I can't really argue against Jeremy Janes's characterization of public education,
>that the whole process is a crap shoot.
even while noting that all lbo-ers who dealt with their own children's experiences seem to confirm the reports of various pollsters that Americans tend to be critical of the school system overall but basically satisfied with the schools they actually deal with.
And thanks for the link to very interesting In Motion magazine. It seems to me that vouchers, in something like the version propsed by Jose Perez in a post I forwarded, could address some of the problems mention in the In Motion article. Perez said:
>However, the Black community's majority support for vouchers is just a new
>form of the struggle by this vanguard of American working people for the
>right to an education, and an equal education. It contains elements of three
>previous aspects of this struggle, a) desegregation b) parent/community
>control and c) adequate funding.
>Socialists or "the Left" need to understand Black and Hispanic supports for
>"vouchers." We should identify the progressive reasons why the general
>"voucher idea" elicits strong support, and come up with "our own" voucher
>proposals that highlight and give fullest expression to this progressive
>content, and at the same time frustrate the reactionary schemes behind the
>bourgeois voucher proposals.
A "leftist" voucher proposal could address some of the inequities in funding (especially the reliance on property taxes) which kelley mentioned. It would be possible to come up with a combination of vouchers (which would transfer money to poor families) and charters (say schools organized by locals of either of the teachers unions -- of which there already one or two) which would enable these two groups to cooperate in a mutually supportive fashion, in a way that might even encourage socialist or syndicalist or anarchist attitudes to flourish. But methinks I'm flogging a dead horse, or at least a poor nag no one here wants to ride, so I'll desist.
K.M.