Coyote Blog

One Comment

1. DKH:

   OK, I watched this and a couple thoughts came to mind. First off, how is the "cost" calculated. Is it $7500 * (# of students)? Seems like they are saving $6900 per student, since it would cost $14,400 per student in the D.C. schools. So are they telling us that the net cost is $18 million (I think), accounting for the savings of not spending resources on these students in public schools?

   If so, then the program seems pretty wasteful, to burn through $6,900 in savings per student and still generate a cost. If not, they should be clearer about the benefits. Maybe they are still burning through the cash in the public schools, but it doesn't seem honest to attribute that to the voucher program.

   Second, anyone else find it amusing (not in a positive way) that these were Obama campaigners/voters? Either (a) their improved education didn't lead them to think very critically about their electoral choice (at least, I thought it was pretty likely that Obama would not support school choice) or (b) coyote was right and people tended to see what they wanted in Obama, rather than what was there.

   Of course, there are probably other options (c), (d), etc., but I think it is good that people see their political idols as people who incur costs to them. One of my greatest fears is that people will never understand the cost of excessive governmental nannyism, and so it becomes impossible to convince them to stop the slide away from freedom.

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   Sidenote: I would really appreciate a "preview comment" feature if it is available/can be activated for this blog. I'm not sure if it never existed on this site, or if it disappeared in the various site migrations, but I find it difficult to proofread links in plaintext format. Being able to preview would make the process simpler. As always, though, thanks for the insightful blog.

   May 5, 2009, 3:15 pm