Vouchers can actually add money to system

To the editor:

In response to the Friday letter by Sandra E. Thomas, which argues that school vouchers favor the rich: To the contrary, a properly planned "school voucher" program results in more overall money being spent on children's education.

First, because parents who accept vouchers get less than the full "per student" amount spent by the school district or charged by a private school, they must spend money on top of the voucher to educate their child. Second, there is now more money per student in the budget for those who remain in the school district.

For example, imagine a school district with 100,000 students and a budget of $1 billion ($10,000 per student). Assume parents are given a voucher of $5,000 to remove their students and home-school them or send them to private school. If half the students (50,000) leave with vouchers, it will cost the district $250 million; but there will be $750 million left in the budget to educate the 50,000 students who remain. That is $15,000 per remaining student, a 50 percent increase in per student funding.

Taken to the extreme, imagine if 90 percent of the parents take the voucher: 90,000 vouchers at $5,000 each will cost $450 million, but the district will still have $550 million to educate the remaining 10,000 students, or $55,000 per student, more than a five-fold increase per student.

Maybe that would finally be enough to get the educrats to stop screaming for more money. Obviously, if there were a correlation between money per student and student performance (which is doubtful), whether rich or poor, the students who remain behind in the school district should be better off.

And, likewise, the parents of the students accepting the vouchers must also feel their children are better off.

John M. McGrail

Las Vegas

No credit

To the editor:

I agree 100 percent with John G. Edwards' Thursday story, "Committee questions insurance, credit link."

My premium goes up every single year because of my (non) credit history. I don't understand why it isn't based on my accident-free driving record with my insurance company instead. And my prior credit record was very good.

Since becoming a divorced senior citizen, I'm certainly not going to start collecting credit cards and running up balances all over just to convince my auto insurance company that I'm a safe driver. My current credit record is not any indication of how I drive or how responsible a driver I am.

I should be given a discount each year I don't have an accident, rather than a yearly increase because I don't use credit cards or take out loans.

Fran Winters

Las Vegas

Taxpayer union

To the editor:

I propose we create a private-sector taxpayer union that will have the authority to negotiate with the government on the services it needs and the amount of money it will pay for those services. As a union, the people will then have the right to strike and refuse to pay any taxes until such time that their demands are negotiated.

Yes, brother and sister taxpayers, it is time we fight for our rights.

John Hamel

Las Vegas