"Stupid in America"

[bokamba]

I watched 20/20 tonight after hearing about tonight's program on the excellent econ-related blog Cafe Hayek. The program criticized the failure of many of the United States' public schools to provide a good education to many students. Even some significantly poorer nations do better on tests than Americans. People are people; American 4th-graders

Comments

[kej]

Agree. You might find this entry on education in Western Europe interesting.

[bokamba]

Thanks! The material in that entry was mostly covered in the show. It's a good reference.

[corsettraining]

You're right about the economic benefits of vouchers. However, that's not the only consideration. Even if something is economically better, it also has to be legal.

Vouchers are of questionable constitutionality. Our taxpayer dollars are not supposed to go to private organizations.

[bokamba]

I see your point. However, if that were always true, wouldn't there be a case against the government hiring contractors? And education is run on a state or local level--vouchers are not funded by federal money. So it depends more upon the state constitution.

Supposing that vouchers do not conflict with the letter of the law, the taxes are still being used as a means of redistribution, and it's still going for the same thing (only better), so there shouldn't be an argument with the spirit of the law.