats whether or not they've been through the horse once already, raising the price to $1.50 is just going to get you more manure...

>> that the national Democratic party was willing to stand up for civil rights

When? Not when the civil rights legislation was being passed.

Dems didn't become interested in civil rights until they figured out how to rebadge patronage as civil rights.

Andy,

The people who were mostly responsible for passing civil rights legislation were a mixture of Democrats and Republicans most of whom were from outside of the South. These Democrats came to have more power in the party than the Southern ones and the Republicans saw this happening and evolved their Southern Strategy to appeal to these racists and yes, "state's rights" was almost nothing in those days but code for allowing racism.

Jane, it's not that Republicans are necessarily still racists although some of them certainly are just because it's still there in our society. The ones that aren't racist just seem to act dumb as a post as to the fact that it still exists and needs to be accounted for. Some blacks see racism where there isn't any and some whites refuse to see it where it does exist. Current Republican philosophy seems to be let's just pretend that it's all in the past (including any possible lingering effects) and we'll just treat blacks just like other folks. Also, would you care to back off on some of your bigotry and prejudices? You've used an amazingly broad stroke to paint all Democrats with among other things a "hostility to Christianity". Personally I will freely admit to hostility to theocracy whether it's Christian, Islamic or any other religion and I absolutely despise the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell schools of Christianity. But all Christianity? No. It's a standard tactic of the Pat and Jerry show to claim that anyone who criticizes them is anti-Christian. Have you bought into that?

Jim - Its not that (all) Republicans are "dumb as a post as to the fact that [racism] still exists and needs to be accounted for." Many of us recognize this evil still exists, but we honestly feel the best way to deal with it is to "just pretend that it's all in the past (including any possible lingering effects) and we'll just treat blacks just like other folks." You may disagree with this policy prescription, but that doesn't make the policy wrong nor does it make those who hold this view racially insensitive.

Richard Nixon was the first president to adopt affirmative action as an official government policy. (A Republican!) The year was 1969. More than 30 years later, its not unreasonable to believe that any good to be had from the policy is now outweighed by the bad. If we are ever to achieve the goal of a truly racism free society, our government needs to quit treating people differently based solely (or mainly or as a tie-breaking factor) on race.

From our point of view, its really that simple. Two wrongs do not make a right. Just because Billy took something from Paul, it does not mean its just for the government to take something from Mary and give it Jane (in an attempt to compensate Paul). Doing so does not help Paul and will likely make Mary mad at Jane (and Paul, too).

Today the legal obstacles to advancement have been removed from a black person's path. (If there are any remaining legal obstacles, they should be removed too.) Government cannot do more, nor should it attempt to do more.

"Quite predictably, the topic of this discussion has changed from 'Are Republicans Racist?' to school vouchers. I support vouchers, but I still think it's pretty funny how conservatives always shift to that topic whenever racial discussions come up."

That's an odd way to look at it, at least in terms of this thread:

1. Racism was involved in the host topic.
2. School vouchers were involved as part of that discussion.
3. Schools involve both education and children, both are almost always higher-priority topics.
4. People focused on, and discussed, the voucher issue.

Why, then, do you find that a "funny" "conservative" "shift"?

Mike Rose --

The problem I have with your analysis is that the power brokers in the public education establishment are not going to give up their positions for the sake of better education, therefore we can assume that public education will be around forever. But if it is not universally offering a quality service, what then?

There will always be some social stratification between those who can afford private education and those who cannot, but at least with vouchers the line of demarcation is shifted more toward the bottom of the 'middle class' sector. And since not all of the middle class will take that option for various reasons, the line also becomes a little fuzzier, and that's a prefereable outcome.

I also think your assessment of public-education-only vs. vouchers is flawed for three reasons:

1. It's a bit of a leap to assume that high-achieving students have a strong impact on promoting the low-achieving ones, because

--(a) for better or worse, social-group clustering occurs among students;
--(b) primary education, even at the high school level, is still based heavily around one-way communication of knowledge from teacher to pupil; and
--(c) the allocation of funds internally will, of necessity, favor the lowest and/or broadest common denominator, thereby shortchanging some students.

As an example of (c), I graduated from a high school that offered decent vo-tech and business programs but very little in math & science college-prep, and was quite startled to discover how under-prepared I was for an engineering education compared to many of my college peers. I had many good teachers in high school, but overall the curriculum was not focused on students like myself.

2. A student not in the public school is not consuming the corresponding resources. The money is not, practically speaking, being "taken away." It is a basic rule of efficient business conduct that input resources are consumed in proportion to output; if students leave in significant numbers, then yes, the public school will encounter an economies of scale issue, but a lot of people have to leave before that becomes a problem.

3. If the public schools have to provide a better service in order to get a higher level of income rather than being guaranteed that income regardless, a market incentive has been created. Since private schooling requires certain added commitments, if the public school provides a service that approaches what is available in the private market, more people will go with the public option out of convenience (e.g. transportation and associated expenses could be a deciding factor all else equal).

In light of the above, I see no "duty" for a tax-paying parent to support the public system when better options are available; the collective will not be improved thereby, so why should we reduce the opportunities available to the individuals who might otherwise do better (and thereby IMPROVE the value of the collective in the long term)?

Jim:

I was speaking not of Democrats, the individuals, but Democrats, the party corpus, who are pretty hostile towards strong religious sentiment unless it's practiced by African Americans.

Several people have misinterpreted what I wrote earlier. I wrote:
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Obviously removing all the good students from the public schools will undermine them. I have no objection to parents putting their kids in private schools, but I have no interest in subsidizing that.
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I don't expect (or desire) parents to do anything other than what they think is best for their kids. They certainly have no obligation or duty to keep their kids in a particular school system for the potential benefit of other students.

Thanks anony-mouse for the interesting comments on how the removing the best kids may have less of an effect than I thought.

Democratic hostility towards religion? Jane, would you care to give some examples?

And to all of you that support school vouchers, here's how to make it happen: complete public funding of all political campaigns. Then the teachers unions wouldn't have as much influence over the Democratic party. Of course, that would also mean that the Republican party would lose its natural fundraising advantage...

RC:

I'll dig up examples later. For now, try searching on the names of Democratic politicians along with the phrase "the religious right" and see why evangelical Christians might feel uncomfortable voting for Democrats.

Complete public funding of campaigns is unconstitutional, and thus pointless to discuss. It's unlikely that the Supreme Court would uphold even an amendment banning issue ads because of the First Amendment conflicts, assuming you could get such an amendment passed, which you can't. And assuming you could distinguish between editorials and impermissible speech, which seems unlikely. Such laws work only where judges are given wide latitude to supress speech, which is not the case in America, and thank God for that.

An anti-issue ad Amendment would partially void the 1st, just as the repeal of Prohibition completely eliminated a Constitutional Amendment.

Public funding of campaigns and regulation of independent issue ads are two separate issues. I didn’t say anything about issue ads, which is admittedly a thorny issue. There are fewer Constitutional problems with public finding, though. We already do it partially for presidential campaigns.

Also, there’s a big difference between religion in general and the "religious right", which is a political movement and fair game for criticism.

Trouble is, RC, that nearly anyone who's white and religious and Republican gets lumped into the Religious Right by the Democrats, while Bill Clinton got a pass on his time in church because it was a black church.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the time when the religious affiliation of Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell get held up to public scrutiny.

And the religious right does not constitute the entire right. There are many of us who aren't politically active on religious issues. I actually considered leaving the Republican party permanently back in the '80s BECAUSE of the religious right. Religious leaders have even less business politicizing than political leaders have giving sermons at Sunday service (alliteration unintended).

I'll dig up examples later. For now, try searching on the names of Democratic politicians along with the phrase "the religious right" and see why evangelical Christians might feel uncomfortable voting for Democrats.

Causation can run the other way, you know.

Trouble is, RC, that nearly anyone who's white and religious and Republican gets lumped into the Religious Right by the Democrats, while Bill Clinton got a pass on his time in church because it was a black church.

I'm not following the line of thinking here. David, do you mean there's some religious conservatives who are unfairly tarred as agreeing with the religious right, when in actuality they don't? I can't think of any.

Here's a possibly-interesting article, "Our Secularist Democratic Party," that touches on the Dems/religion angle:
http://www.thepublicinterest.com/previous/article1.html
I haven't read yet so can't vouch for it, but have heard much praise for it.
Eve

It's not just a matter of expression of religion. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are evil, vile excuses for religious leaders. I need nothing but September 14th, 2001 (I believe that was the date.) to prove my point. The consensus of the Pat and Jerry show? 9/11 was the fault of everyone who didn't agree with them. God's protection had been lifted from the USA because of feminists, the ACLU, gays and everyone else who does anything that they disapprove of. Where were the outcries concerning this outrageousness? They existed, but they were so mild compared to the Lott affair and the Republican Party still can't get their lips of of Pat and Jerry's posteriors.

But Jim, that's not true. When have you seen any Republican sucking up to either man in recent years? Are we talking a couple of guys, or are you seriously trying to argue that these guys are influencing the leadership?

Mike Rose: Cheers! I would certainly grant that it is possible an already-poor school competing against vouchers could, very likely, get worse instead of better. I just don't see it as the only possible (or guaranteed) outcome.

> The consensus of the Pat and Jerry show? 9/11 was the fault of everyone who didn't agree with them.

Interestingly enough, that opinion was shared by Chomsky et al and the 100 stars seem to agree, as does Senator Murray. Of course, each of these groups have a different definition of "the fault of everyone who didn't agree with them", but it's curious when Pat and Jerry.

Of course, there is a difference. While most everyone, left and right, condemned Pat and Jerry, the left was curiously silent when it came to the same stuff from its erstwhile allies.

Public education, as an agggregate, will inevitably continue to spiral downward, as long as there is no mechanism to cut off the flow of capital to entities that employ that capital incompetently, whether those entities are incompetent teachers, incompetent principals, incompetent superintendents, or incompetent school boards. Teachers unions, along with other political players that favor the status quo, will do everytrhing in their power to prevent the capital from being cut off, and Democratic candidates, being very dependent on that constituency (and that dependence would still be strong regardless of public funding of campaigns) will also walk across glass barefoot before helping to cut off the flow of capital to incompetent entities, just as any Seanator from Iowa, regardless of party, will do the same before reducing ethanol subsidies. Thus, until that time the number of people who intensely believe that they are being damaged by incompetently delivered education services (parents, grandparents, business oowners, etc.) exceeds the numbers of people, and the likelihood to vote for Democrats, of those people who intensely believe that they benefit from the staus quo, Democrats in legislative positions will continue to fund failure. People in the private sector aren't any smarter or hard working than those in the public sphere, it is just that when the concentration of incompetence or malfeascence exceeds tolerable levels in the private sector, the incompetents or croooks are cut off from further capital (unfortunately, it also affects competent people in an organization that is failing), and are forced to disperse themselves. Anybody try to buy something at Montgomery Wards lately? Anybody ever hear of all the employees of a school system being told to find employment elsewhere, due to lack of customers willing to come through the door, therefore leading to lack of access to further capital? Of course, this is also how the Army ends up spending billions to develop an artillery system that is too bulky to get to the battlefield. Works great on the testing grounds, though!

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