Parent-Child Negotiations

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"toto" wrote in message
...

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=5446

Facts About Vouchers

Cleveland, OH Voucher Program
# Through 2001, the Cleveland voucher program has cost more than $28
million. When direct administrative costs are factored in, costs of
the voucher program increase to $33 million. In 2001-02, the Cleveland
program enrolled 4,266 voucher students and program costs were
estimated to exceed $8 million, with an additional $2 million or more
being spent by Cleveland public schools to provide transportation for
voucher students. In total, the voucher program cost more than $10
million in 2001-02. 100% of this money came from funding intended to
benefit all children in Cleveland's public schools.

This is one of the dirtiest tricks anti-choice people use: they pretend that
children who receive vouchers aren't children. The money was intended to
help educate Cleveland's schoolchildren, and it did help to educate
Cleveland's schoolchildren. The statistics provided here do not provide a
single shred of evidence that the school system lost money compared with if
it had had to educate the children in city schools and pay the costs
associated with doing so.

# The state of Ohio has spent more tax money per student on the
students in the voucher program than it has for the other nearly 90%
of Ohio's school children in public schools.21

I smell a shell game here. The ratio of $8 million for vouchers compared
with $2 million for transportation implies that transportation costs would
push the cost up from a maximum of $2250 per student to maybe around $2800
per student. Add in any reasonable oversight costs and the cost is still
far below what the Cleveland public schools average spending per student -
and probably below half what they average spending per student.

But wait. The writer says, "the state of Ohio has spent." If the voucher
money comes entirely from the state level, while public schools get most of
their money from local taxes, the claim could be technically true - even
while the impression it is intended to create is a clear, deliberate lie.

Of course now we get into another problem. Didn't the author just say that
the money spent on vouchers was money that was "intended to benefit all
children in Cleveland's public schools"? But how could that be if it was
state money rather than local money? It would seem that the author uses
words differently in different paragraphs depending on what is most
effective for distorting facts to create the desired impression.

Since 1991, the state
has appropriated more money for its private schools ($1.1 billion)
than it did to refurbish its public schools ($1 billion).22 $140
million in the 1998-99 school year alone went to private schools for
textbooks, reading and math specialists, science equipment, and
more.23 This is in addition to already providing all of Ohio's private
schools with about $600 per student in cash, supplies and services
from state taxpayers and local schools.24

And the cost of educating the same children in the public schools would have
been??? Probably a whole lot higher, in which case the money would not have
been available for school refurbishment and such at all.

# Additionally, Ohio relies heavily on local property taxes to fund
state education.

Thought so. :-) Remember what I said about the shell game?

# As in Milwaukee, money is subtracted from public school funds in
Cleveland to pay for voucher students who were not attending public
school. In the program's first year, $1.6 million-almost 25% of the
Ohio taxpayer cost for vouchers-went toward the tuition of students
who were already enrolled in private schools. In the 1999-00 school
year, less than one-third of the voucher students came from public
schools the year before.28 Similarly, a recent study conducted by the
Cleveland-based research institute Policy Matters Ohio, determined
that one in three students participating in the voucher program in
1999-00 was already enrolled in a private school prior to receiving a
voucher.29

So now we go up from about $2800 per student (including transportation) to
about $4200 for each student not previously enrolled in a private school.
(Actually a bit less because not all students are eligible for the $2250
maximum amount.) That's still less than two thirds of Cleveland's average
spending per student in public schools. So students who hadn't had their
education funded previously get it funded, and the cost to the taxpayers
still probably isn't higher than it would have been if the students had
attended public schools. (The reason I say "probably" is that overall
averages include kids with special needs that drive the cost of educating
them way up.)

# As in Milwaukee, Cleveland public schools are not saving money due
to the reduction of students. A study conducted by the consulting
company KPMG LLP found that the district's operational costs continued
to increase even though the number of students was reduced by the
voucher program. The report found that voucher students were drawn
from throughout the large district making student reductions at the
school negligible, so that it "is not able to reduce administrative
costs or eliminate a teaching position..[Instead, the district] is
losing the DPIA without a change in their overall operating costs."32

Could this be another shell game? Mathematically, what would be expected is
that a majority of situations where pulling out a couple students does not
allow a reduction in the number of teachers would be counterbalanced by a
minority of situations where pulling out one or two students would allow a
reduction because the numbers had been just one or two students over the "We
need another teacher" threshold before the voucher program kicked in.
Mathematically, it should balance - *IF* the threshold at which an
additional teacher is "necessary" remains constant.

But suppose (gasp!) some of the schools were overcrowded when the voucher
program started? Then the public school system might have taken advantage
of the vouchers to reduce overcrowding instead of keeping the same average
level of overcrowding and cutting teaching positions. My bet is that
Cleveland did get its benefit from vouchers, but chose to take the benefit
in the form of reduced overcrowding instead of in the form of saving money.

Florida Voucher Program
# Florida's statewide voucher program, called the Opportunity
Scholarship Program, could cost more than a quarter of a billion
dollars a year in the future if all eligible students applied-and were
able to find seats at private schools willing to participate in the
program. Eligibility is determined by enrollment in a public school
deemed "failing" for two of the last four years. Seventy-eight schools
received an 'F' grade in 1999-00 and another 4 schools were graded 'F'
a year later. These schools educate about 55,000 students. If all 82
schools were to receive a second 'F' within the four-year period, and
all eligible students applied-and were able to find seats at private
schools willing to participate in the program-the cost to taxpayers
would exceed $280 million annually by the 2003-04 school year.33 Even
if only 25% of these students opted to apply, the cost would be $71
million.

More smoke and mirrors, since if all the children eligible took advantage of
the program, the failing public schools could be closed and their operating
costs saved. No effort is made to show how that savings would compare with
the cost of the vouchers.
----------------------
You're merely lying outright and calling it a critique, we've heard
this same confabulated crap before, and it's been trashed before!
Steve

abacus wrote:

Banty wrote in message ...
In article , abacus says...

Banty wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


I hope you write your book. You're quite the poster child for the
anti-democratic undercurrents and motivations of the movement for vouchers. The
desire to segregate in public life. The desire to convert the religion of
others.

I really think your wrong about his motivations and judging him
according to your memories and your own stereotypes.

I'm judging him by his posts.

Having never met the man personally, so am I. Yet we come to
different conclusions. Therefore, our judgements are affected by our
individual experiences. Hence, you are judging him according to your
memories and your own stereotypes. So am I of course.
-------------------------
No, according to your brainwashing.
Steve

abacus wrote:

Banty wrote in message ...
In article , abacus says...

Banty wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


I hope you write your book. You're quite the poster child for the
anti-democratic undercurrents and motivations of the movement for vouchers. The
desire to segregate in public life. The desire to convert the religion of
others.

I really think your wrong about his motivations and judging him
according to your memories and your own stereotypes.

I'm judging him by his posts.

Having never met the man personally, so am I. Yet we come to
different conclusions. Therefore, our judgements are affected by our
individual experiences. Hence, you are judging him according to your
memories and your own stereotypes. So am I of course.
-------------------------
No, according to your brainwashing.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...

Nobody said his house, how about to his church up a two mile private
road on his property!? This is how far they want us to go out of our
way to pay them back their taxes. Asinine.

On the contrary, the route we want is actually less expensive to government
than if all children attended government schools.
----------
LIE! The same process of teaching costs indistinguishably on different
sites unless graft exists, and more of that exists in private business
than in government, it's called PROFIT! And you intermixing education
and religion and pretending it is a result of religion, and your mixing
of truth with falsehood so as to confuse students as to what truth even
IS, is reprehensible!


What you want is
analogous to deliberately routing the bus system in a way specifically
designed to keep it from getting "too close" to churches.
------------
Nonsense, we just don't want churcheschools sucking up public funds to
pay for their church buses! Children being hauled off for brainwashing
with this mix of truth with lies, even slightly at public expense,
sickens us, and makes us want to kill a whole lot of you!!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...

Nobody said his house, how about to his church up a two mile private
road on his property!? This is how far they want us to go out of our
way to pay them back their taxes. Asinine.

On the contrary, the route we want is actually less expensive to government
than if all children attended government schools.
----------
LIE! The same process of teaching costs indistinguishably on different
sites unless graft exists, and more of that exists in private business
than in government, it's called PROFIT! And you intermixing education
and religion and pretending it is a result of religion, and your mixing
of truth with falsehood so as to confuse students as to what truth even
IS, is reprehensible!


What you want is
analogous to deliberately routing the bus system in a way specifically
designed to keep it from getting "too close" to churches.
------------
Nonsense, we just don't want churcheschools sucking up public funds to
pay for their church buses! Children being hauled off for brainwashing
with this mix of truth with lies, even slightly at public expense,
sickens us, and makes us want to kill a whole lot of you!!
Steve

abacus wrote:

toto wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote:

Not in government schools. I just want families to be able to choose
schools where a prayer can be led someone, where the Ten Commandments can be
displayed on the wall, and so forth, without having to pay thousands of
dollars extra for a choice that in reality costs no more than it would cost
a government school to educate the children.

Here's a mainstream Jewish view:

http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edt..._vouchers.html

Your argument appears to be this one:

Parents whose religious conscience precludes them from using the
public schools are in effect taxed double when they also pay tuition
for their children's mandatory secular education in denominational
schools.

The counter is that:

In fact, all citizens, including single persons, childless couples,
and retired couples, pay taxes to support public schools, regardless
of use. No one is taxed to support a religious school any more than
one is taxed to support a church or synagogue.

In regards to education, the government taxes all citizens to provide
a benefit that is available to all citizens (or at least all citizens
with children). There is no corresponding government service that
provide, free of charge to all who wish to go, benefits that are
analogous to the benefits that one gets from attending a church or
synagogue. If there were (and thankfully there isn't), then this
would be a reasonable analogy. Since there is not, it isn't.
---------------
It doesn't matter, all hobbies have the same status as religion
does before a secular government. The govt supports a lot of those,
but we still cannot publically fund those which are frauds.

Religion IS fraud, that's WHAT IT IS! Everyone knows that nobody
has ever been talked to by God, anymore than THEY have. Everyone
secretly knows it must be a fraud, a scam!! Believing otherwise
is not a reasonable view, in fact it is of the kind of view that
one gets laughed at for in public, or gets ignored and gets told
to sit down and shut up in court. This is why these must be kept
as strictly private views, NOT be imposed on children, even if
you COULD ever decide which of so many conflicting LIES you might
favor!! And mixing falsehood with truth and feeding it to children
is ABUSE!!
Steve

abacus wrote:

toto wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote:

Not in government schools. I just want families to be able to choose
schools where a prayer can be led someone, where the Ten Commandments can be
displayed on the wall, and so forth, without having to pay thousands of
dollars extra for a choice that in reality costs no more than it would cost
a government school to educate the children.

Here's a mainstream Jewish view:

http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edt..._vouchers.html

Your argument appears to be this one:

Parents whose religious conscience precludes them from using the
public schools are in effect taxed double when they also pay tuition
for their children's mandatory secular education in denominational
schools.

The counter is that:

In fact, all citizens, including single persons, childless couples,
and retired couples, pay taxes to support public schools, regardless
of use. No one is taxed to support a religious school any more than
one is taxed to support a church or synagogue.

In regards to education, the government taxes all citizens to provide
a benefit that is available to all citizens (or at least all citizens
with children). There is no corresponding government service that
provide, free of charge to all who wish to go, benefits that are
analogous to the benefits that one gets from attending a church or
synagogue. If there were (and thankfully there isn't), then this
would be a reasonable analogy. Since there is not, it isn't.
---------------
It doesn't matter, all hobbies have the same status as religion
does before a secular government. The govt supports a lot of those,
but we still cannot publically fund those which are frauds.

Religion IS fraud, that's WHAT IT IS! Everyone knows that nobody
has ever been talked to by God, anymore than THEY have. Everyone
secretly knows it must be a fraud, a scam!! Believing otherwise
is not a reasonable view, in fact it is of the kind of view that
one gets laughed at for in public, or gets ignored and gets told
to sit down and shut up in court. This is why these must be kept
as strictly private views, NOT be imposed on children, even if
you COULD ever decide which of so many conflicting LIES you might
favor!! And mixing falsehood with truth and feeding it to children
is ABUSE!!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"

How hard, and in how many places, have you looked? Are you really saying
that the peer pressure issue has nothing to do with why some Jews and
Moslems send their children to Jewish or Moslem schools? And if so, how
do you know?

I notice you leave out Hindus (maybe because there are not many Hindu
day schools?) My dil is Hindu. My husband is Jewish. I live in a
very diverse area which includes those of all these religions and more
- Bahai, for example are numerous here. The only proselytizers are
fundamentalist Christians. Some Catholics may proselytize in some
circumstances though not among children as far as I know.

Why does it matter? If anything, your apparent prejudice against religions
that proselytize looks like evidence that you are trying to take advantage
of the current situation to put non-prosylitizing religions in a stronger
position compared with prosylitizing ones. That would violate the
Establishment Clause.
-----------------
Non-proselytizing by the government UPHOLDS the Establishment Clause,
it doesn't violate it!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"

How hard, and in how many places, have you looked? Are you really saying
that the peer pressure issue has nothing to do with why some Jews and
Moslems send their children to Jewish or Moslem schools? And if so, how
do you know?

I notice you leave out Hindus (maybe because there are not many Hindu
day schools?) My dil is Hindu. My husband is Jewish. I live in a
very diverse area which includes those of all these religions and more
- Bahai, for example are numerous here. The only proselytizers are
fundamentalist Christians. Some Catholics may proselytize in some
circumstances though not among children as far as I know.

Why does it matter? If anything, your apparent prejudice against religions
that proselytize looks like evidence that you are trying to take advantage
of the current situation to put non-prosylitizing religions in a stronger
position compared with prosylitizing ones. That would violate the
Establishment Clause.
-----------------
Non-proselytizing by the government UPHOLDS the Establishment Clause,
it doesn't violate it!
Steve

"Donna Metler" wrote in message . ..
"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Donna Metler" wrote in message
.. .

One of my major problems is that here religious separation and racial
separation would be equivalent. There are still a lot of private
religious
schools here which were created due to public school desegregation. To
allow children of predominantly white, rich religious groups to take
vouchers and leave the public schools while minority children who
belong to poorer religions which cannot afford the infastructure
needed to run a school system remain in the public schools seems
like a step backwards to me.

On the other hand, operating schools in poor areas could be a great
opportunity for members of wealthier religious groups to help others and
possibly win some converts at the same time. How good or bad that is
from a
religious perspective would be debatable, but it is a possibility that
offers very definite advantages from an educational perspective. I can
easily see myself donating to such an effort.

Ah, but what if they don't want to be converted? Most of my students have
strong religious beliefs, but not necessarily those preached by, say Roman
Catholics. I don't think my COGIC or AME parents would want their child in a
private school (and since many COGIC and AME churches are small, storefront
or living room operations, I don't think they're going to be opening their
own schools anytime soon). I really don't think my Moslem parents are going
to want to send their child to a school run by a Christian group.

That's reasonable and in a voucher system, they certainly wouldn't be
required to do so. No one is suggesting that the secular public
schools with no religious aspects be eliminated, only that parents who
wish to should be allowed. So the children you are talking about are
no worse off under a voucher system. And if the Moslem (or GOGIC OR
AME) community is large enough, it's entirely possible that some
enterprising adherents will start up a school compatible with their
beliefs, thus giving those students other options.