[Vision2020] MSD Pay and Tenure--a reply

[Dale Courtney]

Donovan writes:
> Once again, you offer statistics and whine to go with it. You offer no
> detailed plan to deal with how the public educational system can cut the
> budget and NOT cut services for the children and educators.

Hmmm. Well, if you assume uncritically that spending will spiral out of
control regardless of how many students leave MSD, then I doubt anything I
could say could/would persuade you otherwise -- your mind will justify what
your heart has already chosen.

> >"If Moscow's population were to decrease from 28,000 people to 23,000
people
> >over the course of 10 years, would you be in favor of increasing
> >inflation-adjusted spending by 100% to the fire department, law
enforcement,
> >road maintenance, parks, sewage maintenance, ...?"
> If the alternatives were to have no parks, no sewage, no fire protection,
> and no law enforcement;
> or for us to be forced to move and live in huddled masses with less parks,
> less sewage treatment, less law enforcement, and less fire protection;
> or to go without one of the previous services;
> or to pay only a portion and receive ineffective services from all the
about
> services then Yes I would.

Wow, you're such an either-or person -- *either* we spend 50% of our
State/Local budget on government schools, *or* we have no education.

I assume you would say the same thing about military spending?  :)

It's not an either/or thing here, Donovan. There are other options.

1. Dale's option: having the *best* education for the lowest possible cost.
2. Donovan's option: having the worst education for the highest possible
cost.

Gee, you choose!  Oops, you have!

> Likewise, this like asking would if you would rather have half the surgery
> you need and pay $3000 or pay $10000 and get the entire surgery. Kind of
> pointless to get half the surgery.

A better comparison -- you can go and get the surgery from a private
physician for $3,000 or from the VA hospital (government doctors) for a
total cost of $10,000 (to the taxpayers). Same surgery, but one costs over 3
times as much.

But, according to your logic, the VA procedure is "free". Sigh...

> >"That's the relative numbers that the MSD has downsized in the last 10
> years."
> You make horrible misleading comparisons Dale. This like comparing Cars to
> computers. Computers cost 50% less every five years and the technology
> doubles. Cars double in price every 5 years. A car doesn't crash 5x a day
> either.

And we're back again to the heart of the discussion -- government
educational costs are spiraling out of control compared to the rest of the
economy.

For you, that's perfectly acceptable. Hey! Why not spend even *more*! We're
getting a bargain at having it only increase by a factor of 3.4x over the
student bail-out rate.

For some of us, it's time to critically ask *why* those costs are spiraling
out of control and not to accept that spiraling as the status quo.

> You haven't provided that information because you know it can't be done.

But it *has* been done and *is* being done all over the country (and the
world) on a daily basis. Listen carefully: parental choice and competition
among the private sector. If you put some competition into the mix, you will
find that government school spending will decrease and performance would
increase. If it didn't then parents will vote with their feet -- as many
inner city parents have done.

Many voters (and hence States) across this country have realized that the
government *cannot* and *should not* educate our children -- we call this
the "Separation of School and State". Many States are aggressively pursuing
alternatives to the failing status quo that you support. That's what I'm
proposing as well.

Best,
Dale Courtney
Moscow, Idaho