Does "For the Children" Not Count Here?

Dear elected representative,

We are fairly new to your district (a little over 2 years). This is my first letter to you.

I would like to see some form of school reform pushed that centers on the freedom of my wife and I to send our girls to the school of our choice, paying at least part of their tuition with the taxes we pay for that express purpose. My awareness of this issue first took hold when, as part of the graduate economics program at UTSA, I studied under Dr. John Merrifield. As you can see from his website (http://faculty.business.utsa.edu/jmerrifi/), this is a pet issue of his, too. This also happened to be right around the time of the birth of our 1st & 2nd daughters, so it piqued my interest. We have since had 2 more girls.

My wife and I have recently begun discussing in earnest shopping around for a private school for our 2nd grader once she enters 6th grade. This coincided with the week or so in which our property tax bill was affixed to our refrigerator awaiting payment. I looked at the ISD line item every day until I sent off payment. As you can imagine, it kinda gnawed at me that when we start paying private school tuition, we will not be able to receive a refund for services not rendered, even when our bill is barely 20% of what the state of Texas typically spends per public school student. By contrast, it’s odd to think that if we ever became disenchanted with our phone carrier, we could switch to another and not have to endure the former carrier still extracting payment from us, sending them no signal on their performance or why they lost a customer. The fact that it is not the case with something as important as our girls’ education strikes me as peculiar.

I acknowledge the incompatibility between most members of your political party, who favor relatively bigger government regardless of the unintended consequences, and a constituent like myself, whose graduate studies led me to put a premium on high efficiency (not to mention my personal beliefs in freedom and personal responsibility, and you’ll forgive me if I don’t put too much stock in the likes of Paul Krugman, whose politics have steered him away from his training in the “dismal science” a long time ago). Regardless, I have faith that whether you agree with me or not, you can appreciate the unfairness and poor logic of the system we are stuck with.

Happy Holidays,
Chris Baecker