[Lucky Dog]

So, let's stop speculating and start educating. Let's get some voucher programs up and running and see what happens.

“… all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” … Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence:

Look, I tend to agree with your proposal from personal, adult experience in the public school system as well as political inclination. Additionally, you have argued you point passionately and extensively.

However, except in Utah, your position has still not passed the hurdle posed by Thomas Jefferson (cited above). You have not established convincingly that the “evils” of the current system are not “sufferable” to the majority of citizenry.

Consequently, I still maintain that it would be easier to “sell” the electorate on the proposition of “returning” to state wherein the system apparently functioned adequately. For example, by presenting and supporting an argument that the educational system prior to 1960 allowed corporal punishment, had no “truck” with PC crap, had greater autonomy from central authority and more accountability to locally elected school boards, was composed mostly of “small” schools, etc., it would be more possible to convince voters to approve such a change than a radically different sounding alternative such as vouchers.

[gridlock]

Unfortunately, it is difficult to pass a voucher program because the unionized interests fight against it hammer and tong. They are the largest and best organized supporters of the Democrat Party, and thus have tremendous power to control education policy.

Vouchers are overwhelmingly popular amongst parents. I am hopeful that once they have been shown to be a success in Utah, the stranglehold on American education held by the unionized interests will be broken, and people who truly have the students’ best interests at heart, the parents, will be firmly in the driver’s seat.

[SteveH]

Consequently, I still maintain that it would be easier to “sell” the electorate on the proposition of “returning” to state wherein the system apparently functioned adequately. For example, by presenting and supporting an argument that the educational system prior to 1960 allowed corporal punishment, had no “truck” with PC crap, had greater autonomy from central authority and more accountability to locally elected school boards, was composed mostly of “small” schools, etc., it would be more possible to convince voters to approve such a change than a radically different sounding alternative such as vouchers.

It often has to pass some legal hurdles set up by the state boards of education as well as some kind of referendum of all voters affected (in California). The existing large district bureaucracies tend to argue that budget considerations preclude the desirability to downsize them. Passage would also set up the district for lawsuits since the breakups tend to cleave along economic lines and also racial lines in many areas. In some cases, the laws are so convoluted that no one can accurately predict all the consequences of district downsizing. But the act-local sentiment is noble.