The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Vouch Potatoes

8.31.05 @ 12:01AM

V-OUCH!
Re: Marie Gryphon's Vouchers Hit the Burbs:

Marie Gryphon hits the key voucher point I have been making (not in print!) for years -- the vital importance of breaking out of the "inner city only" or "low income only" box, so that families of ALL backgrounds and locations can benefit from greater educational freedom. To that end, it's equally vital to stress the importance of non-voucher approaches to broadening the constituencies of freedom, including private action, Coverdell Accounts, scholarship tax credits, and many more that no one has invented yet. If we truly care about educational opportunity for the poor, we need to make a common cause between the neediest families, and the patrons of public schools who want something better than the status quo.

Great job, Marie.
-- George A. Pieler

Regarding "Vouchers Hit the Burbs," haven't we learned anything from what's happened to our colleges and universities since they've all become dependent on our taxes? Costs (actually prices) have skyrocketed and liberals imposed political correctness on almost all of them. Vouchers will eventually do the same thing to private elementary and high schools.
-- D. Duggan

I voted for California's school voucher initiative when it was on the ballot in the '90s. It went down to a 2-1 defeat. Since then, I have reversed my position because, as a parent of children then in private school, I realized that, through the forces of political correctness, the courts' incessant drive for radical egalitarianism, and the ubiquitous government power of coercion, over time the private schools would become what the public schools are now. In the case of parochial schools, they would be forced to teach ideas contrary to their professed beliefs. To those who have refused to change the public school through political action I say, "I don't want your riff-raff in my school."
-- Now Resident of Arizona

I was living in the upscale Birmingham school district of Michigan in 2000 when the voucher program was overwhelmingly defeated. It wasn't hard to see why. Good school districts have high property values. Even if you maintain the high quality of the school district when outside students are brought in, property values will decline because the need to move to the district to get into the quality school no longer exists. With vouchers, a family that wants a quality public school education can live just about anywhere. Thus the distortion in home market prices that occurs wherever there is a quality public school system will cease to exist wherever there are vouchers available. Current property owners are left holding the bag, and they of course, don't want that to happen.

Although the economic incentives provided by vouchers do improve school systems, you can't get people to vote against their pocketbooks.
-- Paul Doolittle

IRAQ, ONE PIECE AT A TIME
Re: John Connly Walsh's Iraq in Late Summer:

I really appreciate John Connly Walsh's columns, especially this one. Thank you.
-- Jackie Carpenter

I appreciate Mr. Walsh's story of two good men doing what it takes regardless of the smothering bureaucracy. I wish more Americans would wake up and realize our government, on all levels, is ridiculously managed.

It is this level of incompetence that has kept us consistently defending ourselves regardless of the obvious warnings.
-- Greg Barnard
Franklin, Tennessee

Mr. Walsh has a great idea, rewards for those doing outstanding work in Iraq. How about TAS starting a fund (donations) for the rewards? Nominations from those currently working in Iraq, military or civilian, of individuals who are going above and beyond what is expected. Not sure how you would select the winners, maybe a vote or even a panel of distinguished judges.
-- Anonymous the younger

SACKETT'S RACKET
Re: Margaret Moen's Right to Life Retrospect:

Being a child with aging parents, their wishes in a living will are already in the cards. Who am I to not accede to their wishes in the matter of their demise? Where I might part company with Mr. Sackett, is in the manner where the state stands in for the family in making decisions of life and death.

There is also a pratfall for those guardians of the fetal death camps as well. To pass a bill as Mr. Sackett proposes may in fact eliminate Roe v. Wade. A presumption of "Death with Dignity" (DwD) carries with it the baggage that there has been a meaningful life preceding that point. With the skills of a sharp jurist, one might actually see that a case is made that if DwD was the law of the land, terminating a fetus would not conform to it and hence, the nascent life must be persevered to term-- presumably under the aegis of due process.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Mainstream Media, Books, Law, Military, Iraq, Conservatism