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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: corporal punishment in schools (
Message-ID: <7800424@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Sep-85 13:09:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800424
Posted: Sun Sep  1 13:09:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 00:52:45 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Sep  1 13:09:00 1985


>/* Written  9:39 pm  Aug 29, 1985 by gargoyle!carnes in inmet:net.politics */
>
>The basic reason the Orthogenic School can achieve results that
>inner-city public schools cannot is that the School has resources
>(particularly money and an enlightened philosophy) that the
>inner-city public schools do not possess.  The bottom line here is
>that a good education for our children costs a lot of money, money
>that the American taxpayer prefers to spend on video recorders and
>Caribbean vacations or to throw into black holes like Star Wars or
>the MX missile.  In the trite but true phrase, children are our most
>precious resource, but America does not care very much about its
>children.

As long as the government is in the education business, I suspect you'll
be unhappy with the educational "product".  Those of us who believe in 
private education would offer a choice for people's money, but those who
believe in taxing people to pay for schooling run by the government have
no cause to kick.  

I suggest, though, a compromise, I'm not sure who invented it, but I got
it from Milton Friedman.  If we absolutely MUST tax people to pay for
schooling (I doubt this, but if the votes are there....) then perhaps we
should get the government out of the education-delivery system and
instead issue vouchers, cashable at schools which graduate students
capable of passing some standardized tests.

Is there some reason the government has to run the schools?  Remember,
it typically costs government twice as much as private enterprise to do
ANYTHING, so private schools could probably make a profit and lower
costs too.

As for the hard-to-educate (the folks your original article talked
about), if the state can identify them it can offer heftier vouchers for
their benefit, payable at a school with the ability to handle them.