Say Anything Blog

One thing is certain:  Private schools cost the taxpayers a lot less, and get better results. 

Rob, good post.  I only disagree with one thing… vouchers (surprised?).  I am actually not against vouchers all together, but I am against federal vouchers.  Vouchers should come from the state level if they come from anywhere.  Public education should originate more locally as well.  Pub. Ed. should not be a federal ‘program’.  The Department of Education has ruined our kids and our education system. 

If you haven’t seen John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America’ from 20/20, watch it now. 

IMO, every federal dollar spent on "education" is wasted.  Education is really a local function, best managed at the State level, I agree.

Our public education system was at it’s best when run at the local level. In our rural school district the rate of college acceptance is 80%, many students are going the tech school route in order to be into the work force as quickly as possible. And many are enlisting in the military or advancing to military academies. In a city school district just 20 miles away the college acceptance rate is 18%, juvenile court records show 75% of that districts students have been before a judge on criminal charges. Not truancy, burglary,auto theft, assault, rape, selling drugs. And this is not a large city, only 35,000 or so. Centralization is not helping.

...and the St. Paul schools just hired a new administrator away from DC.  Blithering idiots.

I’ve got the same position about vouchers as Dave; what government funds, it controls.  Far better to help people escape privately and strangle the funding of the schools that way.

Thanks for the evidence to support what I’ve always believed.  In central coastal California, every election has a school bond measure and they are always approved.  Yet school performance has always declined.  Conclusion: more and more and more money is not the solution.

Call to Action: Vote No on all future school bond measures and pressure your Congressmen to issue vouchers.

Vouchers are just another reshuffling of tax money, with the accompanying costs;  it’s much more efficient to let people keep their money in the first place, make a level playing field for private schoole and public schools, and let the people decide by voting with their dollars.

I totally agree with you Robert.  I would much rather keep my money and choose where to send my child.  This could be done immediatetly by shutting down the Department of Education.  If I read the budget spreadsheet properly, the DoE cost the taxpayers of the U.S. 71.5 billion dollars for FY 2006.  Wow!

And that is just the direct cost.  The indirect costs of complying with Dept of Ed regs probably doubles that figure.

Dave Miller,

As far as i know, there has been no suggestion of federal vouchers… other than in DC where everything is federal.  All other such voucher programs that have been propsed are either local or state based.  And that is as it should be.

Education should be a local matter, not a federal concern.  If people assumed more of the responsiblities, and costs, of raising their own children, just think of all those bureacrats who could find employment doing something useful and worthwhile.

I hear ya Bat One.  But, states receive federal money for education.  Therefore, one could say that a voucher program could be a federal program.

federal money=our money

Bat One, good point, but historically, the federal DoEd’s argument has been that in exchange for 12% of the funding, they get 100% of the control whenever they deem that necessary.  Hence, I’d suggest that even vouchers controlled at the state or local level might come under federal control.

I’d add, of course, that I’m not assured that being controlled by the local school board is any good thing, either.  Yes, they’re more accountable, but they’re also the same guys that were foolish enough to indulge the silliness of thinking that federal funding was worth more than the trouble--see Robert108’s point.  My first job involved watching two parking lots being built; one with federal funding, the other without.  They were identical in everything but the cost, and the federally funded lot was at least twice the cost of the locally funded lot.

Robert Perry,

I’m not sure that DOE actually makes that argument directly, although clearly the end result is federal control.  A large part of the problem is that those taking the federal funds are unwilling to do without both the funding and the control.   And certainly the DOE bureaucrats are aware of the local need for money, and take full advantage.  And local education bureaucrats are perfectly willing to let the feds dictate whatever, so long as the money keeps coming in.  There is, of course, nothing in the Constitution that even suggests that the federal government should in any way be responsible for education.