Tuesday, May 10, 2005

WEAK ARGUMENTS AGAINST SCHOOL CHOICE

Considering the overwhelming evidence in favor of the productive power of free individuals and markets, the only parts of the public debate on school choice tax credits that are "just plan wrong" are the arguments presented against deregulating what has been called the last public monopoly.

* It will drain money from public schools.
You can say deregulating telecommunications resulted in AT&T losing money, but deregulation unarguably improved consumer choice, pricing and product innovation. We are better off because we created a telecommunications marketplace rather than rely on a telecommunications monopoly. Politically boxing out competitors because they will upset the financial interests of the status quo is the worst reason to deny parents a competitive market for education.

* There are no alternatives in the poorest counties.
The public school is the only school. It is true that there are currently few alternatives in the poorest counties. However, this situation is the result of government assuming the role of a monopoly provider with enough political clout to suppress competition. Poor parents certainly have the desire for better education. Tax credits and scholarship-granting organizations will give them the purchasing power.

* Some parents just don't care.
School choice will do nothing to help those children. It is simply not justifiable to deny freedom of choice to the majority of parents who do care because a small number of parents do not.

* School choice tax credits encourage private schools with little or no accountability.
Market standards of accountability are more objective and much more useful than government ones. To say that school choice relies on market standards of accountability, not government standards, is actually high praise. There are many examples of markets creating aids for the consumer seeking reliable measures of quality. For example, The U.S. News and World Report Guide to Colleges, The Princeton Review, Consumer Reports magazine and Morningstar mutual fund ratings, to name just a few. Contrast that with a public school system that rates itself. Is it any wonder that we are regularly told we are making "wonderful progress" while our graduation rates and SAT scores remain among the lowest in the country?

* School choice puts public money into private schools.
This is simply false. If you spend money on child care, you can claim a tax credit. It is your money when you spend it, and the government simply gives you a break for spending it on child care as opposed to video poker or the lottery. Such a break is not public money, any more than a tax-deductible charitable contribution. Any claim to the contrary is completely dishonest.

Improving education must consist of some form of school choice, the greater the better. Consumers have benefited from one deregulated industry after another, from telecommunications, to securities, to airlines. Education should prove no different. America is a land of opportunity precisely because limited resources are allocated by competition and markets, not by political clout. Somewhere out there, there is a Sam Walton or Bill Gates of education, just waiting for the opportunity to exercise real creativity in the effective education of children. School choice tax credits may be just what that person is waiting for. We should not keep him or her waiting any longer.

More here




MATHEMAGICS

Two or three times a month, when at home in California, Arthur Benjamin slips into a tuxedo for another of his one-man magic shows. He neither pull rabbits out of hats, nor saws people in half. Instead, he entertains audiences with what he calls Mathemagics. "My mission in life is to bring mathematics to the masses," said Dr Benjamin, a mathematics professor at California's Harvey Mudd College, and now a visiting professor at the University of NSW. Maths "can be wonderfully creative and fun".

At his shows for schools, teachers groups or corporate functions, he hands out calculators, challenging audiences to beat his brain at solving mental arithmetic. What's the square of 963? It's 927,369 he replied without hesitation. "I can rattle off 100 digits of pi," he added. Give him your birthdate and he can tell you on which day of the week you were born. "People love the birthday one because it's so personal," he said. Unlike Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man, Dr Benjamin is not an autistic savant. "Autistic savants can very rarely explain how they are doing it. The numbers just appear to them." Dr Benjamin must calculate the answers in his head, which is the point of his performances. He wants to show that everyone, if they know the tricks and short cuts, can tackle complex mental arithmetic. "After a little practice, you can throw away the calculator."

One of his tricks is doing his mental arithmetic from the left, instead of the right, as most people are taught at school. In the case of finding the square of 963, for example, "it is more important to know the answer is around 900,000, than that it ends in nine. It allows me to start saying my answer while I'm still calculating. It gives the illusion that I am even faster."

Diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a child, and required to take valium daily between four and 14, Dr Benjamin said he was not a genius. Achieving at maths, like playing a musical instrument or juggling, just required practice, which he said was why homework was so important for students. With Mathemagics, "people come away, even if momentarily, thinking about mathematics more positively. If that attitude stays for just a couple of people in the audience, especially children, my mission is accomplished.

Source

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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.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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