McCain's economics just more of same

FacismUSA says "Not a word of what this guy says is true" (never mind that they're culled from information available on the candidates' own websites)

NoFreeRides thanks me for "making [their] point."

Why don't you two get together and get your pro-McCain rhetoric straight before you kill each other in the crossfire.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for proving my point. Why would vouchers be bad in districts with underperforming schools? Why shouldn't parents have a choice?

Because the focus should be on holding upderperforming schools ACCOUNTABLE, right? Not withdrawing any support for them whatsoever.

Apparently your answer to holding a school accountable is shifting the funding over to vouchers so parents can go run away with their kids to somewhere they feel more comfortable, thereby avoiding any accountability for schools OR for the PARENTS who moved into a crappy school district in the first place.

Your mentality is no different than buying a puppy, kicking it out of the house for peeing on the floor, buying a new puppy and expecting something magically different to happen the second time.

larry g wrote:

<quoted text>
yeah , poor CEO's can't live without welfare

You're right, the poor CEO's need corporate welfare to make them look good. What should happen is that the poor CEO sheould either get fired or the company should be allowed to fail.

On the other hand, the good CEO's don't need the government to help them look good. If anything they need the government to just get out of the way.

Now, when we let the companies led by poor CEO's fail, how does that help their employees.

Think GM, Ford and many of the airlines.

NewPatriot wrote:

<quoted text>
Because the focus should be on holding upderperforming schools ACCOUNTABLE, right? Not withdrawing any support for them whatsoever.
Apparently your answer to holding a school accountable is shifting the funding over to vouchers so parents can go run away with their kids to somewhere they feel more comfortable, thereby avoiding any accountability for schools OR for the PARENTS who moved into a crappy school district in the first place.
Your mentality is no different than buying a puppy, kicking it out of the house for peeing on the floor, buying a new puppy and expecting something magically different to happen the second time.

Choice gives the parents the power to hold the schools accountable by moving their kids to a school that does a better job.

That is the ultimate in empowerment.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
You're right, the poor CEO's need corporate welfare to make them look good. What should happen is that the poor CEO sheould either get fired or the company should be allowed to fail.
On the other hand, the good CEO's don't need the government to help them look good. If anything they need the government to just get out of the way.
Now, when we let the companies led by poor CEO's fail, how does that help their employees.
Think GM, Ford and many of the airlines.

It called the free market

larry g wrote:

<quoted text>
It called the free market

I agree! Take away the corporate welfare as well as personal welfare and let the free market rule.

All we need is rule of law with regard to property rights, non-descrimination laws and basic public safety protections.

It is also good public policy to create educational opportunities for those that want to learn and advance. Investment in the infrastructure of transportation and communication systems is also helpful.

Interfering in the process of corporate or personal failure is counterproductive.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
Choice gives the parents the power to hold the schools accountable by moving their kids to a school that does a better job.
That is the ultimate in empowerment.

But what about holding the schools accountable? Why are you ignoring that part all of a sudden?

NewPatriot wrote:

<quoted text>
But what about holding the schools accountable? Why are you ignoring that part all of a sudden?

What part don't you understand?

If parents have choice they will move their kids to the schools that do the best job. If the bad schools don't adjust, then they will cease to exist as they should.

Why is that a problem? Its the same theory that leads to business failure. That's how the underperformers are weeded out.

How much mor accountability could you possibly have? Do the job the parents expect or die.

It's a hell of a lot better that we have now. Public schools are protected from their own incompetence because there is no choice unless you can afford to pay for private schools or move.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
What part don't you understand?
If parents have choice they will move their kids to the schools that do the best job. If the bad schools don't adjust, then they will cease to exist as they should.
Why is that a problem? Its the same theory that leads to business failure. That's how the underperformers are weeded out.
How much mor accountability could you possibly have? Do the job the parents expect or die.
It's a hell of a lot better that we have now. Public schools are protected from their own incompetence because there is no choice unless you can afford to pay for private schools or move.

That is a problem because it doesn't work. Parents already have a choice of where their kids go to school. Parents can send their kids to private school, or they can move to a school district where they think it might be better.

The problem is you don't know the school isn't any good till after the damage is done. You might change your kids school and find that the new school isn't any better than the old one.

What metrics do you use to determine if a school is good? The metric I have found successful is if there are lots of college professors sending their kids there. Those parents are typically very active in the educational process. Adding this to the usual metrics can help, but not many can just move to a city or town in which there is such a school. Even with these considerations you will still end up with the teacher that is inappropriate for your child.

More of the problem is the very low standards for education. So many schools are exceedingly bad because the republican party has been working hard to defeat any efforts they make. They do this to show that the schools would be better off closed and kids going to private schools. Of course sending kids to for profit organizations allows those organizations to donate to republican candidates and our money goes right into the hands of republicans.

Since you advocate no free rides, why do you advocate taking my money to pay for a rich kids boating instruction? Why should I have to pay for a rich kid to have a field trip to Greece?

NoFreeRides wrote:

What part don't you understand?
If parents have choice they will move their kids to the schools that do the best job. If the bad schools don't adjust, then they will cease to exist as they should.
Why is that a problem? Its the same theory that leads to business failure. That's how the underperformers are weeded out.
How much mor accountability could you possibly have? Do the job the parents expect or die.
It's a hell of a lot better that we have now. Public schools are protected from their own incompetence because there is no choice unless you can afford to pay for private schools or move.

The part I don't understand is the part where entitlements become "empowerment" and "accountability".

Institutions that operate wholly or largely on public funding don't follow free-market rules. When a school falters, it is due to a systematic problem that needs to be fixed. Allowing it to slide into decay and neglect only makes the problem worse. If parents have the opportunity they will send their kids somewhere else. Parents that do this are typicaly more involved, and therefore generate a greater voice in the legislature. Hence, money from the pool for funding public schools tends to follow these same folks to whereever they are going.

What happens to the old school? It doesn't go away. It remains, churning in a downward spiral of failure and spitting out kids who are unprepared to be functional members of society. In the Republicans magical world of "accountability," we could argue that the parents that keep sending their kids to that school get what they deserve. Maybe so, but at what cost to the rest of society? Do we want such "forgotten" schools becoming a fertile breeding ground (both literally and figuratively) for the types of undesirable people we would like to do away with in our society (i.e. those who don't care about education or self-betterment). Worse than that; the school cannot rise above it's own situation; it is more or less dependent upon the makeup of the community that it serves. Without the active influence of parents that care, any school is destined for failure.

To extend the argument, there are also practical limits to how far the "parental choice" philosophy can be carried. Geographically, parents still have a limited selection of schools to choose from. In some districts where mismanagement has been widespread, the choices offered to parents may be a matter of choosing the lesser evil. Building new or bigger schools is not always feasible. Letting old schools "die" as you advocate comes at a huge cost and disruption to the community, both in terms of capital expenditure, redistricting, and the time it takes to get a new school up and running. Plus, it is no guarantee that the new school will be any better than the old one.

Vouchers just make this situation worse, as it potentially shifts money for funding PUBLIC schools into subsidizing PRIVATE education. Only a fractional segment of the population can afford the luxury of private schooling (which don't necessarily offer a better education but can at least advertise themselves as keeping out the riffraff). If a wealthy parent wants to send their children to St. Mary's Academy of Bleeding Hearts for Jesus, that's fine. But I don't want to pay for it.

Accountability is an excellent principle, but it does not work unless there is a system in place to give a helping hand to those entities that need it. It's great when someone "pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps" to rise above their situation, but to run a public institution on that principle is naive and irresponsible, and will ultimately come at a higher cost to the taxpayers when they have to fix it later.

I really don't understand where you guys are coming from. Maybe I could explain myself better.

OK! We the taxpayers are going to spend a certain amount of money to educate each student. If you could start over from scratch would you do it differently?

My answer to that question is Yes. Give each parent a voucher for the amount we will spend and let them choose the school.

Will some public schools fail? Absolutely.

I believe that private schools will gladly step in to fill the void. In Baltimore it would shock me if the many private schools didn't move rapidly to expand enrollment once they had a source of payment.

Good schools would no longer be inaccessable to the poor that live in urban areas.

Could you call this an entitlement? I guess you could, but we are going to spend the money no matter what. Why not increase the choices, create competition and as a result create accountability.

How do we hold them to a standard? Well we already have the process since we already have private schools not to mention kids that are home schooled.

BTW we already have schools that do nothing but spit out kids that are prepared to do nothing useful. They already exist due to failed parents. What vouchers do is give the kids that want to learn a better chance.

Don Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
That is a problem because it doesn't work. Parents already have a choice of where their kids go to school. Parents can send their kids to private school, or they can move to a school district where they think it might be better.
The problem is you don't know the school isn't any good till after the damage is done. You might change your kids school and find that the new school isn't any better than the old one.
What metrics do you use to determine if a school is good? The metric I have found successful is if there are lots of college professors sending their kids there. Those parents are typically very active in the educational process. Adding this to the usual metrics can help, but not many can just move to a city or town in which there is such a school. Even with these considerations you will still end up with the teacher that is inappropriate for your child.
More of the problem is the very low standards for education. So many schools are exceedingly bad because the republican party has been working hard to defeat any efforts they make. They do this to show that the schools would be better off closed and kids going to private schools. Of course sending kids to for profit organizations allows those organizations to donate to republican candidates and our money goes right into the hands of republicans.
Since you advocate no free rides, why do you advocate taking my money to pay for a rich kids boating instruction? Why should I have to pay for a rich kid to have a field trip to Greece?

It isn't hard to figure out which schools are good. The hard part in the current set up is that not everybody can afford to live in those school districts. Vouchers would reduce those imbalances.

NoFreeRides wrote:

OK! We the taxpayers are going to spend a certain amount of money to educate each student. If you could start over from scratch would you do it differently?
My answer to that question is Yes. Give each parent a voucher for the amount we will spend and let them choose the school.
Will some public schools fail? Absolutely.
I believe that private schools will gladly step in to fill the void. In Baltimore it would shock me if the many private schools didn't move rapidly to expand enrollment once they had a source of payment.
Good schools would no longer be inaccessable to the poor that live in urban areas.
Could you call this an entitlement? I guess you could, but we are going to spend the money no matter what. Why not increase the choices, create competition and as a result create accountability.
How do we hold them to a standard? Well we already have the process since we already have private schools not to mention kids that are home schooled.
BTW we already have schools that do nothing but spit out kids that are prepared to do nothing useful. They already exist due to failed parents. What vouchers do is give the kids that want to learn a better chance.

Your theory fails on three points:

1) What we would do if we could start from scratch is a moot point. We must work to repair the system we already have.

2) Let's forget about the technicalities of vouchers for a second (a whole separate issue unto itself). Let's pretend that starting in Fall 2008, parents have free choice to start sending their kids to whatever school they want to go to. "Good schools" would be inundated with new students, to the point that they would either have to start a lottery for enrollment or the facilities would be rendered hopelessly inadequate. Whatever practices were making them succesful in the past would be lost as they struggled to adapt to the flood of new applicants.
And what of the leftovers, the schools from which students depart in a rush of opportunity? Do they vanish in a puff of smoke? Does the ground open up and swallow them in a groundswell of righteousness? No -- they will either continue to exist, or they will be replaced in kind. There would still be schools that qualify as "bad schools". Heck, one could argue that handing out vouchers and letting kids from the "bad schools" go to the "good schools" would lower the bar across the board. Kids would still attend the worst schools, if only because they were more geographically accessible (some kids still have to walk; not everyone drives their kids to school) and without strategic improvements they would remain bad schools, in bad communities, from which human garbage will be continually dumped into the gene pool. In the end, nothing would change, and equilibrium would bring us right back to where we are today.

3) Let's talk about those private schools. There is a reason they are private - each cater to their own narrow culture and teaching philosophies. Their appeal is not universally palatable to all parents, nor do the schools themselves wish to taint their high reputation with their existing (and future) clientele by taking anyone so lowly as one who subsists off public funding. Vouchers... how gauche! Perhaps you're thinking that The Free Market (TM) will spit out new private schools with curriculums, facilities, and staff perfectly catered to train a new generation of Hard-Working Americans (TM). Uh-huh. We've seen how well the free market responds to fill needs for public service. Ever wondered what it would look like if Wal Mart started running private schools? Wanna find out?

Sorry, NFR. While I continue to support your idealism with regard to personal accountability, your utopian fantasy where bad schools disappear leaving only the good ones behind is simply not realistic. You obviously haven't thought through the practical implications of this.

NewPatriot wrote:

<quoted text>
Your theory fails on three points:
1) What we would do if we could start from scratch is a moot point. We must work to repair the system we already have.
2) Let's forget about the technicalities of vouchers for a second (a whole separate issue unto itself). Let's pretend that starting in Fall 2008, parents have free choice to start sending their kids to whatever school they want to go to. "Good schools" would be inundated with new students, to the point that they would either have to start a lottery for enrollment or the facilities would be rendered hopelessly inadequate. Whatever practices were making them succesful in the past would be lost as they struggled to adapt to the flood of new applicants.
And what of the leftovers, the schools from which students depart in a rush of opportunity? Do they vanish in a puff of smoke? Does the ground open up and swallow them in a groundswell of righteousness? No -- they will either continue to exist, or they will be replaced in kind. There would still be schools that qualify as "bad schools". Heck, one could argue that handing out vouchers and letting kids from the "bad schools" go to the "good schools" would lower the bar across the board. Kids would still attend the worst schools, if only because they were more geographically accessible (some kids still have to walk; not everyone drives their kids to school) and without strategic improvements they would remain bad schools, in bad communities, from which human garbage will be continually dumped into the gene pool. In the end, nothing would change, and equilibrium would bring us right back to where we are today.
3) Let's talk about those private schools. There is a reason they are private - each cater to their own narrow culture and teaching philosophies. Their appeal is not universally palatable to all parents, nor do the schools themselves wish to taint their high reputation with their existing (and future) clientele by taking anyone so lowly as one who subsists off public funding. Vouchers... how gauche! Perhaps you're thinking that The Free Market (TM) will spit out new private schools with curriculums, facilities, and staff perfectly catered to train a new generation of Hard-Working Americans (TM). Uh-huh. We've seen how well the free market responds to fill needs for public service. Ever wondered what it would look like if Wal Mart started running private schools? Wanna find out?
Sorry, NFR. While I continue to support your idealism with regard to personal accountability, your utopian fantasy where bad schools disappear leaving only the good ones behind is simply not realistic. You obviously haven't thought through the practical implications of this.

We can agree to disagree on this one. The facts are:

1) There are already bad schools spitting out kids that are qualified to do nothing.

My opinion is that there will also always be bad kids that do nothing but ruin the opportunity for others especially when we stick with the current system and limit choice.

2) After loads of money spent trying to reform the current system we have found that the only solution seems to be to continue to lower the standards to appease the lousy parents and further penlize the kids that actually want to make the effort to learn.

3) A transition to a full choice system would be required and would have some pain associated with it.

I believe that alternative schools would emerge for all types of students. Somebody would seek to carve out a niche to serve the most troubled students.

The point is that I believe giving people choice is the ultimate accountability.

BTW, I can afford to send my kids to private schools but I don't because the public schools in my community are equal to or better than the private schools becuase in my community the majority of the parents care about their kids education and are involved.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
We can agree to disagree on this one.

Agreed!

NewPatriot wrote:

<quoted text>
Agreed!

Out of curiousity what would you do differently to enact real accountability in the public schools and in particular in urban school systems.

Have you seen this video of John McCain NOT being more of the same?
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx...
(Shameless self promotion – it’s from the organization I work for). But, it’s a great video and you should check it out anyway.

NoFreeRides wrote:

<quoted text>
Out of curiousity what would you do differently to enact real accountability in the public schools and in particular in urban school systems.

Schools should be a local issue. Exactly who decided they should be accountable to the Feds?

Surf52 wrote:

<quoted text>
Schools should be a local issue. Exactly who decided they should be accountable to the Feds?

I couldn't agree more! School performance is a direct result of the priorities of a jurisdiction and its citizens. That is why you have good schools in lousy districts and lousy schools in good districts.

The only argument for state or Fedral involvement is funding. Some districts can't afford to provide appropriate funding and as a result need help from the outside.

In exchange for that help there should be very high standards of accountability. Unfortunately that doesn't happen because politicians view school funding as a way to buy votes and they couldn't care less about getting results for the money spent.

Just through more of my money into the cesspool each year.