Strings on Vouchers

[Gaffney, Edward]

Vance Koven makes two points in his latest post.
1.  I agree with his view "favor[ing] a voucher system," though I wld not
lead with the rationale  that a
voucher system is an effective "means of fostering greater competition and
issuing a wake-up call to
unresponsive public systems."  Instead I  wld advance such a system as a way
of promoting greater justice and freedom.  I also agree with Vance that a
voucher proposal is "a far cry, however, from undoing public systems
entirely."  According to all the polling data  I have seen, the overwhelming
majority of Americans like the public schools. Any sensible view of liberty
means that they shld still be able to have their kids schooled there.
2.  I disagree with Vance's read of Charles Glenn.  Glenn is not a fadist
out to "pooh-pooh the motives of the founders of the public education
system," but a pretty careful historian who has shed light on the
exclusivist tendency of Horace Mann's vision.  Hence I can't yet understand
why Vance finds the evidence Glenn adduces on this matter as "far from
compelling."  Ed Gaffney, getting briefer