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From: koved@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Private school tax deduction vs NEA
Message-ID: <3830@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Nov-83 23:06:56 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3830
Posted: Tue Nov 15 23:06:56 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Nov-83 02:09:36 EST
References: <433@ihuxb.UUCP> ihuxl.744 <235@houxb.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 34

The quality of a public school system greatly affects the desirability 
of living in a given neighborhood.  When people are looking for new
homes, one of the important questions is about the quality of the local
school district.  This will in turn affect the price of the housing.
An area with a good school district will have homes which will cost more
than those ares which have poorer quality public schools.

Of course, this may affect only those people who have children, or
are thinking about having children in the future.  What does happen
is that if people are taking their children out of the public school
system and placing them in private institutions, then the quality of
the public systems tends to slowly decline.  This is due to the people
who do not want to maintain/increase the quality of the public system
AND support the private institutions.

Unfortunately, this leads to a vicious cycle whereby the parents take
their children out of the public system and put them into the private
schools.  They vote against tax increases for the schools, whereby
the public school system quality declines.  More parents take their
kids out of the system, put them into the private schools, and vote
against tax increases for the public schools, whereby...

This syndrome has happened in many metropolitan areas.  Once the quality
of the public schools has declined, the area served by the schools
becomes less desirable (since better public - sectarian - schools can
be found in other nearby areas).  People move away.  The area slowly
declines ("white flight" is one term used to describe this phenomena).

This is one of the major reasons that public school administrators
and public school system teachers oppose tax deductions for people
who want to send their kids to private schools.

- Larry Koved
U. Maryland, College Park