Vouching against Public Good
Regarding Katie Allison Granju's column (Loco Parentis, July 18) celebrating school vouchers: If public education is broken, it will never be fixed by misdirecting its resources, nor by an incomplete and misleading analysis of its history.
Vouchers appeal to the self-interested and the desperate while allowing them to pretend it will help the downtrodden. But what of those who are still unable to—or who choose not to—use vouchers for private education? How do vouchers help the public schools those people will use, schools which still belong to us all?
Supporters say vouchers will help public education by introducing competition and therefore some kind of free market magic. But there are many serious problems with vouchers that rarely get addressed by the average voucher supporter. Meanwhile, belief that market pressures would somehow solve the problems of public education is purely a matter of faith, and as such, it should not become a matter of public policy.
The contrast Granju suggests between herself and many voucher opponents is incomplete. While many voucher opponents do enroll their kids in private schools as she does, it doesn't highlight the hypocrisy she thinks: Voucher opponents are not resentful of their tax money going to support public education.
The ideas of the Public Good have been steadily eroded in this country, replaced with an "everyone for themselves" ethic—if you can call it an ethic. There will never be a need to boost the average person's sense of self-interest, but the idea of the common good MUST be improved, else the factiousness that has grown in our country may eventually bring us down. In fact, it is this factiousness that has brought public education to the sorry state Granju and others decry.
This is a wedge issue and a diversion: If all the energy spent debating vouchers were used to work on the actual things public education needs to improve, including the better funding vouchers mock, the public good would be much better served.
Ed White
Knoxville
Terror-able Legislators?
Now that the legislature has increased the regressive soak-the-poor sales tax, rather than tax people affluent enough to contribute to political campaigns, some legislators are seeking to be re-elected so that they can remain at the public trough instead of having to work for a living. One such would-be returning parasite now has big signs up in Knoxville saying "elect" What's-His-Face instead of "re-elect." He voted to increase the sales tax, but obviously doesn't want voters to connect him with their gouging.
With legislators like that, who needs terrorists!
Arthur Chesser
Knoxville
Good Neighbors
Bravo to Mr. Mayshark's Editor's Corner (June 27) in which he stated that an organization was needed to protect our neighborhoods. We at the Pond Gap Area Neighborhood Association have and will continue to advocate a "Neighborhood Bill of Rights" where neighborhood problems are SOLVED not SHIFTED to other areas. We know this from experience, for one area's problem was dumped on us. This was nothing more than discrimination against a working class neighborhood.
David Williams
President, Pond Gap Area Neighborhood Association
Corrections
Last week's story about female clergy misidentified the church with which Paige Buchholz is affiliated. She is associate rector at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church in Farragut. And Wendy Neff of First Presbyterian was identified as an assistant pastor. Her title is associate pastor. We apologize for the errors.
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