My wife adds the following corollary: “If you don’t sleep, you’ll get weak and sickly.”

Having said that, I’m not so sure how I feel about the whole two-against-one thing :-).

Responding to Moshe:

Jonathan- try to maintain a civil tone. For example, describing an opposing argument as “a republican canard”

A reasonable objection. I apologize for that particular choice of words.

and making generalizations such as “the facts don’t support you” followed by links to partisan websites

Pretty much all the websites about this topic are partisan. There are strong opinions on both sides, and much of the research on the topic is being funded by people with an agenda. The fact that research is reported on a partisan Web site does not make it invalid; what makes the research valid or invalid is the methodology used to conduct it.

I want to keep the argument in the philosophical realm because stats about the effect on schools are not relevant to the underlying principle: I’m saying I should have a choice to use vouchers even if they do hurt public schools

This is obviously a question about which we fundamentally disagree, and further debate on this particular point is unlikely to change either of our minds.

You employed a reductio ad absurdum (the kind of poor “debating technique” you blasted Z.M. for using) in asking why I don’t believe in privatized police, fire dept., sewage etc…. Police and firefighters (like armies) provide basic physical protection and are within the legitimate realm of what governments absolutely should be involved in. Water and sewage services also provide basic, immediate physical needs.

My argument is predicated on the fundamental belief that public schools are just as much a basic, essential service as police, fire departments, water and sewage. I explained this in my article. The fact that public education is required by law throughout the country would seem to imply that my view is widely shared.

My argument was not reductio ad absurdum exactly because I believe that public education is comparable in importance to the other services I mentioned.

You put it perfectly when you cried that if govt. didn’t have as much tax money, some govt. programs would lose out…Exactly! I’d love nothing more. Let one of the thousands of useless wasteful govt. programs (NOT education) shut down completely (like farm tobacco subsidies, the strategic milk reserve, berry research, these are all real).

I have three points to make in response to this argument:

1. The correct way to address wasteful government programs is to work for those programs to be eliminated. The fact that some government programs are wasteful is orthogonal to the discussion of whether a particular government program that is independent from them should be instituted. Therefore, bringing up the fact that there is waste in our government is an irrelevant tangent which does no more than distract us from discussion of the real issue.

2. The reality is that school vouchers don’t take money away from “wasteful government programs (NOT education)” — they in fact take money away from public education. As noted by the ADL, for example, “Milwaukee’s program has resulted in a huge budget shortfall, leaving the public schools scrambling for funds.” You, yourself, spoke of school vouchers as being valuable because they promote “free markets and competition,” and the only way that can work is if more money going to voucher schools means less money going to public schools!

3. Thank you for admitting that it’s OK with you for school voucher programs to take money away from other government programs. I think it’s important for this fact to be stated plainly. To be blunt: You want a bigger share of the pie, and it’s OK with you if somebody else gets a smaller share as a result. That is not necessarily a bad or unreasonable thing. Much of what is done in the political arena has to do with convincing the government to spend more money on the things we care about and less money on the things we don’t. It does, however, need to be stated plainly — school vouchers are not cost-neutral, even though many voucher advocates try to pretend that they are.

This article illustrates that rather starkly:

A study showing similar educational results for children in Milwaukee Public Schools and those using state-paid vouchers to attend private schools also verified a funding disparity that hurts city residents, the head of MPS says.

The outside researchers said city property taxes rise for each student using a voucher, compared to the tax load if the student went to MPS, while state income taxes decrease, as do property taxes in most other parts of the state.

So please just admit that your position is: you think government should have the right to take some of my income (backed up by force) in order to pay for other children’s’ education even though it puts my ability to educate my own children while maintaining a desirable quality of life in serious peril.

Yes, because like all the other essential services provided by the government, public education is an essential service whose success or failure impacts you and everyone else, regardless of whether or not you personally use that service.

And, as I’ve pointed out, there are other solutions to the problem of how you can afford to educate your own children the way you want.

You admit that you struggle greatly with your own tuition payments, but that you can afford it in the end. What about families that make less than you? Should they not be able to send their kids to yeshiva b/c they have an overarching responsibility to the public schools?

I have already answered this question and won’t repeat myself.

The only issue I take emotional exception to is your rejection of contemporary Orthodoxy’s values as being shtetl based, from the past, etc.

I did no such thing.

The “value” which I reject, which in my opinion isn’t really a value at all, is the belief that one can situate an Orthodox community smack-dab in the middle of a larger secular community, with so many dependencies on and links with that larger community that it is impossible to enumerate them all, and then claim that the Orthodox community can disregard the well-being of the larger community without threatening its own well-being.

I have already explained why this is simply impossible. I won’t repeat myself.

(I think they’re based primarily on God’s revelation of Truth to mankind)

As do I. Did you think that you could conclude that I must not be Orthodox because I oppose school vouchers?

If you reject traditional Jewish belief on who and what the focus of our education efforts should be as being a product of outdated thinking

I don’t reject traditional Jewish belief on who and what the focus of our education efforts should be. Please take more care not to allow your assumptions to bias your interpretation of what I’ve written.

Clearly, the focus of our education efforts should be on our own children and our own community. My objection is to the claim that we can focus exclusively on our own children and community, ignoring the educational needs of the greater community.

There is another point to be stressed here which I think is very important. Back when we were living in the shtetls, the adult products of the non-Jewish educational systems over which we had no influence were the ones who were preaching the blood libel in churches and provoking pogroms and hatred against Jews. The acceptance, and indeed stature, of Jews within American society gives us an unparalleled opportunity to influence that society in a way that is not only beneficial to it but also directly beneficial to us, by decreasing the ignorance and intolerance which, frankly, can make things very dangerous for Jews.

For evidence of what happens to the safety of Jews when the Jewish communities keep to themselves, one does not need to refer back to ancient history; it’s sufficient to refer to modern France.

The OU and Aguda support vouchers and the rabbis working for them are pretty expert on authentic jewish values.

I could invoke my own Jewish organizations who have their own rabbis who say that Jewish vouchers are bad for the Jews, but I really don’t think there’s any point in us getting into a “My rabbis can beat up your rabbis” debate. Weren’t you the one who asked that we address the substance of the ideas? It doesn’t seem like vague invocations of authority figures is quite the best way to do that.

You can keep preaching that Haredim are shortsighted and can’t go on living so isolated (I actually agree partially, I’m modern orthodox) but don’t force the govt. to make them see that,

The status quo (with a few exceptions) is no school vouchers. It’s the people trying to change the status quo who have an obligation to prove that the change being proposed is in the overall best interest of all the people who will be affected by it. If the Haredim want school vouchers, then they’re the ones who need to convince me and the others who oppose them that they’re a good idea.

Responding to Zechariah:

I had argued before that I felt that the monetary loss to the public school system was minimal and therefore acceptable

See above for at least one differing perspective on the “minimal” impact that the Milwaukee voucher program has had on the public schools.

I was informed that data as to the actual harm of this program to public schools DOES NOT EXIST because no study has ever been conducted by the WEAC (or its affiliates) on the matter.

Milwaukee isn’t the only place in which school vouchers have been tried. According to The Heritage Foundation, six states and Washington DC have voucher programs.

The WEAC and its affiliates aren’t the only researchers who might choose to study the Milwaukee program.

Did the people to whom you spoke mention these two studies?

From the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The first full-force examination since 1995 of Milwaukee’s groundbreaking school voucher program has found that students attending private schools through the program aren’t doing much better or worse than students in Milwaukee Public Schools.”

And this too, from the same newspaper:

A study being released today suggests that school choice isn’t a powerful tool for driving educational improvement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

But more surprising than the conclusion is the organization issuing the study: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades, when Milwaukee became the nation’s premier center for trying the idea. The institute is funded in large part by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an advocate of school choice.

“The report you are reading did not yield the results we had hoped to find,” George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote in the paper’s first sentence.

“We had expected to find a wellspring of hope that increased parental involvement in the Milwaukee Public Schools would be the key ingredient in improving student performance,” Lightbourn wrote. But “there are realistic limits on the degree to which parental involvement can drive market-based reform in Milwaukee.”

Even some of the most ardent supporters of school choice in Milwaukee have seen that the purest version of the idea - in which there is little government oversight of schools, and parental decisions in a free market dictate which schools thrive - does not square with the reality of what happened in Milwaukee when something close to such a system existed.

That reality can be summed up in two phrases: “bad schools” and “little change.”

Neither of these excerpts addresses the specific question of harm to the public schools, but note that the first study referenced above is the one which proved that the Milwaukee program is causing property taxes to increase for residents.

What I did find out was that less then four hundred million dollars has been spent on the voucher program in the course of its almost 20 years of existence compared to the 1Billion dollar yearly operating budget of the Milwaukee public school system. Although it should be noted that the majority of this was spent during the 2006-2007 school year and so a rise in voucher spending will likely occur in the future.

So, if I’m understanding your numbers correctly, the public school system has a $1 billion annual budget, around $200,000 million was spent last year on the voucher program, and you agree that it’s likely that spending on the program will increase in coming years.

And it doesn’t seem likely to you that an annual drain of more than 20% of their budget will impact the quality of the public schools?

The majority of studies on vouchers have centered around this programs merit based on the effectiveness of private education vs public education. These studies show that public school students out perform students from private school in standardized testing. Though the purpose of this study is to point out the ineffectiveness of private schools it also suggests that public schools are capable of keeping up their level of education regardless of money lost by the voucher system.

Or that they’re spending more time fighting to restore lost funds and less time improving the education they’re giving to their children. At a time when public schools across the country are being urged to improve, “Didn’t get any worse” is damning with faint praise. Have any of the studies looked at how the Milwaukee public schools fared during this period compared to comparable schools in districts without voucher programs?

Or that, as you pointed out, the real test hasn’t come yet, since only in the last few years has voucher spending increased to the point where it is likely to have a severe negative impact on the public schools.

I’m perfectly happy to let the states that already have the programs in place continue them for long enough to collect more data on their efficacy at improving education for both public and private school students. Everyone seems to agree that there isn’t yet enough data, so since we’ve begun the experiment, let’s finish it.

It does not seem prudent to spend huge amounts of money and create new entrenched bureaucracies to create voucher programs where they don’t already exist, when the results aren’t in for the experiments we’re already running.

Jonathan, now that Z has shown your cited evidence as not actually confirming the points you were trying to make, I have to point out that you were also guilty of this when trying to prove that most Jews live in urban areas.

You’re right, the study I forwarded you to didn’t make the point I was trying to make. Let me try again.

The only Jews who are clamoring in significant numbers for school vouchers are the Orthodox. Vouchers are opposed by pretty much all prominent non-Orthodox and non-denominational Jewish organizations, including, for example, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly and the Anti-Defamation League.

You’re absolutely right that most Jews have moved to the suburbs. However, that’s irrelevant to our discussion, because “most Jews” don’t support school vouchers. The relevant question is where most Jews who support and are likely to use school vouchers are located.

The answer, as far as I can tell, is that they are in the cities, for two reasons:

1. Orthodox Jews need to live close to their synagogues and they can’t do that in the suburbs.

2. Most school voucher programs restrict vouchers to families who are poor or whose students are in underperforming schools, and those are exactly the families who are most likely to live in urban areas.

I have also pointed out that since school voucher programs are often funded at least in part by the state, it doesn’t matter where exactly the recipients live — the impact of the voucher spending is not localized to their neighborhoods.

It is also worth pointing out that there are plenty of suburbs with bad schools, so the argument that it’s OK to take voucher money away from school districts in the suburbs because they can afford it is specious.

Furthermore, just because the schools in the suburbs is OK doesn’t mean that it’s OK to take money away from them for vouchers and reduce their quality, even if the reduced quality is still good. Aren’t the residents of those suburbs entitled to the best quality schools that can be built with the money they’ve paid for those schools through their property taxes?

I think it’s certainly clear that most modern orthodox Jews live in suburbs.

That is not my perception at all. You’re the one making the assertion, so how about providing some data to back it up?

Perhaps it also depends on how you define “suburb.” Certainly, the large Jewish communities near me in Brookline and Brighton are in the city, not in the suburbs. You could make the case that Newton is a suburb, but I don’t think you could say the same for the Orthodox community in Sharon. The huge ultra-Orthodox Jewish population in New York City is clearly living in the city, as are many of the ultra-Orthodox in the Baltimore area. I could go either way with Silver Spring.

And so in order to put to rest the debate regarding data as it pertains to this issue, I called the WEAC who’s website was linked as source material.

After speaking personally with both Dustin Beilke ( WEAC Media Relations Officer) and Christina Brey (WEAC Web Journalist and author of the articles in the links provided) I was informed that data as to the actual harm of this program to public schools DOES NOT EXIST because no study has ever been conducted by the WEAC (or it’s affiliates) on the matter.
What I did find out was that less then four hundred million dollars has been spent on the voucher program in the course of its almost 20 years of existence compared to the 1Billion dollar yearly operating budget of the Milwaukee public school system. Although it should be noted that the majority of this was spent during the 2006-2007 school year and so a rise in voucher spending will likely occur in the future.
The majority of studies on vouchers have centered around this programs merit based on the effectiveness of private education vs public education. These studies show that public school students out perform students from private school in standardized testing. Though the purpose of this study is to point out the ineffectiveness of private schools it also suggests that public schools are capable of keeping up their level of education regardless of money lost by the voucher system.

Just thought you might like to know

However, if it did have to be maasered it would simply come down to a cost-benefit anlysis and see if it’s still financially worth it. I think it probably would still be worth it.

I want to keep the argument in the philosophical realm because stats about the effect on schools are not relevant to the underlying principle: I’m saying I should have a choice to use vouchers even if they do hurt public schools (I’ll explain again below the basic economic fact that taxes are in fact the money of individual citizens which is taken by a centralized government by force, often justifiably, often not). You don’t seem to realize you’re actually arguing very similarly: that we can’t use vouchers, even though they would help Jewish schools. That’s also a principled argument which ignores the evidence of benefits to the other side, and you’re right to make it. Recall you used this argument to deflect evidence that shows that vouchers help those who use them. You said those facts are irrelevant on principle. I agree.

You employed a reductio ad absurdum (the kind of poor “debating technique” you blasted Z.M. for using) in asking why I don’t believe in privatized police, fire dept., sewage etc. Before addressing those points, this is what it would sound like if I did that to you: “so you believe in government schools do you? Well why not nationalize all restaurants? And movie theaters? and raise children on communal farms? Communist!”.. I understand and respect the difference between a socialist democrat and a soviet communist, and you should understand the difference between an Ayn Rand libertarian and a plain old small government conservative. Police and firefighters (like armies) provide basic physical protection and are within the legitimate realm of what governments absolutely should be involved in. Water and sewage services also provide basic, immediate physical needs. I also believe in public schools by the way. I was only arguing that people who choose to opt out of those schools should be able to take a portion of their income tax money back- not even all of it-

My point about income tax money originating from the individual’s production and then being taxed away by the government was not a statement of ideological opinion but a fact. That’s what a tax is. You simply believe (as I do) that governments have the right to forcibly take away some of our income in order to provide for some of society’s basic needs. We only differ in degree. I think govt. should do this in a very limited fashion. So while I am partly responsible for funding public schools, I should not be AS responsible if I don’t take part in them AND if I can’t afford private school without suffering losses in quality of life that a public school family with the same exact income doesn’t have to suffer from. I understand this is a slightly nuanced argument (I think all truly intelligent positions are).

You put it perfectly when you cried that if govt. didn’t have as much tax money, some govt. programs would lose out…Exactly! I’d love nothing more. Let one of the thousands of useless wasteful govt. programs (NOT education) shut down completely (like farm tobacco subsidies, the strategic milk reserve, berry research, these are all real). So please just admit that your position is: you think government should have the right to take some of my income (backed up by force) in order to pay for other children’s’ education even though it puts my ability to educate my own children while maintaining a desirable quality of life in serious peril.

You admit that you struggle greatly with your own tuition payments, but that you can afford it in the end. What about families that make less than you? Should they not be able to send their kids to yeshiva b/c they have an overarching responsibility to the public schools? (and there are thousands of such families so this isn’t hypothetical). Compassion for greater society’s needs to the detriment of one’s own family/community doesn’t strike me as admirable altruism, but rather as strangely unnatural.

The only issue I take emotional exception to is your rejection of contemporary Orthodoxy’s values as being shtetl based, from the past, etc. (I think they’re based primarily on God’s revelation of Truth to mankind). If you reject traditional Jewish belief on who and what the focus of our education efforts should be as being a product of outdated thinking then fine but don’t also turn around and invoke “Jewish values”- a fuzzy cover for saying “it’s nice to do nice things” without any scholarly rigor examining what authentic Torah sources might say, because we’re afraid they’re outdated and reactionary. If you think Haredim are living in the shtetl and there was a once a purer time when Jewish values did reflect your modern progressive beliefs, when was that time? In medieval Europe? Talmudic Babylon? That’s anachronistic thinking. The OU and Aguda support vouchers and the rabbis working for them are pretty expert on authentic jewish values. You can keep preaching that Haredim are shortsighted and can’t go on living so isolated (I actually agree partially, I’m modern orthodox) but don’t force the govt. to make them see that, try to convince them on your own. I think they’ll ignore you, as they’ve ignored people who fear them for centuries, and I think they’ll be fine. Also, in terms of those Haredim who accept food stamps, which I also agree is not a good thing, it’s still not inconsistent with wanting vouchers because food is a basic physical need (recall my point about police and armies) while public education is not.

There are two kinds of “debate techniques” — those that are used to make or rebut a point through fact or logic, and those that are used to avoid making or rebutting a point.

When I accuse someone of using a debate technique, I am accusing them of using the latter, i.e., of employing misleading rhetoric, emotion or false logic that does not add anything substantive to the discussion.

It is not hypocritical to point out when someone has attempted to make a point in a way that does not withstand scrutiny.

It would be hypocritical if I were to do the same thing. If you think I am guilty of employing misleading rhetoric, emotion or false logic to make my points, please feel free to call me on it.

I disagree.

Zechariah thinks the harm to public schools is so minimal that the voucher program still has merit.

Actually, as far as I can tell, Zechariah doesn’t seem to care how much voucher programs harm public education. He has not made any effort to engage me in the discussion of harm to public education from vouchers, and I have in fact posted references to study which show said harm, which he has ignored. Another common debate technique: Ignore arguments for which you have no good response, and hope that no one notices.

Zechariah states that he has his opinions and you have yours and you are both entitled to believe what you believe.

It’s a pointless tautology for someone to say that he’s entitled to his opinion and I’m entitled to mine. This statement is yet another deceptive debate technique — attempting to deflect argument against one’s position by essentially painting one’s opponent as intolerant for having the audacity to challenge it.

Of course Zechariah is entitled to believe what ever he wants, and I’m entitled to believe what I want. And he’s entitled to argue against my beliefs, and I’m entitled to argue against his.

You argue that Zechariah is horribly, abysmally , woefully wrong.

Yes, I believe he’s wrong, and I’ve provided a detailed explanation of why. In your rule book, are people not allowed to challenge other people’s beliefs?

You blame him of using “debate techniques” (which in and of its self is a debate technique and therefore hypocritical)

Hogwash.

to disprove data that you claim exists. Well where is it?

I posted the links already. Did you read them? If you don’t like the ones I posted, you can find a wealth of information, including numerous studies, simply by googling for “school vouchers.” Or you can google specifically for “school vouchers Milwaukee” to find references, including studies, to the specific vouchers program that Zechariah wrote about.

Your argument is so fervent and discounting of others opinions that it actually makes me trust your opinion less.

When I disagree with someone, I tell him I disagree, I tell him why, and if my disagreement is based on evidence, I provide sources to back up my arguments. I’ve done that here. You seem to be saying that you trust Zechariah more than me because he’s more laid back. I dn’t think that’s a terribly good reason to trust someone. You might want to consider, instead, actually considering the arguments being put forward by both sides and examining the evidence that is available.

You seem to be arguing that if someone doesn’t agree with you they are just wrong.

I have not invoked argument by authority, which is what you are accusing me of. I have no more authority to pronounce what is right and wrong than Zechariah does. I have supported every single point I’ve made with detailed justifications and/or evidence. If you, Zechariah, or anyone else wants to debate my justifications and evidence, have at it. But it is yet another pointless tautology to claim that I believe that people who do not agree with me are wrong. Well, duh. Zechariah believes that I’m wrong, too. He’s just so friendly that he finds it necessary to let me know that it’s OK with him for me to continue to believe the wrong thing. I didn’t really need his permission for that.

Unless this program is implemented there will be no serious data to prove any of your points and thus all of this is nothing but conjecture based in personal dogma.

First of all, school vouchers have been implemented, and there is serious data about their results. As I mentioned before, I’ve already posted links to some of it, and more is easy to find. Again, did you look at the links I posted? If so, and if you believe that the data is not convincing, then I would love to hear your reasons for why so that we can have an intelligent discussion about them. Claiming that the data doesn’t exist, when references to it have already been provided, is not intelligent discussion.

Second, yes, some of my argument is based on my personal beliefs. However, those beliefs did not come out of thin air. I have explained the basis for those beliefs in detail and I am happy to discuss them, as I have been doing. You seem to be saying that I’m somehow not allowed to express my beliefs and not allowed to defend them when they are challenged, which is just silly.