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From: ix764@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU (Catherine L Harris)
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.politics
Subject: Re: privatization of education
Message-ID: <2777@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU>
Date: Mon, 28-Jul-86 19:57:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc6.2777
Posted: Mon Jul 28 19:57:27 1986
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Summary: why we pay for the education of other people's children

In article <2413@brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:

> One thing I forgot to mention in my original response to Tedrick's
> request for my opinion:  I consider tax credits or vouchers for
> education as merely an interim measure to be followed by complete
> removal of the tax burden for education.  It is unfair for a person
> to be forced to pay for somebody else's child's education; the idea
> that someone's hard work is going to pay for what are properly others'
> responsibilities can hardly be considered just, unless one adopts
> socialist notions or a spurious appeal to pragmatism.  

> I've never heard any other justifications for this.  


Our society has a conception of children as more than the property of their
parents.    We view them as human beings with certain rights.  One of the
rights is a right to an education.  

A child should not be punished because fate decreed that she be born
the daughter of an alcoholic, a criminal, an honest hard working person who 
is having financial problems, a member of a discriminated minority, a retarded
person, or a middle-class business man who would rather spend his money on 
improvements to his house or a new yacht than on his children's education.


Beyond this conception of children's basic right to an education, there are
"non-spurious" pragmatic concerns.  A democracy depends on educated 
citizens; our society requires that people have at least some ability to read
street signs and grocery prices, and to fill out tax forms and rent agreements.


Admittedly, I can see why it might be convenient to have a large uneducated
class of people:  this class would provide cheap unskilled labor, would
pay rent rather than owning property, and would be unlikely to vote, thus
allowing laws to continue to support the educated and exploitative elite.
-----
Cathy Harris, UCSD cognitive science