[Vision2020] MSD financial condition

[Dale Courtney]

Hey, Carl!

> If there were a quality 
> secular private school in town, it may well interest me.  To 
> my knowledge, 
> there is not.  Hence, circumstances would require me to 
> enroll my children 
> in the public school system and support it at the voting 
> booth.  I assume 
> there are parents in our town who are faced with such a 
> decision.

This has kind of been the reason driving the charter school movement -- to
get out from under all the problems in the regular schools. 

However, if we were to have a Separation of School and State (as
libertarians propose), you would have the ability to send your virtual
children to whatever "flavor" of school you'd want; and, since there would
be competition among schools, it would give you the best school for the
money. 

For a discussion on competition in education, see:
http://www.uidaho.edu/~jwenders/Essays%20In%20Persuasion/4/I-Why_IEA_Afraid_
._10_3_94(MSW).htm

For instance, there are at least 5 private Christian educational
institutions that I personally know of in Moscow. These all compete with
each other for the quality of output vs. cost. Since no monopoly exists, all
5 continue to work to offer the best in educational opportunities for the
children and the parents at the lowest cost. This is good for everyone
involved, and it lowers the costs across the board.

Government schools do not have any competition, so they have no incentive to
reduce costs. In fact, they only have an incentive to bloat. This is the
classical symptoms of a government-sponsored monopoly. For a good article on
government school monopolies and the detrimental effect it has on education
overall, see
http://www.uidaho.edu/~jwenders/Essays%20In%20Persuasion/4/C-School_Choice%5
B1%5D._6_5_91(MSW).htm

It is always of interest to me that liberals typically scream about the
wickedness of monopolies; yet they are the first to defend the chief and
most expensive offender of all that monopolistic evils entail...

Best,
Dale