[Vision2020] How big money affects education in Washington D.C.

[Ted Moffett]

All:

The subject is complex.  Part of the subject here is, or should be, the 
broad question of whether the government can run ANY program efficiently.  
If it can, then public schools might be brought into line to be run more 
effectively and efficiently.  If no government program is efficient and 
effective, we have less grounds for hope of reforming the public schools.  
Vouchers are one alternative, but hardly a new idea, having already been 
implemented in other areas of the US.

In trying to broaden the debate by suggesting that maybe there are 
government programs that are run efficiently, which deliver what they 
promise, which many would argue the US military does, I was not avoiding the 
question.  But if all government programs are inherently inefficient and 
ineffective, which is a point of view often argued by conservatives, then 
certainly the Pentagon and US military should be a target of privatization, 
along with public schools.

I posed the question that if the Pentagon and military are run efficiently, 
frugally and effectively, perhaps we should let the military run the public 
schools, or maybe model some of the management techniques of the military 
and apply them to public schools?  This question is a bit more involved than 
the original question I asked on this same topic.

I was also of course mocking the contradictions of conservatives who wish to 
downsize public schools while their pet government military programs get 
pork, pork, pork!

Ted



>From: "Van Deventer, Jack" <jack@wsu.edu>
>To: "Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>
>CC: <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] How big money affects education in Washington 
>D.C.
>Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 15:16:44 -0700
>
>Ted, in trying to change the subject, sounds a whole lot like Ronald
>Reagan who once said, "Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it."
>Jack
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ted Moffett [mailto:ted_moffett@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 1:58 PM
>To: Van Deventer, Jack
>Cc: vision2020@moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] How big money affects education in Washington
>D.C.
>
>
>All, et. al.
>
>This excerpt from the National Review is more of the same on educational
>
>problems not being solved by the money spent on public schools...
>
>If "throwing money" at the problem of sub par public schools is the
>wrong
>approach, an often heard critique from "conservatives," who wish to get
>the
>government out of the business of education and social services and
>related
>government programs that ostensibly help people directly, why do many of
>
>these same conservatives drool over dramatic increases in government
>spending for what is a huge socialist government enterprise, namely the
>Pentagon and US military?
>
>Perhaps we should privatize the Pentagon, and let the inherently more
>efficient and effective private sector provide for our nations defense
>in a
>manner that could save the taxpayers money?
>
>Or is the solution to let our military run the public schools with their
>
>super efficient and frugal approach (sic) to spending solving the
>problems
>created by those tax and spend liberals?
>
>The contradictions in political ideology are a never ending source of
>amazement!
>
>Ted
>
> >From: "Van Deventer, Jack" <jack@wsu.edu>
> >To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
> >Subject: [Vision2020] How big money affects education in Washington
>D.C.
> >Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 14:21:19 -0700
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >The June 2, 2003 issue of National Review (page 8) reads:
> >
> >***
> >
> >Washington, D.C. spends $9,650 per child in the public schools-about
> >$3,000 above the national average and more than all but two other
>school
> >districts in the country.  The city doesn't have much to show for it,
> >just a 42 percent dropout rate and the nation's lowest SAT scores.  So
> >it's no wonder Mayor Anthony Williams recently said that he "got up one
> >morning and decided there are a lot of kids getting a crappy
>education."
> >He thus decided to support a modest voucher program for poor children
>in
> >his city.  This has earned him a full measure of grief from all the
> >usual quarters, because Democrats aren't supposed to buck the teacher
> >unions.  Yet Williams, joined by school-board president Peggy Cooper
> >Cafritz, is doing the right thing.  If these liberal supporters of
> >school choice succeed, it is possible to hope that in the future
> >something more than 6 percent of the city's fourth and eighth graders
> >will test "proficient" in math.
> >
> >***
> >
> >
> >
> >Jack
> >
> >___________________________
> >
> >Jack Van Deventer
> >
> >jack@wsu.edu
> >
>
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