Thursday, October 21, 2004

Polls show vouchers would be widely used: "Only 42 percent of Americans polled in the latest Phi Delta Kappa International/Gallup Poll say they are in favor of vouchers. Yet the same poll reports 57 percent of Americans say they would use full-tuition vouchers, if they were available, to enroll their children in private schools. A new national study conducted by leading research firm WirthlinWorldwide suggests an explanation for the discrepancy: The use of negative wording in a key poll question reduces the reported support for vouchers by more than 20 percentage points."





PRIVATIZATION WOULD LIMIT POLITICAL BIAS

"Every year more and more students are seeking higher education, but what exactly are they learning? While the "core curriculum" is still alive on many college and university campuses, professors have increasingly ditched Socrates and Renaissance political history for Andrea Dworkin and lessons in pornography. At the University of Michigan undergraduate students must fulfill a "Race and Ethnicity" requirement in order to graduate. The classes that satisfy this requirement analyze "racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality as it occurs in the United States or elsewhere."

At Kalamazoo College, a private college in Michigan that accepts federal and state funding, many history classes deal with today's leftist fashionable topics. In "Sex, Gender, and Society in Classical Antiquity," students encounter "the literary, historical, and cultural survey of social structures and private life in ancient Greece and Rome. Issues covered include constructions of sexuality, cross-cultural standards of the beautiful, varieties of courtship and marriage, and contentions between pornography and erotica." ....

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with groups of individuals gathering peacefully to learn about race, gender, religion, etc. They should be free, except for one problem: the taxpayers are forcibly subsidizing the American collegiate system. Whether it's the federal student aid program, which hands out over $60 billion in grants a year, or the expenditure of billions on university research programs, taxpayers are increasingly required to fund the activities of universities and colleges regardless of the content and character of their programs.

Without federal funding, institutions of higher learning would have to compete for private dollars as well as for quality students. Colleges and universities that offered the best education would draw more students, who in return would provide the means for the university to operate by paying tuition and later donating as alumni. And what's more important, individuals would not be required to fund courses, activities, or speakers they find objectionable.

The variety of choices would stimulate many more private individuals and foundations to fund higher education according to their vision of what American education should be. In fact, even today private money continually funds many general and specific programs within colleges and universities and endows faculty chairs. Unlike the system we have now-where universities receive a stream of federal funding-the privatization of colleges and universities will force recipients of private dollars to produce successful results in order to stay competitive and qualify for further private funding. Colleges that reject government money prove this point (Grove City College, Hillsdale College, The King's College and others).

Higher education will continue to influence the ideas and opinions of future generations. The market for these ideas should remain outside the control of government."

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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