Endless War: Now With Vouchers

Some of us have been wondering where Rudy Giuliani was planning on getting the manpower to staff his foreign policy of endless war. It turns out that the plan is school vouchers:

Rudy proposes establishing a pilot program to offer scholarships to children of all active-duty military personnel living on or off base to attend private schools or to pay for the costs of attending public schools to which they are not assigned. This is a critical concern for America’s military families because it affects reenlistment decisions.

This is a bit bizarre, since America's military base schools are really good and the recruiting issues in the military are clearly driven in the first instance by the prospect of arduous service in a futile war rather than by these kinds of considerations. But what you have here is a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. As Kate Sheppard points out, Giuliani's "all choice, all the time" education policy initiatives say nothing whatsoever about the vast majority of children who are going to be in traditional public schools come what may.

The problem here is that vouchers are the only solution Rudy has to sell, but there's really very little the federal government can do to induce towns and cities around the country to privatize their school systems. Giuliani could take the path of conservative purity and just argue that the federal government should withdraw from education policy entirely, but he doesn't want to say that. So instead, he's looking around for things the federal government can voucherize. And one of the main things he came up with was military schools. So who cares if this is a bad idea; it shows his commitment to conservative orthodoxy, and that's the important thing.

Comments

I have a crazy, crazy idea: why not pay them more. Of course if we are to fight World War IV (V? Which one is NPOD on?) we will need the draft.

To preserve our freedom of course, freedom isn't free afterall. It requires taking over the world, muh, hah, hah....

Posted by d | December 12, 2007 10:07 AM

d has a good point. If the purpose is to allow military families to afford private schools, simply increasing the pay would achieve that end.

Of course, that's not the purpose. The purpose is to offer the incentive of increased pay solely if a military family participates in the political charade known as "educational vouchers".

Posted by Whispers | December 12, 2007 10:10 AM

"The problem here is that vouchers are the only solution Rudy has to sell".

No it's not. The problem here is that Rudy is a dangerous wacko who would be a disaster in the White House. Vouchers for military kids is a perfectly good idea, as it is for lots of other people. So is thinking creatively about how to make life better for military families.

Posted by Robert Powell | December 12, 2007 10:16 AM

This is a conservative two-fer, and should be very popular with the Republican base. Signing incentives to recruit more Long War storm troopers are used to get a big foot in the door for the educational privatization movement. Brilliant!

Posted by Dan Kervick | December 12, 2007 10:35 AM

Not commenting either way whether this proposal is genius or idiotic, but to clarify:

Most DOD schools are in overseas locations. In CONUS (& Hawaii) the only on-base schools tend to be K-6, for kids who are actually in on-base housing. If you live off-base, or are in middle/high school you will generally go to either the local public schools or if you chose, a local private/parochial school.

Posted by Kolohe | December 12, 2007 10:38 AM

Kolohe is correct. I went to high school in Kailua, HI, which is next to the Kaneohe Marine Core Air Station and there were tons of military kids. They mostly didn't like Hawaii and refused to tan (or werre black).

And since most military are conservative and therefor want conserative education for their kids--such as would be more likely found in parochial school--I think this program might be slightly attractive.

Kaleheo High School, where I went, was medium OK, but better than most Hawaii public high schools, and one reason it was better was because it had more middle class white kids, a chunk of which were the military brats. We always did pretty good in basketball due to our source of taller mainland bred students (plus good coaching).

Posted by cw | December 12, 2007 11:27 AM

As someone who went to DoD schools for most of his childhood, there's something I need to point out. DoD schools have attendance policies that reflect the constant moving around and disruptions inherent in being a military brat. Off base schools often don't. I remember my sophomore year in high school back in the states. I was at a civilian school, and I could only sit in shock after being informed that I could miss a maximum of 5 days per semester. Going back thru middle school I think I averaged about 30 days per year absent*. DoD schools also tend to be better equipped to deal with students who show up in the middle of the semester, as it happens all the time.
*In addition to the moves, there are also some illnesses (mine and relative's) thrown in there, along with a generous helping of personal days(truancy).

Posted by guineapigfury | December 13, 2007 12:26 AM