[ty6853]

>Public schools are not companies with a monopoly, nor do they have consumers, these are very loaded terms. Do you speak of all infrastructure in this way? Do you say the police have consumers? Or the firefighters a monopoly on putting out fires? Roads a monopoly on letting cars drive over them?

I am not a conservative. The monopoly and consumer term is applied correctly whether you find it loaded or not. The police have a monopoly on legal initiated violence yes, although for instance many towns have had private fire trash etc that fulfilled needs well. I did not call them companies, I think this is a straw man attack. On roads, miles around me the roads are publicly accessible private easements, you cannot even get to my town on a tax funded road.

You also presuppose competing schools must be for profit which is absolutely false. In many cases they are non profit.

>This world view that everything relates to money first and foremost, lives on markets, only improves by competition, should justify its existence in some measurable wealth producing way is very dangerous in my opinion, because not everything can work this way.

No need, I'm only claiming the voucher system, which isn't even my ideal system (again I am not a conservative), lets parents make a choice without first and foremost having to chase the almighty dollar as the conventional public system forces them to do before sending their kid to another school. It's not just competition but diversity of options giving the poor options where before only the rich had them .

[MITSardine]

I insist that "monopoly" is not the correct term. There is a much more precise term (with fewer associations): exclusivity. Saying "the heart has a monopoly on pumping blood" is understandable, but a better sentence would be "blood is pumped in the body by the heart only". Why use words that come from certain fields to describe things outside those fields? This introduces spurious (or intentional) meaning behind the things being said: "a school is a parasite because it takes resources from the community to exist", how do you like that sentence? It's a valid and true sentence, but I think you'll be uneasy to say that. There are parasites that benefit their host, nothing wrong with what I said, it's technically correct! I swear, I have nothing against schools, it's just a word!

Terms such as "monopoly" = exclusivity or "consumers" = users come with certain associations similar to "parasite" = dependent. I didn't say sentences using those terms are not understandable, I said they are loaded, and I stand by that.