Why are school vouchers so bad? What am I missing?

[originalpckelly]

Why is it that I should be against them? I think the idea of public schools is to provide for education, and to provide an equal opportunity for people of all classes (haha) to receive an education. That way if people are from a poor family they have a chance to change their own economic condition.

What about vouchers would stop that? Wouldn't everyone get the same amount of funding? On top of that, parents could know directly how much money is spent on the education of their children, and whether a politician is playing a shell game (as they would receive a lower amount of money if a politician fucks up and lowers the amount of money spent on education.)

I don't think the rich will have very much impact upon the system. If they want to, they may pull their children out of public school right now and send them to private schools. (The only difference is that they would receive a few thousand dollars back instead of none. If this significantly reduces the amount of money in the system, a limit could be placed on eligibility for people earning a certain amount of money per year.)

I think the only real problem would be for-profit education companies. But they would have to compete against each other for a set amount of money, and if they don't charge less or the same as the alloted money, they simply wouldn't be able to conduct business.

Quite frankly, considering the 50/50 dropout/graduation rate in my own district, I think some kind of major change is needed. It isn't as if Denver doesn't spend enough money on education, it just doesn't seem to be very efficiently used.

I know that the crap set up under no child's behind left is completely ineffective.

Maybe vouchers would work. I don't know, maybe I haven't thought of everything, I would appreciate the help if you know of some big issue that I missed.

[FogerRox]

1. OK.... you are a poor working family

You get a $2,000 voucher for Private school. The school costs $10,000 per year. What do you do with your kid?

The USA used to have the best Public school system in the world, why dont we fix it? Vouchers will lead to a 2 tiered system. Thats not fixing the problem.

Its like this, consider kids as an asset to the nation, they are the nations future afterall. Wouldnt it be prudent to get the largest # of kids the best education in the world? Afterall, you never know which kid is going to be the next Einstein. ANd they fewer that get a good education means the pool gets smaller.

That was the purpose of the SAT system, to find the brilliant ones and make sure they go to college. To fail to do so, is a national failure.

[originalpckelly]

3. How do you know that is how much money the voucher is worth...

versus the cost of the school? Those numbers may not reflect the real world situation.

[FogerRox]

13. Previous Repub proposals generally are about 2k

Vouchers have a history, which you are now getting an education on.

[originalpckelly]

19. Why not just give the parents the same amount of money spent...

on their child in the public school? I believe that is usually far more than $2,000.

[FogerRox]

33. wrong

[originalpckelly]

37. For the Denver Public School district, we spend $9,234 per "pupil"

That sounds like a lot of money for more than 1/2 of our students to be dropping out.

[FogerRox]

39. You should run for school board, get envolved, you obviously care

very much about kids education.

[originalpckelly]

40. Did you see that USA Today article. I think Democrats need to start...

talking about this. Who knows, maybe we could get kids college too. That would be wonderful. It makes me so sad to see those numbers.

[FogerRox]

43. yes its horrible, I live near Newark NJ, every inner city is facing the

same problem. Part of the problem is that inner cities have gotten a raw deal for the last few decades.

America is broken, we need to fix it. Run for office.

[originalpckelly]

93. I think if we increase the size of the area where funding is pulled from,

that would increase the ability of people to achieve an equal quality education.

[FogerRox]

136. Good idea, but dont let Bush run the program.

Thats the basic idea that this country came out of WW2 with, but since the 1970's things have become out of balance. And no child left behind.... if you have a school that is not doing good, they get funding cut, yet those schools are the ones that need te funding most,,, seems backwards to me, ya know.

-I would look into funding in your area... is it fair?
-How much do teachers get paid
-Are there after school programs, or was funding cut
-Was funding cut for music, art sports or tutoring/extra help

[sandnsea]

62. Good districts spend over $11,000

Buildings, salaries, benefits, transportation, insurance, special ed, arts and music, phys ed - it's expensive. The school districts that are doing well spend more. The kids can see in the education system itself that there is hope because of the opportunity that is available at very grade level. When a classroom has broken radiators or not even enough paper, there's no reason for that kid to believe this society offers any opportunity for them. Taking money out of that school is only going to make it worse. Money isn't everything, but lack of money is.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

104. Good private schools charge $15,000-$20,000 per year

Those are the ones the rich people send their kids to.

They send their kids there to keep them away from "the lower classes," so they would NEVER allow masses of poor children into their hallowed halls.

They'll go on FAUX news and tell the public that class size doesn't matter and money doesn't matter and facilities don't matter, and then they spend $15,000 to send their kids to a private school with an average class size of 15 and a campus with state-of-the-art facilities.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

123. Private schools also don't cover a lot of incidentals

Such as books, uniforms, lunch, and transportation. That adds significant expense on top of the tuition. The fact is that most families, even upper middle class ones, would be hard-pressed to take advantage of them.

[Realityhack]

163. Not to mention...

On top of that private schools are also highly selective. Therefore they don’t have to deal with children who have severe mental difficulties, behavioral problems, etc.
Sometimes this small section of students can cost quite a bit more on a ‘per pupil’ basis than the bulk of the student body. This means when the public system has a ‘per pupil’ cost of say $10k the mode student is not necessarily getting exactly $10k.

And don’t anyone take this the wrong way. I think it is absolutely vitally important that we do what is necessary to provide an appropriate education to these students. The reason I am mentioning it is only in reference to the burden put on public schools vs. private schools when you look at a ‘per pupil’ tuition number.

[tinfoil tiaras]

181. Mine only (haha) costs $9000

& it's the best school in the state. But maybe it only (haha) costs $9000 b/c it's in the southeast and not like New York or something

[DoYouEverWonder]

69. That is what they do it in FL

You get the same amount of money that was alloted for your child at the public school the child previously attended. Different schools get different allotments.

[Lithos]

10. To continue the thought here

The money also is removed from the public funds. What you get isn't enough to bridge the gap for people seeking the better parochial schools (which is the carrot they are dangling), but rather removes quite a bit of money from the system and legitimatizes those who are already trying to drop out.

Also, to add, the idea of the voucher is two parts, one is an attempt to provide tax payer funding of religious-based schools which are more interested in theology than in creating well-educated citizens which is the idea behind public education. Many states already have poor governance standards for systems outside of the mainstream, so the quality of many of these items is at best hit-or-miss, usually miss especially when they can aim for a lower standard.

[FogerRox]

31. Thanks you lithos, right on target

The OP author need to check out Thom Hartman on the radio. The Author has a very large lack of understanding about democracy.

[movie_girl99]

79. I think in some ways it's already two tiered

Schools in my area are really pushing Advanced Placement classes saying that if your child takes these courses they will be more ready prepared for college. So for those students who are not willing to do 2 hours of homework a night or who are not advanced enough to be in one of those classes, get left by the way side. My daughter and her friends are an example. She graduated from HS with a 3.85 GPA. She wa sin one Pre-Ap English class but all other subjects were "regular" classes. She went to community college after that and was pretty lost. I have heard many kids complaining about the same thing about feeling unprepared for college. So IMO there is already a two tiered system going on.

[Dora]

97. "feeling unprepared for college"

I think we can blame this phenomenon on the amount of time spent on testing and teaching kids to take tests.

[movie_girl99]

111. by george I think you nailed it

I have even heard some of the teachers in our district complaining about the tests.

[mtnester]

108. My son went back to high school during summer break freshman year college

to personally THANK his AP biology teacher. He said she was the ONLY teacher who remotely prepared him for college courses and college curriculum.

(Another of the many moments I was proud of my son too, BTW...taking the time to find a teacher and thank her)

[minnesota_liberal]

175. Good reason to be proud!

I'm sure he made that teacher's day.

[pitohui]

2. diverting public monies to churches

that's the point of the whole scam, to divert public monies into private religious schools

jefferson must be turning in his grave

if you support vouchers and diversion of public monies to (mostly) religious schools, then you support the destruction of our secular democracy, you are taking our tax $$$ and allowing it to be used to support children being brainwashed in all sorts of church schools

we will never have peace on this planet while we have religion feeding at the public trough, our founding fathers knew that

the point is to choke off good public schools for all and instead to subsidize narrowness and religious hysteria, the qualities needed to be inculcated in a child if he is to grow up and vote republican w.out question

[originalpckelly]

7. Why not state that the money given cannot be used for a religious school?

Or for religious ceremonies? You could also set up some standards for the schools that the money is spent at. (You could mandate the teaching of evolution, for instance.)

[wtmusic]

15. We can't even mandate teaching evolution in public schools

and you want to start on the private ones?

For excellent public ed, move to New Jersey, where 50¢ of every tax dollar goes to education and you'll find the highest SAT scores in the nation. Public ed can work but it takes committed leadership and...you guessed it...money

[FogerRox]

38. wtmusic, excellent point

"We can't even mandate teaching evolution in public schools"

But the fact you felt the need to point out a well know fact leads me to think that the OP author is missing out on a basic understanding of the facts. Such sa the fact that you so wonderfully pointed out.

"We can't even mandate teaching evolution in public schools"

[longship]

45. Who in the Sam Hell wants to mandate evolution?

We need to keep the government *out* of decisions of what is science and what is not science. I no more want a law mandating evolution than I want a law mandating Creationism. Both laws achieve the identical ends, to take science out of the hands of those who are most trained to make those decisions.

What gets taught in science class is supposed to be what scientists are working on, not something layed down by government fiat. Government doesn't act quickly enough to keep up with science. It's bad enough keeping the text book publishers up to date.

[CarbonDate]

49. Okay, how about mandating the teaching of science?

That would cover it, since evolution is about as commonly accepted among serious scientific minds as gravity.

[longship]

50. That'll work.

;-)

[wtmusic]

86. Public school teachers ARE government

so pick your level of involvement; in public education the government is not only involved in decisions about what is science but is responsible for making those decisions.

The government moves plenty quickly enough to keep up with an idea that has been accepted by the scientific community for over 100 years.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

89. Teachers and scientists.

The same people who want to mandate things like literacy, and algebra.

[longship]

158. I was speaking of legislative fiat, not curriculum.

It is wrong to mandate any scientific theory by legislative fiat.

[pitohui]

17. almost all private schools are religious schools

in any event, you are not understanding what i said

vouchers were created by the religious leaders to get our public money, they are the originators and propagandists of the voucher idea

if you said that there could only be vouchers to say, andover, the support for vouchers which comes straight from the greed of the pulpit would disappear overnight

[Sgent]

64. Not entirely true

in many areas, private schools are almost always religious schools due to the parochial schools.

That said, in the South (outside of southern LA/NOLA), most of the private schools are not religious (at least in their charter) -- they are the result of integration. They were founded as white only schools.

[AngryAmish]

94. I don't think Milton Friedman is a religious leader

Somehow I don't think he wants the US to be a Christian tyrrany seeing how he is a Jew.

[Bridget Burke]

73. Some of the best private schools are "religious"...

In Houston, St John's--Episcopalian. And Strake Jesuit (for boys) or St Agnes Academy (for girls)--RC, of course. These schools offer fine educations (evolution included) to those who can pass the entry exams & pay the considerable tuition. Vouchers would not come close to covering the costs--but the parents would find them a nice little bonus.

A voucher system would encourage cheapo, small-minded private schools. Not so expensive--but not excellent at all.

The good private schools are doing well without vouchers & should be allowed to continue. Without government control OR government money.

[RB TexLa]

82. And of course the court challenge and win that would come

If someone sends their children to parochial school they are doing so because they want them to receive a certain type of education. Once they start taking government money for tuition that is gone. Government money comes with rules that is the way it is. I've had this discussion with the education people in our diocese, it's not something we should want.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

126. Every voucher program I've seen does not entail that

They can be used at religious institutions. A high percentage of private schools are religious. The law will typically state that the school must accept any student, regardless of religious affiliation, if they use a voucher. That's why some schools say they won't accept them because they want to maintain their particular environment.

[wtmusic]

8. If we invest in our own madrassas we have a chance

of beating those crazy Islamofascists at their own game :crazy:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. vouchers are for private schools

school districts get a certain amount of money for each child. Vouchers take that money and funnel it to (usually) privately owned schools.

Public schools lose, and whomever owns the private school makes money.

Private schools are also not required to adhere to the normal curriculum.

[originalpckelly]

12. Well, that is only if the public schools are not liked by the parents.

If they are, then they will keep the money. If they don't work why would we want to keep them? Isn't that kind of like running into a brick wall, and instead of stepping aside of it, continuing to run into the brick wall?

[FogerRox]

18. No its not

you build a staircase to go over the wall

If parents dont like the school they should run for the school board and fix the damn school. Thats why its called a participatory democracy, YOU PARTICAPATE. WHat problem do you have with that?

Am I reading you right, you dont support our participatory democracy?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

27. not liked by the parents WHY?

because they are 'crime-ridden' or don't have supplies, or the teachers are payed so little that they don't really teach?

the voucher program is an assault on public education. Just look at who's pushing it, and you'll know something is wrong with the whole idea.

[rodeodance]

46. and the last study says they do not do any better.

[radwriter0555]

66. The additional problem is that there aren't ENOUGH private schools.

Google "private school" any urban center in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and you will find very, very few of them, and certainly not enough to support diversion of any significant amount of kids from a public school.

When my daughter applied to the private school we were lucky enough to get into, there were more than 300 applicants for the 4 available spaces in the kindergarten.

That's right. 4 available spaces. In kindergarten. People apply at birth to get their kids into the decent privates.

Google "Compton Private School". Take a look at the numbers of private schools in the areas allegedly being targeted for a voucher program. This is supposed to help underprivileged kids, right? You're not going to find many private schools in Compton. So then you want your kid to travel 2-3 hours per day to get to that private school?

Of course not.

Fix the education system: Provide more funding, increase teacher's salaries; create more schools, make the school board voluntary and parent run ONLY (you save BILLIONS), make parental involvement mandatory. Increase after school programs. Create neighborhood schools.

Those are realistic solutions.

[rwenos]

5. Two Problems, One Constitutional and The Other Practical

1. Vouchers mean religious schools (primarily Catholic, but modernly other denominations, including evangelical Protestant) get public tax money. This presents a 1st Amendment problem -- it violations the separation of Church and State, pretty clearly.

2. Vouchers mean public schools get bled of the students who make up the top quartile of the bell curve -- and those whose parents care enough to move them into that quartile by helping them with motivation, energy, extracurricular activities. The public schools, stuck with the bottom three quarters of the bell curve, steadily degrade in quality.

Either way you slice it, vouchers are the thin end of the wedge. Let them in, and the public schools start a long slide from which they will never recover.

I graduated from public schools, and my kid attends them. I'm proud of my public school education, which got me into an elite public university, graduate school and professional school.

Those who want their kids to go to private school should pay for it themselves.

[FogerRox]

9. Well said rwenos

The whole purpose of the Public school system is to prepare for the future. At a high level. Further erosion of the educational system in America will lead to erosion in the ability for America to compete in the ecomony of the future. The more people we have "inventing stuff" the better.

[tenshi816]

59. This is all very enlightening for me.

I graduated from public schools in the States too and believe that I got a fine education.

The school voucher thing in America is something that started years after I moved to the UK, though, so I've been largely unaware of what it entailed until now. I feel fortunate that I haven't had to navigate that minefield with my sons' educations. They're both in Catholic schools, but almost all of the Catholic schools in the UK aren't private (although for admission purposes preference is given to Catholic children), and they have to conform to the UK educational curriculum - which means that they can't be run as religious indoctrination centers because they're publicly funded as well as receiving funds from the Catholic Church. I know my own children are getting excellent, well-rounded educations that don't have any more of an emphasis on religion than all the other state schools in the UK. Also, the religious education they do get is very broad; they study many other religions in addition to Christianity. For example, my children know far more about, say, Islam and Judaism than I do. In any case, religious education plays only a small part in their schooling overall.

The reason I mention this at all is that you said school vouchers in the US meant "primarily Catholic" schools and I wondered if you have any statistical data on this, because it surprised me. I would have thought that most vouchers would be going to people who wanted to put their children into private fundamentalist Christian "academies" to keep them away from secularism. I say that because those brainwashing centers have sprung up all over the place in the last 15 or so years at a far greater rate than Catholic schools appear to have done. I know that in the Atlanta area alone (where I'm from originally, and I know it better than I do other places) you practically can't throw a rock without hitting a Christian school (and I don't mean Catholic ones). There are eight of them within a short drive from the house I lived in when I went to high school, and most of them weren't there 10 years ago.

You're absolutely correct though: people who want private educations for their children should be prepared to pay for it.

[Sgent]

65. Just to agree with you

even in the US -- many Catholic schools are not really indoctornation centers.

Pre-Katrina many/ (most?) Jewish children in New Orleans attended Catholic schools (as the public system sucked). I've heard of very few problems.

[tenshi816]

70. My older son's best friend is Jewish,

and he attends the same Catholic school my son does because it's a good school, like in your example.

The Catholic schools I've had experiences with are about more than just religion. I'm not sure the same can be said of private schools connected with specific fundie churches. I've heard that a lot of them use unqualified staff to teach children because the emphasis is more on teaching scripture than academics.

[rwenos]

85. Catholic and Other Religious Schools

I have no statistics about Catholic education versus other Christian denominations, Jewish schools and other private schools. I grew up in Northern California, where the majority religion when I was growing up was Roman Catholic -- primarily Italian, Irish, and Portuguese immigrant families. They supported a fine Catholic education system. There were very few other private religious schools. There were a few swank prep schools. Lots of Jewish kids in San Francisco attended St. Ignatius and Riordan High Schools, because of the quality education.

Now I live in Los Angeles. The majority of private schools in Los Angeles County are Roman Catholic. They actively recruit middle class and more-affluent African American students, especially in the Crenshaw and South Central District. Obviously, there are lots of Hispanic children also. The Catholic schools have a fine reputation.

There are Jewish K-12 schools in Los Angeles also. Fine reputations.

I know virtually nothing about the evangelical Protestant schools in LA. There are many in suburban LA County, and even more in Orange County.

My remarks are not a knock on Catholic education. They have a fine system. But they are religious organizations. They are skimming the cream off the top of the African-American student body in LA, which makes the LA City schools worse. Thus, I stand by my statistical point, even though I have only anecdotal and observational evidence to back it up.

[tenshi816]

87. Another question,

and, again, please forgive my ignorance here but, as I said, school vouchers is an issue that arose after I left the States.

Are vouchers actually being used now, or is it just an issue that keeps cropping up for debate? I think it's a dreadful idea if it's pulling money from the public school system.

Edited to add that if you were to visit the southern part of the US, you'd find a completely different educational system than you grew up with. Catholic schools are thin on the ground, but fundie ones are everywhere.

[BanzaiBonnie]

61. Exactly!

And the reason the numbers look better at times for private schools is because they do not have the special needs students and low income students that lower overall test scores.

[DocSavage]

154. It does not

violate church and state. The govt is not establishing 1 religious belief (sep of church and state). the individual with the voucher is deciding were the money will go. State has absolutely no say is what school they could spend the money on. One other idea is that the student takes money with him/her and is able to transfer to another public school that the parents like. Money stays in the public school sector.

[minnesota_liberal]

178. good analysis

I'll just add that among the students that public schools get "stuck with" are those with behavioral problems and learning difficulties. Both require more staff and money to deal with. Special education is another federal mandate that's not fully funded.

[Ninja Jordan]

192. The Supreme Court has commented on the 1st Amendment issue...

Something along the lines of, "if the money is distributed broadly, in a non-specific manner, then there is no violation" (paraphrasing). I'm not generally opposed to school vouchers, as many inner city public schools are TERRIBLE, and NOT getting better. If anything, it may give inner city, poor families the opportunity to send their children to better, private schools. Additionally, public schools would, in essense, be competing with the private schools and may have more of an onus to reform from the inside out.

[wtmusic]

6. Vouchers are a shell game to do away with public education altogether

Think "private accounts" in education.

[TomInTib]

20. You nailed it. nt

[OzarkDem]

75. and no accountability

They don't have to meet the same standards as public schools - so the public is often paying for sub-standard education.

Most of them also promote religion, which is fine, but government shouldn't be subsidizing religious education.

[coalition_unwilling]

145. And private schools may significantly dilute the power of

teachers' rights to collective bargaining, aka, unionization.

[Dora]

95. That's exactly right.

The voucher campaigns intionally target poor minorities with the argument that it will give their children a leg up, when in truth they will only contribute to the further decimation of their public schools.

[Bluestar]

11. You're Kidding Right?

I first thought your post was a snark.

Vouchers are a way for fundies to get their hands on more of our tax dollars. We can't fund both--public education should be equal for everyone, even though we know it isn't. The goal is to make this happen. The goal is NOT to make me as a taxpayer fund their religious training. Vouchers siphon off much-needed funds from public education. If someone has the means and they want to send their kid to church boot camp, so be it. But don't make me pay for it.

[originalpckelly]

16. Couldn't you stop people from spending money on religious...

services? You could make them teach evolution, if they want to receive the money.

[FogerRox]

21. get back to the topic, its about destroying the public school system

The backbone of a Democracy is a economically strong middle class, that is well educated. Soldiers came back from WW2, the GI BIll sent them to college. They got married, raised a family, got a VA Home loan, sent thier kids to college.

This created the best educated generation ever. What is your problem with that?

[originalpckelly]

23. Something isn't working anymore:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

[FogerRox]

25. DOH those schools were built 120 yrs ago

So are you saying we dont fix whats broken? WE just chuck it?

[originalpckelly]

26. I was wrong, in Denver Public Schools only 46% graduate.

OMG! This is so horrible! How can this be happening? :cry:

[truth2power]

77. Religious isn't the worst of it...

Private schools are just that - private. They are not accountable to the public, even though public funds are being used for the vouchers. They can do what they want. If you think they can be forced to show you their inner workings, you're mistaken. So you get into the same thing as is going on with Diebold - their source code is proprietary. Private schools will not show anything that is detrimental to them. And you can't make them.

As to the 46% in Denver that graduate...PUBLIC SCHOOLS MUST ACCEPT ALL COMERS. Private schools can do what is called "creaming". They can take only the best of students - those without learning disabilities or behavior problems etc.

The 46% in Denver is taken from a population of ALL students, high IQs, highly motivated, AS WELL AS the poorly motivated, behavior problems, lower IQs, those with no supportive family structure etc.

OK...so the private school selects from the 46% group, more or less..those who would graduate anyway. Then the private school puts out a press release: "See how much better we are than the public schools? 100% of our seniors graduated this year. Woo hoo!!"

See how that works? It's all propaganda to destroy the public school system in this country. Don't fall for it!

[AngryAmish]

98. In Chicago a public school student has a 6% chance of graduating

from a 4 year college. If you are a male AA or hispanic the rate of graduation is 3%.

The public schools in Chicago don't work. The system is utterly corrupt. We have failed.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

105. Often when students don't graduate, it's because their home lives

are messed up. How are vouchers going to fix that if the parents are too out of it to enroll their kid in a private school?

[politicat]

172. One of my dearest friends is a Science teacher for DPS at East HS.

He's been there since before CSAP, and he notes that dropout rates went way up after CSAP. Recognize that he does his best to not teach to the test, and he has every class from an AP physics class (11 students) to 3 classes of general earth sciences (bare minimum required to graduate.) However, the district curriculum managers require a certain amount of teaching to the test, which is a) very boring for the students and b) detracts from the actual education.

He also notes that, since passing the CSAP is necessary to graduate, and since a lot of the kids at East are dealing with poverty, hunger, poor health, violence and other issues outside of school, he wishes that the state would look at rate of improvement rather than absolute scores. Most of the kids in his GES classes hit high school reading about 2 years behind grade level, and they make pretty decent gains over the next several years, but it's not enough to let them pass the CSAP. It's hard to concentrate on school when you're up all night because the people on the other side of the cardboard wall are screaming in withdrawal all night. It happens.

The schools are a concentrated syrup of society's ills. If bad things are going down in the neighborhood, it will show up at school.

The CSAP graduation requirement means that a lot of kids drop out and get a GED because it's a shorter program, with better hours (meaning kid can work and contribute to home, or get out of a bad situation) and no CSAP.

Personally, I'd like to see the CSAP go away and the GED become harder to get. I'd also like to see education based on goal-oriented learning based on research methods and general process rather than memorization. In the real world, we memorize what we need and look up the rest. A child who can use a dictionary does not need to copy out definitions.

As for vouchers, here are the problems I see with them:

1) Private schools are rare. There aren't enough private school slots for the number of applicants as it is. Increasing the number of applicants won't help that; private schools can't expand or issue bonds the way public schools can. So it's an effective sop to those parents who can already afford to get their child into a private school.

2) Private schools are selective. A private school does not have to conform to Title IX requirements to provide an equal and appropriate education to all comers. They can choose which students to take, and they do. Increasing the number of applicants won't make the schools any less selective.

3) Private schools are not monitored to ensure they are attaining educational standards. While some private schools are excellent, there are more that aren't, being little more than non-home, non-professional home schools. A private school only has to hire a certain percentage (usually fewer than 10%) of licensed teachers. Because of this, private schools can and do pay less than public schools, and offer less administrative support to their teachers than do public schools. Thus, the teachers are in a worse position than are the teachers in public schools.

4) Private school performance statistics are skewed. Most students in the US in private schools are from highly educated families, with money and health care, from good neighborhoods with a sense of security. Thus, they don't have the full bell curve of student ability that public schools have to deal with. Also, most private schools require at least a certain amount of parental involvement in the school. Since private schools don't have to accept or keep discipline problems, underachievers, students with disabilities, or students whose parents cannot or won't pay or do the parental duty, they get a better performance score. It's actually impossible to compare performance between a public school and a private school because of the differences in statistics.

5) Taking money from the public schools won't improve them, and since the children who might benefit from a private school won't get in because there aren't the slots, it's a free gift to parents who already have their children in private schools.

6) Most children don't have access to a private school. 70% of children in public schools don't have a private school they could even theoretically attend -- kids out on the plains and in the mountains don't have private schools within even irrational distance. So it is an unfair gift to kids in urban areas and kids with families wealthy enough to go to boarding school.

7) Public education ensures that the populace has a minimum standard of education. I have no children. When I get old, I will have to go into assisted living. I want my caretakers to be able to read my meds chart. Thus, I do not begrudge a single cent I pay in property taxes to support the public schools. It's very cheap insurance against old age and infirmity.

There's a wonderful section on a child's academic success prediction in Freakanomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. The things that make a child successful in school are generally not things parents control, but who they are, and academic success predictors are strongly correlated with the characteristics of parents who have the disposable income to put their children in private schools. You should read it.

I am a product of the public schools - I got an excellent education in less than stellar districts because my parents were involved in my education, because I was motivated to work hard and think, and because my education did not end with the end of day bell. (I spent 3 afternoons a week in Catholic education classes, as well as extracurricular activities associated with the public schools I attended.) Even watching the differences between me and my sisters' academic performance is interesting -- my parents' marriage was not happy, but stable through most of my K-12 education, while it was increasingly unstable, and economically perilous while my sisters (3.5 and 6.5 years younger than me) were in middle and high school. My sisters are both equally as intelligent as I am, but their grades and performance suffered as my parents became too involved in their own lives to devote the time and energy to my sisters. My sisters were less involved, and did not have the religious instruction (I have a different father, who is dead, and his family requested that my Quaker mother have me in Catholic instruction. My mother, being Quaker, knew only enough about Catholicism to make sure I went to classes and had a Jesuit advisor/cleric. Fortunately, the Jesuits are big on education.) Those differences made a huge impact on our educational ability.

[Common Sense Party]

47. Don't forget that the GI Bill also paid for many religious educations

as well. We had taxpayer money paying for G.I.'s to go to Notre Dame and BYU, etc.

[Bridget Burke]

118. The GI Bill was a "gift" to our vets....

The funds were not subtracted from public school funds.

[Common Sense Party]

168. True, but the funds were "subtracted" from somewhere, obviously.

The point I'm making is that taxpayer money went to some G.I.s who then used it at religious institutions, which some contend is a violation of the separation of church and state. I happen to think, in the case of the GI bill, that it was a great thing for our nation, and that society as a whole benefited, and it didn't bother Americans in the least that public dollars might end up in the hands of religious educators.

[politicat]

173. The difference there is that the GI bill was instituted almost entirely

to help allay the economic recession (or depression) that would have occurred if several million men tried to re-enter the job market simultaneously.

As for using the GI bill at religious institutions, the difference is that adults (as the GIs were) are assumed to have the ability to reason and disagree with religious indoctrination. A child does not necessarily have those skills.

Also, religious institutions that accept federal funds, including GI Bill benefits, have to meet a set of standards (accreditation) that K-12 schools do not currently have to meet.

[Common Sense Party]

193. True on both counts. No argument.

But one also cannot say that the GI bill did not blur the distinction between church and state, as it clearly did. When federal funds wound up in religious hands, regardless of accreditation, then the division was hardly evident.

I wonder if certain private and religious K - 12 schools would meet accreditation standards today, if people would object to federal funds going to those schools via vouchers.

[politicat]

194. I still would because of the Title IX issues.

Private schools can still cream, even if they meet accreditation. Therefore the playing field isn't level and their achievement scores are stil skewed.

[walldude]

22. It's a "private" school, you can't make them teach anything.

Vouchers are another way of robbing the poor and giving it to the rich. It's all a part of the selling off of the U.S.A.

[originalpckelly]

24. The rich people can only get money back for however...

many children they have. If they don't have many children, they won't take that much money out of the system when compared to the amount of property taxes they pay. (That is if they don't cheat somehow.)

[FogerRox]

29. You seem pretty worried about the rich

Without understanding some of the basic tenants of democracy.

[originalpckelly]

32. Are you insulting me? Why?

Why would you think I don't understand the basic tenants of democracy?

[FogerRox]

36. just look at your OP, you dont get it.

Start here:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/

http://www.thomhartmann.com/showarchives.shtml

Podcasting here:

http://www.whiterosesociety.org/hartmann.xml

[readmoreoften]

34. When he says giving it to the rich, he's not talking about the parent.

He's talking about the owners of the fancy private school, usually christian, who would receive our tax dollars in the form of a voucher. Vouchers equal taxpayer funding of religious schools, period. If you are against faith-based funding, you should be against vouchers.

The point is to fix the damn public school system.

[originalpckelly]

35. Couldn't you just say, no religious schools? Why do the private...

schools have to be religious?

[readmoreoften]

53. Because almost all of the nation's private schools are religious.

That's the nature of private schools in America. It'd be easier to change the public school system than to change the nature of private schools.

[FogerRox]

41. readmoreoften gets it

"The point is to fix the damn public school system."




The backbone of a Democracy is a economically strong middle class, that is well educated. Soldiers came back from WW2, the GI BIll sent them to college. They got married, raised a family, got a VA Home loan, sent thier kids to college.

This created the best educated generation ever. What is your problem with that?

[walldude]

155. Exactly... put the money into public schools, then there would be

no need for private schools.

[politicat]

174. A $2000 voucher is more than 6 times what my property taxes are.

If I got two, for two kids, that would be 12 times. Each year.

Even if I lived in a house that was the median for my neighborhood (mine is small and worth less) I would still get more than $500 in free tax money based on my property tax rate.

[AngryAmish]

99. So the rich will be content to throw their children's education away?

[niallmac]

14. Not sure I have the big picture either but I can see a situation

where folks take their discretionary educational voucher dollars and their kids
out of the local public school to the local Catholic, private or other 'better' school.
First there may be, most likely will be, families that cannot afford to abandon the public
bus transportation to haul their kids to the 'better' school.
Amidst the above, I don't want public dollars supporting religious schools but that's just me.
Also, now we have drained dollars from the public school system that if once was broken
will now be abandoned.
Public school in the U.S. of A. should be equal to and better than the best anywhere.
Something is wrong when the richest nation in the world has such cra**y schools and
health care. I'm not saying our B2 Bombers or our Nuclear Submarines are Cra**y.
Ohh no they are just groovy and well funded I must say.
I'm just saying for some reason our civilian infrastructure seems to have gotten the shaft.

Vouchers, anyway, are to me a way of saying "Here's the life boats, every man woman and child for him or herself"
We have a problem. We need to fix it not run away from it. We need to honor education and health care at least as
much as we honor our war machine.

[Erika]

28. The voucher program is worthless

The country is set up on neighborhood public schools where the kids can walk to school, etc. The school boards are elected in that community and answerable to that community.
The myth that these are "government" schools is just that.

Wealthy neighborhood parents results in wealthy public schools. I know of two public schools in opposite ends of town. The one located in the rich sector has a fantastic library and facilities. The one in the poor section has a dismal library and poor facilities. Follow the thinking. Money talks.

There is no known advantage to sending kids to charter or private schools as far as the education. The advantage is that the wealthy will see to it that the kids get the pluses, the poor kids will not.

The rich kids will get a vacation trip to D.C. The poor kids might visit the local zoo.

[originalpckelly]

30. I think you have a point, a national education pot...

or maybe a statewide one. That way the rich/poor neighborhood problem wouldn't exist.

[aquart]

42. George W. Bush is a product of the best private schools.

Nuff said.

[Dora]

101. And lest we forget...

... even the University of Texas (in his "home" state) denied him admission. He had to rely on the legacy admissions policy for admission to his MBA program at Harvard.

What a loser he is. He can't accomplish anything on his own without cheating.

[bhikkhu]

44. Simply, it fixes nothing

all the arguments are that the public school system needs fixed, and that the chief problem is school funding. The voucher problem virtually eliminates the possibility of improvement by removing funding. It is not a step forward, it is abandonment, and if with a voucher you still can't afford to educate your children then expect nothing - and our national standards of education may become the joke of the world, moreso than they are.

[rodeodance]

48. see this Thread also:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2139981

[droidamus2]

51. Think

When people talk about 'vouchers' there is always this supposition that everybody that wants to will be able to use them. Obviously the first to benefit from vouchers are those that already have their kids in private schools. If vouchers were instituted how many slots are available for the 'new' private school students? Would the existing private schools just cherry pick the best students? They probably would. Some say that with a new influx of money new private schools will be built to fill the need. That sounds like education for profit to me. Do you really want your kids taught be a business that is more interested in their bottom line than providing a quality education. I know that in the '70s and '80s (at least) a lot of money was put into job training. There were many instances of companies setting up 'training schools' getting lots of people to access government money and then not supplying the training. We already have a huge bureaucracy for the public schools I think vouchers would require another one to oversee that 'for profit' entities were not taking advantage of the system. I agree with those that say vouchers are primarily a way to siphon off money to religious schools and to bring down the public school system as we know it. If the public school system is broken, which is probably debatable in a general sense even though your local schools may not be great, then fix it don't run away from it.

[CarbonDate]

52. Lesson the first:

"Voucher" is a misnomer. The term implies that it covers the full cost of the private school. It doesn't. It's not a voucher; it's a coupon. Not a single voucher proposal has proposed completely covering the cost of a private education; they have *always* proposed "off-setting" the cost of a private school education, which is a *huge* difference.

Lesson the second:

It does nothing to address the actual problem, which is that the public school system needs fixing. Instead, it simply abandons the public school system, takes money away, and moves schools toward privatization. As somebody who works for the government, I will say that private contractors bring nothing to the table that well-trained and experienced NCOs do not. They're simply more expensive and less subject to government oversight. Same with public schools vs. private: the private schools are not bound by the U.S. Constitution; public schools are, which is why the conservatives hate them so much.

And as to the question of "why not just bar them from using the money for religious schools?" Where I grew up (Green Bay, WI), all of the private schools were religious. There was no such thing as a secular private school, and that is, from what I understand, the norm across the country. Private schools are private so that they can be religious.

I mean, as far as issues go, this is an easy one for Democrats.

[JCMach1]

54. You support Taxpayers underwriting private schools?

That's exactly what it is... a completely money grab by private pushed largely by the right-wing agenda to fund the right's brainwashing apparatus known as 'Christian' schools.

...Many of which are HIGHLY segregated...

[carpetbagger]

55. The voucher system has severe limitations.

Time after time, charter schools not only fail to live up to expectations, but they fail to do as well as the regular public schools. How would vouchers be different? My guess is they'd be turned into money-makers for Edison-type educational slum lords. The vouchers will be snapped up by religious schools that don't offer anything but what the public schools offer with some preaching thrown in, and by McSchools (and if you've seen how chain day-care centers run, you get the point). The private schools will not participate, the graduation rate will still be 50%, and the exclusion of people who make a good living from the vouchers will further enrich the GOP dream of making voters feel that government is only for the poor people.

[TreasonousBastard]

56. The term is "adverse selection" and a few people here get it...

Public schools aren't going away, so not all that much money will be saved with vouchers and it's quite likely total school spending will go up in some areas.

Even if the money problem didn't exist, there aren't enough private schools to take more than a small percentage of public school students. And most private schools pay real crap with few benefits for their teachers compared to public schools, so there's a long term problem there.

So, what happens in the real world is that the public schools are starved for money and the few parents who give a shit about their kids, are lucky enough to get vouchers enough to pay for private school, AND find a place in a private school to send them, leave he public schools with a worse student body and less parental involvement. More vouchers just make the public school problem worse.

Now, this isn't a problem everywhere, but largely seems to be in some inner cities and poorer suburban districts. Many, possibly most, school districts are still excellent and the problem there might not be the quality of education or personal safety, but some parents might want to get a free ride to a relilgious school.

I don't worry about church/state constitutional problems, though. Historically, fed and local gummints have rarely shied away from subsidizing secular education when the money was there. Science labs, teacher bennies, sports fields... The caveat was always that gummint money could not be used for religious education.

[beardown]

57. Didn't work in New Zealand

New Zealand tried it. Better students with more involved parents went to the better schools. The more that the better students left some schools, the worse the schools that they were leaving became. Eventually, they became known as the loser schools.
It's simply a plan to attack public schools and provide funding for many folks who are wealthy enough to already afford private schools. Like giving police vouchers to folks who hire private security guards to guard their own homes. Less money for the police who guard the entire community while the folks that can afford their own improved security get it subsidized.
Basic economics kicks in. If students start showing up with a 2,000 or 3,000 dollar voucher, I'd assume that tuition would rise, thus placing the working family that could just barely afford a private school with a voucher back into the position of not being able to afford it. Many, if not most, private schools require a much higher parent involvement than public schools do. The vouchers would enable them to cut back on some of the required volunteer work and replace that with the voucher money.
Vouchers enable more well off folks to get money to educate their kids while cutting overall school funding, taxes. If we get attacked, we provide more money to defense. If a casino owner wants a bigger, better casino he spends more money on fixing it up. If Ted Stevens of Alaska wants a better bridge to nowhere, he gets more money. Funny how the only thing in the USA that you shouldn't throw money at to improve is public education.

[crispini]

88. Welcome to DU!

Very good post! :D

[colinmom71]

58. While there are several reasons that vouchers are wrong...

The main concern is the division of private versus public interests.

As a non-public trust venture, private schools are allowed to discriminate which students it will accept and will not accept, based on whatever criteria it chooses. They are not legally required to approach education as a granted right for all children of all educational needs. They can exclude potential pupils based on religion, gender, family background, etc. Private schools are also allowed to determine what curriculum they will teach, without regard to public input or what may be in the pupils' better interests.

Public schools, funded by the public trust, must grant an equal opportunity for all children to access an appropriate education with no discriminatory or exclusionatory criteria. They must also be responsive to public input as to what is determined to be an appropriate and sound education.

Vouchers would contribute public trust funds into a patently discriminatory and non-responsive private system of schooling. Public tax dollars should not be used to support schools that have the ability to refuse to educate all children based on wrongfully discriminatory means.

[izzie]

60. I think that set off a bell.

Japan used Fr. as a base for its education system when they went modern. Maybe we should now try and copy Japan. For get all this other stuff and just set it up and work it like theirs. For some reason Japan seems to be going into the world of the new century better than we are. One thing for sure with what interest I see here something will change in our education system. Bush and his tests do not seem to be it. He seems to be working the rest of the US down to where he left Tex. in a mess.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

107. Yes, Japan achieves its high literacy and math skill rate in

its PUBLIC school system. The system is so into providing each child with an equal education that there have been snarky New York Times articles about the absurdity of maintaining schools with only a few pupils in small towns.

If you haven't lived in Japan, you may not know that many private schools there are holding tanks for kids who can't make it in the rigorous public school system. This varies from city to city, and in some cities the private schools are excellent, but by and large, no one brags about having attended a private school.

(Through ninth grade, you have an absolute right to attend your neighborhood school, but even though admission to high school is free, a district's high schools focus on different things and feature different levels of academic rigor, so ninth grade marks the first round of entrance exams. If you fail to place in a high school and your parents have money, you go to private school.)

[izzie]

176. Well people with out talent have to be educated also

You have to educate at all levels to keep a society going. That even our higher education is so far down on the world rating is really some thing to worry about. I do not get into this subject much but it is not hard to see something bad is going on. You can laugh but a country really need to educate a wide gene pool and not a set class of people in the same old schools and beliefs if the country is to move along.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

183. Actually, most of the educating takes place

up to the ninth grade level, by which time the students know all 2,000 kanji characters that are used in writing modern Japanese and have had math to advanced algebra.

One college where I taught had a math requirement for graduation, which could be met either by taking advanced algebra or passing a test.

One of the Japanese students who worked with me was very nervous about taking the test, because math had been her weakest subject. She came back from the test grinning and saying, "I had all that in eighth and ninth grade."

[izzie]

187. That is scary

As an art major I flubbed up logic like you would not believe. I used to watch the kids from Asia ace the test in about 20 min. It was formal logic. I had to take it twice to make it and get it right. For some odd reason I had to work the whole thing back wards and make up the story and then put it in to the form they wanted. My teacher thought it was pretty funny but those I would get a's on. Is it the way I think or just what was going on? My teacher used to say well you think like an artist and that has no logic. I can not see that unless logic is not in any way like reason. I think I reason things out but I guess not in the right way. I watch what kids are learning and I think something is wrong. The history of their country is just gone.

[China_cat]

63. It siphons money away from the public schools

and leaves nothing for those who are left having to use them. Vouchers don't guarantee that you can get your child into the school of your choice. The only reason private schools SEEM to be better is that they are allowed to discriminate against kids on any basis they choose other than color. If it's a private religious school they can discriminate on what church you go to.

Private schools can turn down marginal students, ones with disciplinary problems, ones with medical problems, ones that have managed to get themselves labeled in the public school. So you've got a voucher. Even in the unlikely chance it would cover 100% of the tuition, the school you want DOESN'T HAVE TO TAKE YOUR CHILD. So your child is left with a public school (for which you can't use the voucher) that no longer has enough money to keep the building from falling apart or buy instructional materials or hire decent teachers or provide bus service or even keep the heating/ac on when it's needed the most.

[izzybeans]

67. Tell me why full and equitable funding is a bad idea.

Tell me why we place blame on teachers and administrators.
Tell the teachers that their districts are going to lose even more money.
Tell the remaining students that their teacher has been given a pink slip.
Tell me why money is allotted for testing but not instruction.
Tell me why when children fail the parents blame the teacher.
Tell me why when children receive such harsh punishments as lost time at recess the parents complain.
Tell me why some schools have astro turf football fields and others have to borrow books.

The case against vouchers is laid out by posters above. There is one more element for why it is a bad a idea. It sews distrust and undermines the necessary autonomy that teachers need to do their jobs. It takes away the scant resources they already have and punishes them for not having more.

Blame the parent, the child, and the anti-intellectualist culture when they fail. The teacher pours their heart into this. Teachers need the vouchers. For supplies and better salaries.

There are serious solutions to these problems. The voucher program is nothing but more of the same.

[raccoon]

76. Thank you!

"Tell me why when children fail the parents blame the teacher.
Tell me why when children receive such harsh punishments as lost time at recess the parents complain. "

[izzybeans]

78. I wouldn't presume to speak for my wife

however I sit and comfort her when shy cries because of what some parents are capable of doing or saying.

She wonders why she teaches. She questions why she misses it in the summer. And then two weeks into school she gets raked over the coals for sending a note home to a parent about a third grade child that called her a hoe (for instance).

That post was for her.

[PA Democrat]

68. Private schools can pick and choose which students they will accept

for enrollment. What will happen is that children who are traditionally more difficult to educate (children with various learning disabilities) will not be accepted by the private schools, or if they are, they are not guaranteed a "free and appropriate public education" as they currently are under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

What this means is that public schools will be left with the children who are the most expensive to educate, but will be left with less funding to work with. If parents of kids with special needs are "lucky" enough to find a private school that can provide their child with the extra services they need, I can promise you that the voucher is not going to cover the cost. Furthermore, the parents have no legal standing to ensure that the school does indeed meet their child's educational needs.

[mmonk]

71. Public money to private venture.

[newportdadde]

72. Here is my John Stossel scenario.

First up its basically a means of giving a tax money to parents who are already footing the bill at a private school. Of course if the schools knew you would pay 10k and now you get another 2k voucher they would just raise the price to 12k but whatever..

Anyways lets look at the Stossel scenario.

As most on DU know John loves vouchers and the idea of free market competition(for everything even bottled water if your baby is dying). His theory is that if each parent has a voucher and the schools have to compete for their 'business' then they will take it up another level, good teachers will make more money and poor teachers will be fired.

Okay back to the scenario. So lets say we have school A and school B. Both schools have a 50/50 split on 'good teachers'. School A gets some investors and entices School B's good teachers to leave and come over to School A with much higher pay and they fire their 50% not so good teachers. Now School A has a very good staff and School B has the leftovers.

Here is where vouchers come in. Since this is now a free market you and I walk our kids up to School A because they have the best teachers and we want them to go to School A. We both get out our vouchers, unfortunately the school is filling up so in order to secure a spot I use my programming salary to hand over an additional 5k check, you as someone who makes 15 bucks an hour can't touch me. Your kid gets left behind I get the good school for my kids. THAT is the free market.

If it was somehow regulated then I take my 5k in folding money put it in an envelope and give it to the superintendent(an ex banker with no teacher credentials.. its free market remember) out in the parking lot of the local Applebees. My kids make the rolls.

Seriously in some the things the free market absolutely sucks.

[seabeyond]

74. my kids went to private christian. only religious private

schools in my area. on chapel day they preached during election 2004 bush was put into office by god. kerry was not a christian. kerry was a murderer. democrats are not christians. you can only be a christian if you are a republican. they are under none of the rules of public school. we have nothing but christian private in our area.

but higher on my list of problems is the kids pulled out of poor income schools will take money from school. they will jsut become more poor. all the ones left will just do without more. it will topple our school system of everyone getting an education

[noonwitch]

80. My tax dollars should not be used to fund private schools!

I don't have kids, but I pay taxes. I pay taxes to fund public schools. I don't pay taxes for kids to attend any private or religious schools.

The pro-voucher people assume that everyone supporting the schools have kids in the system. I don't. I have no problem with my money supporting the schools because that is what responsible citizens do.

If you want your kid to attend a school that is private, pay for it yourself.

[TahitiNut]

96. Don't forget the Adult Education and Continuing Education

When the privateers (pirates) salivate over public funds, they don't put any bounds on their greed. Thus, they don't account for the impact on all manner of community services that are met by our public school system. They "cherry pick" and don't accommodate the gamut of Special Education needs, adult education needs, use of schools as polling places(!!!), and other factors.

The only way privateers can make the profits they lust after is to reduce services, externalize the costs, get corporate welfare (in the form of vouchers), and raise the fees.

There is absolutely NOTHING that a 'private' school can do that can't be done in a public school except discriminate and exploit!! The biggest problem facing public schools is the "Let George Do It" attitude of the community - where mostly those people who seek private gain are rushing to monopolize school boards and pillage the system from within.

[PassingFair]

81. Public education is the bedrock of a free America

I don't have time to expound.
A level playing field is a necessity
in a land where it is self evident that
"all men are created equal".

[bridgit]

83. vouchers as a concept are just fine, it is the republican party's...

penchant for funneling monies by-way-of-them, that would otherwise go to public schools into crony, faith based as in 'their faith, or donor based educational institutions & projects i.e. Babs Bush's son Neil and his 'teaching' software (she recently earmarked a donation under national auspices; the money only able to go to her family by that means which is how the rich stay rich), and other bfee participants that are involved with snarking educational funding federal, state & local, and to the extent vouchers make they & their fan club richer, and our children more homogeneous in the process, i am against vouchers as well

[ProgressiveEconomist]

92. 80 percent of private schools are religious schools, many of them founded

during the civil rights era as segregation academies while public schools were closed down in places like Prince Georges County Maryland.

[bridgit]

116. yes, i suppose as are catholic schools, though my reference was...

to the newer 'charter schools', or corporate schools if you will, designed in advance/response to the voucher concept taking shape as a result of republican all-things-privatized; education included,and rather not per se in existence since the civil rights movement, but poised to receive taxpayer dollars out from under long since acceptable curricula, or for that matter the teacher's union...they are imo able to offer a whole new set of unaccountable troubles

[dkofos]

84. If you don't mind your tax dollars subsidizing

private and religious schools then I guess it's not a problem.

Most cities already have enough money to spend on educating students.
It is how they spend the money that should be looked into.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

90. There's ABSOLUTELY NO credible evidence that vouchers get better results

results than funding only public schools. Since Milton Friedman suggested it in 1955, there have been several serious tests of the voucher idea, from Alum Rock CA (1972) to Milwaukee WI (1995). But vouchers failed every time.

People for the American Way have some great voucher links. Their timeline (at http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/dfiles/file_228.pdf ) notes,

"1995 to 1998: Five year evaluation of the Milwaukee voucher program shows no student achievement gains; legislators stop funding evaluation component and instead, expand program to include religious schools."

And their "History of Failed Vouchers and Tax Credits" (at http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2959 ) adds,

"Overall, voters in eight states have voted by a cumulative 68 to 32 percent margin against vouchers and tax credits on 12 ballot initiatives from 1970 to 2000.

Those programs which have been enacted, such as Milwaukee's voucher program or Arizona's tuition tax credit provision, were approved by the legislatures of those states and not by the general electorate through a ballot process."

Don't you think that, if there were any smidgeon of credible evidence vouchers work, the extreme right and Wall Street would have been blanketing the media with it? IMO way too many Democrats are drinking the Kool-Aid regarding vouchers, "voter ID", and other very tricky Republican wolves in sheep's clothing.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

91. It's segregation.

In fact, I think that's the whole point.

[Book Lover]

100. Just one point to add to this discussion

When I went to Catholic school in NYC, the school got some funding from the state for non-religious subjects, so in some states tax money already goes to educate every child, even those in the private and parochial school systems.

[Zomby Woof]

102. My view

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0729-06.htm

[aikoaiko]

103. I too am beginning wonder about the usefulness of vouchers

Even if the vouchers didn't pay for all the tuition at a private school it would help.

Yes, religous schools and nondominational schools are behind this because they know many people will bring their kids and vouchers to them.

General standards could be and often are set up with private schools (state accredication).

Public school systems are scared as hell because they know they cannot serve the children as well many private schools.

Many religous schools are religous in name only. Most of the school day is spent on classical education topics.

We already give public money to private entities with religous affiliation already through grants. Food stamps can be spent at any store, even a store set up by a church, I believe.

Private schools will be held accountable via vouchers -- people will take their kids and money out of the school if they don't do a good job.

I don't blame public schools for fighting vouchers because it will cause them to have to change -- mostly painful changes.

[Bridget Burke]

106. What "changes" are the public schools fighting?

Besides losing even more funding....

[aikoaiko]

114. tenure, reducing pay to bad teachers, ending the monopoly

I should have said this too, but I don't think teachers deserve all or even most of the blame. The parents deserve most of the blame. But public schools have their hands tied by regulations that private schools do not. The beauracracy makes it very difficult for public schools to be nimble problem solvers. That too would change if they were forced to.

[Bridget Burke]

125. Your first suggestions are punitive against teachers....

But you backpedaled. Besides ending the "monopoly"--what other specific changes would you recommend.

Besides cutting funding, that is.

[aikoaiko]

133. punitive against bad teachers

You should find an adminstrator or school board member who still cares about student and ask about the enormous problem of not being to get rid of mediocre teachers. Being able to change inadequate personel is important agent of change in any organization -- without you have to wait for them to leave or die.

Keeping bad teachers who get the same or nearly the same raises as the average or excellent teachers is discourage to those teachers who put in the best effort. In time, many of them get burned out or disgruntled because they see bad teachers getting as much as the good teachers. If you don't know this, then you need to talk to teachers who still care about student learning.

I don't know why I even bother as you have already brought out the white flag of referring to my issues as talking points.

[Bridget Burke]

137. OK--beyond being punitive to teachers--oh, only the "bad" ones...

(You failed to mention the evil Unions!)

What are your other problems with public schools?

[aikoaiko]

140. Are you really going to ignore a discussion on bad teachers....

...and the difficulty of removing them as a contributing factor to public school situation?

I give you real issues to talk about and you ignore them. I see now where your dedication to student learning lies.

I'm done becaue you no longer are talking about the issues. Have the last word -- you earned it.

[Bridget Burke]

144. Apparently, you find the (Unionized) bad teachers the ONLY factor.

It would be rude of me to exclaim I'm "done with you" because you apparently make 99% of your posts in the Gungeon.

[bhikkhu]

167. Administrative problems shouldn't be an excuse....

the proverbial "throwing out the baby with bath bathwater". Vouchers will cripple the public school system financially, and eliminate much of the motive for improving it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

110. And public schools can be held accountable, too, IF

the voters get off their butts and go vote for good school board members and don't moan and groan about having to pay $20 extra a year in property taxes because their growing school district needs to hire more teachers.

[aikoaiko]

117. Most people i know would get a happy feeling "down there"

...if there property taxes only went up $20 a year.

I agree that there is lots of room for improvement at the School Board level of my area schools and I do vote for the best people, but there is also a large element of stagnation, inefficiency, and resistance to change within the public school bureaucracy.

I'm not saying the private schools aren't similar in that they have their own issues, but different schools have their different pros and cons and vouchers let parents choose what they think is best.

[Bridget Burke]

119. Parents are not the only people who pay for public schools.

Vouchers would be small bonuses for those who can afford tuition at the finer private schools.

[aikoaiko]

120. true enough. parently aren't the only ones paying tuition

But if a community or state votes to go the tuition voucher route inspite of that, then why not. Voucher are clearly not panaceas for everything or even most problems, but it gives parents the chance to maximize what they want for their children. The benefits of choice are really generally underappreciated.

[Bridget Burke]

124. You said you'd just begun "wondering" about vouchers...

But you appear to have all the talking points down cold.

[aikoaiko]

130. sigh..and what...are you the primary source of all ideas on anti-vouchers

I didn't think so.

Yes, I have been thinking a lot about this. I am the product of an excellent public school system from northern NJ and I have always supported public schools using the same rhetoric as you until recently. I come from a long line of teachers and teach myself at a higher ed public institution.

Now I have a 15 month old son and I'm thinking a hell of lot about my kid's education. So before you dismiss my thoughts as "talking points" you might want to think about the concerns parents like me have whether you have them or not.

At this point, homeschooling is looking like the best option if I can't get us into a better community with better schools.

[sandnsea]

131. You got that, didja

Aargh, why can't I get a job spreading talking points.

[aikoaiko]

132. Don't underestimate yourself -- you're great at it .

[Lydia Leftcoast]

153. If you think you know what's wrong with your school system

run for office yourself. Don't just sit around moaning and groaning about waste and inefficiency and stagnation and wishing you had vouchers so that YOUR kid (but not those others) could attend Fancy Shmancy Academy.

Don't you care about those other children, whose parents don't have the wherewithal--whether financially or emotionally--to send them to a good school?

If you don't, you ought to.

Think about it.

Your precious little perfect angels might graduate from Fancy Shmancy Academy and make it into an Ivy League school, but when they grow up, all those children who were left behind, because you and your friends cared ONLY about your own children, are going to be part of their adulthood.

So do you want your children surrounded by well-educated peers or ignorant peers when they grow up?

Besides, it looks as if you haven't been reading the other arguments.

[aikoaiko]

160. believe me when I say, I'm trying to change things here.

I don't think most of the affordable private schools around me are the fancy type you describe.

What arguments do you think I'm ignoring? Lets talk about them, then.

[sandnsea]

129. A voucher plus nothing doesn't equal tuition

How would a voucher help meet a ten or fifteen thousand dollar tuition for parents who need food stamps to eat???

How would private school provide economic opportunity and hope in neighborhoods that have been left behind?

How would private school create college education assistance?

Private schools DO NOT serve the same children as public schools, that's why rich parents put their kids in private schools in the first place.

I rarely see a post more full of talking points than yours.

[aikoaiko]

139. Well if you really want to know the answers to your questions read on.

(Edited for some typos because it was unreadable :eyes:)

You asked -- How would a voucher help meet a ten or fifteen thousand dollar tuition for parents who need food stamps to eat???

Apparently you don't realize that many private schools already offer a few complete scholarships for the poor, but that money is limited. So if the poor student can contribute their 6 - 8000 that would have gone to public schools then there would be more scholarship money to meet the rest of the needs. Plus there are many private schools around me (small city in the south) where the tuition is about 4 - 7000 dollars. So in some cases it might help a poor family a whole lot. Perhaps stretching scholarship money is just a talking point. But I have been involved in divying up limited scholarship money in the past, and stretching it farther can benefit more people.

You asked: How would private school provide economic opportunity and hope in neighborhoods that have been left behind? Well, the way I see it those kids become more educated instead of dropping out or flunking, they will be involved with less crime. And not going having your son or daughter go to jail or get mixed up in gangs provides a lot of hope to families and neighborhoods. Perhaps you dispute the link between education and juvenile crime as another talking point.

You asked: How would private school create college education assistance?
I'm not sure what you're asking here, but if a parent can choose to get their kid in a better school with a voucher then thats a lot of assistance toward getting into college. None of my public K-12 schools provided money for college outside of privately endowed scholarship funds.

You said: Private schools DO NOT serve the same children as public schools, that's why rich parents put their kids in private schools in the first place.
I'm not sure what you are saying about difference between private and public school kids, but it seems like vouchers would be a way to lessen that difference if more public school kids enrolled in private schools as a result.

I know you have already dismissed me, but believe me when I say I always planned on sending my kids to public schools. But now I live in a small city whose county schools are the lowest ranked in a state who is often itself ranked in the lowest 3 education states. Last year I read in my local paper that 1/3 of the sixth grades had been suspended out of school. Freakin 33% were booted because of behavioral problems. I am scared as hell to send my kid into that.

[Bridget Burke]

141. Why is Georgia ranked so low?

Does school funding play a part? How would cutting the funding further help the schools?

[sandnsea]

143. Ask a Republican

That's the kind of logic that only they understand. :crazy:

[aikoaiko]

149. My county votes democrat, usually.

but yes, it is a republican state by and large.

[sandnsea]

151. I would bet

That my counties that vote Republican are to the left of your counties that vote DemocratIC.

[sandnsea]

142. $4-700 dollars???

Done, absolutely done with anybody who would dare to even suggest that any school can run on $700 a year.

Yes I've dismissed you, and that one statement clearly shows I was right to do so.

You live in a state that is complete crap that is based on Republican policies and think Republican policies is going to make it better. There's a word for that I think.

[aikoaiko]

148. sorry,typo, I meant to write 4 - 7000 dollars, do I have your respect now?

:eyes:

eta: actaully there are a lot of typos in that one. sorry. but I need to get home and rushed them out.

I know we disagree, but I suppose my faith in public schools has been shattered. Carry on as you see fit as will I.

[sandnsea]

150. Who has $7000 dollars?

How does a few thousand dollar voucher "help" anything at all? What is going to happen to the kids left in the public schools because the private schools a) are full and b) don't accept students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, etc. You're advocating creating a public school system that will look like the institutions we thought we got rid of 50 years ago. Why can't you see this?

[aikoaiko]

159. 50 years ago.

I was under the impression that 50 years ago it was the opposite situaion where most kids went to public schools and the kids with disabilities or other problems didn't. I'd be happy to read about it being different if you can provide resources.

But I think your main point is that the only students left in the public schools would be the unwanted students. You may be right if they didn't do anything different. I'd like to think that schools would adjust and attract students back. Maybe thats not possible. As an atheist, I would much prefer to send my kid to a secular school than one with even the mildest religious affiliation.

[sandnsea]

161. You're unaware of state institutions??

For the blind, deaf, retarded, disabled?? That's where we stored kids who didn't fit the white bread, mainstream mold. Are you telling me you're not familiar with this?

You start removing the mainstream to "private schools", and all you've got left are the kids who used to be institutionalized. We've already seen a lot of this with "white flight". It doesn't take an awful lot of insight or imagination to see that this is what would happen with privatizing public schools.

The way to do things different is to support - and pay for - schools and curriculum that work. We know how to do it, we just have people blocking progress in order to revert to "separate but equal".

[aikoaiko]

165. public schools and institutionalization.

In Post 150 you wrote: What is going to happen to the kids left in the public schools because the private schools a) are full and b) don't accept students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, etc. You're advocating creating a public school system that will look like the institutions we thought we got rid of 50 years ago. Why can't you see this?

You think that if vouchers were the rule, then all but the unwanted kids would be left in public schoolbecause the public schools wouldn't be able to attract any other students and thedr unwanted students would be institutionalized as they were in the first half of the 1900s when they were abandoned by or taken from their parents to live 24/7, neglected, not educated, and in effect warehoused. I suppose thats possible but I don't public school officials and teachers are going to turn in to monsters if vouchers were to come around.

So no I don't think public schools will turn into the sanitariums of yesteryear. Worst case scenario is that they do exactly as they are now.

I think a lot of people who are considering vouchers hope that public schools change for the better -- not worse. Ironic, but I think I have more faith in public schools than you should vouchers come to be.

And yes, I still try to support and work for change in the public schools. Yes, they need moremoney. But they also need to work out some of their own disfunctional stuff too.

[sandnsea]

166. Why not just work for the change then?

If they need more money then how can you think that they can get better by taking money out?? Why not just put more money in, equalize funding, test the curriculums instead of the kids, and get this done right the first time. Taking the kids that are easy to teach out of the school system isn't going to move us any closer to any answers, but then that's not what vouchers are about in the first place.

[aikoaiko]

179. I do what I can.

Money: I get to vote on a local 2% sales tax to help pay for new schools (among other things). I'll be voting for it. New buildings aren't enough but its something. I just looked up my old high school and they now report being funded at over 13k per student where my county is at 4.5k. :(

School Board: I read up and vote. I now know one of the School Board President candidates personally and I think he'll do a good job.

Teachers: I teach teachers. I'm not in the college of ed, but they are often have to take my classes. I do my best to train them well. Although many are well intentioned, far too many are not teacher material. Because too many in the teacher ed program fail courses in my discipline the College of Ed set up their own easier parallel courses. thats disheartening.

Personal Involvement: I work with programs to bring science to public schools kids. Occasionally I work with the kids themselves.

This is not to say I am a saint, but rather to simply illustrate that I am involved with real efforts to help the public school system at various levels.

But one of my problems is how uncreative public officials, schools officials and teachers are when trying to change things. These is so much inertia that it drives me crazy. SO yes, sometimes I think the only thing that will snap them out of their lull is the threat of giving parents choice in where their kids go to school. I don't think it will lead to the end of public schools, if it causes them to reexamine the structural problems.

[sandnsea]

185. You're not mr innovation yourself

That's a nice little laundry list there, but it doesn't address any specific changes that could be made to keep kids in school or improve interest in science or increase reading comprehension or anything at all really.

Just like everything else with the Republican Party, vouchers is rhetoric without substance, slogans not solutions. If private schools can't articulate a curriculum or strategy that translates to any given public school, then private schools don't have a solution at all. What they have is the ability to eliminate students that make teaching difficult and that is not the goal or responsibility of public education.

[aikoaiko]

188. You said I should support the schools, I listed how I support them.

I listed getting more money to build modern infrastructure, teaching teachers, changing the school board, and working on curricular issues in the teaching of science. Yes, I could go into more specifics but I'm not going to waste my time with you. I bet that "laundry list" is a lot longer than yours. Apparently, you think there is a magical curriculum out there that will solve all problems.

I've got news for you, the issue isn't curricular is pedagogical. There is an amazing amount of consensus on what needs to be taught, the real issue is how to teach with the students of today. That you focus on curriculum just goes to show you have no idea what is going on in education today.

Its true that the there are many on the right who want to dismantle "goobermint schools" as they say, but if you need to talk to Democrat parents in bad school districts. We've had it with the failures and we're desperate for any money to send our kids somewhere else or have public schools improve.

And now I bow out of this thread.

[sandnsea]

191. I said "work for change"

Which is significantly different than merely casting a vote.

And the fact that you don't understand that there are curriculums out there that change the "pedagogical" (as you call it) dynamics of a school show that you have no idea of the possibilities in education today.

Any parent who is involved in their child's education is going to have a successfully educated child, no matter where the child goes to school. ALL schools require parental involvement. That's the message parents in bad school districts need to hear. Whether they be 'Democrat' parents, Democratic parents, or otherwise.

[politicat]

177. On the private school service population:

Private schools DO NOT serve the same children as public schools, that's why rich parents put their kids in private schools in the first place.
I'm not sure what you are saying about difference between private and public school kids, but it seems like vouchers would be a way to lessen that difference if more public school kids enrolled in private schools as a result.

Public schools are mandated by federal law (Title IX) that all children are entitled to a free and appropriate education. That includes kids with Downs Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Cerebal Palsy, learning disabilities, blindness, deafness, or ADD/ADHD.

No private school in the United States is required to follow Title IX. They can and do ignore the populations above, as well as a hundred more criteria. Brophy High School in Phoenix (Private, boys, nominally Catholic) won't accept any student who has a juvenile record. Even minor vandalism or breaking curfew. They won't accept any student with a history of discipline problems in their previous school. And they only have a few slots available each year - many Brophy students have been on a waiting list for the school since early childhood, if not birth. Most parents can't ensure a level of exceptional stability that such waiting lists require... and being on the waiting list is no guarantee of acceptance.

In fact, getting into a private school for a good, but not stellar scholarship student can spell college disaster. A friend of mine went to Brophy on scholarship - he was smart, and had been doing very, very well in public school. His mom worked two jobs so he could go. Had he stayed at our public high school and continued to get his really good grades there, he would have had a full ride to just about any university in the US. We had equivalent grades, but on the curve of High School, I came out Valedictorian, and he came out near the bottom of the upper 25% of his class. I got admitted to Harvard, MIT, Lewis and Clark and Stanford (but couldn't afford any, so took a really good scholarship to ASU) while he got rejected almost everywhere... he had been a stellar student in an average public school, but was only an above average one in an excellent private school. He got into ASU on a sports scholarship, a small academic one, and a lot of loans and grants. He ended up having to drop down to community college for his sophomore year because he couldn't afford ASU (and ASU is not expensive, or wasn't at the time, for instate students.) Fortunately, all CC credits transfer to the universities in the state, else he would have been in a lot of trouble.

[colinmom71]

169. Clearly you've never dealt with being or having a child in a bad...

Private school. The vast majority of private schools are religious based and no, that is not in name only. In the community I was raised in Georgia, there was only one secular private school within a 40 mile radius. The only other choices for private schools were a Catholic school and several Christian (Protestant) schools, some of whom did not always hire properly licensed and degreed teachers. Most of these, except the one I attended, did not offer classes beyond the middle school grades.

I went to a private Christian academy through part of my elementary school years, one that was taken over around 1978-1979 by a fundamentalist preacher. He insisted on at least one hour of chapel Bible service every school day, and of course his sermons usually ran way longer. He actually spent one Bible study lecture on the importance of treating your copy of the bible with respect, like never setting anything on top of your bible even if it's just a sheet of paper. Attendance to fall and spring revivals was manatory and if a student did not attend, their grades definitely suffered. Corporal punishment was pretty much a way of life, with my third grade teacher seeming to have a real fondness for paddling for infractions as minor as forgetting to get your homework signed by a parent. Parents were routinely told what TV shows, movies, music, etc. that we students were to be allowed to be exposed to. This is just some of the crap we students put up with on a daily basis.

My mom finally caught on when they undermined her parental authority during re-enrollment after my third grade year. It seems I'd scored very high on placement exams and the school was insisting on me skipping fourth grade, telling my mom that her opinion (that I wasn't ready to skip a grade) in this matter was irrelevant. If I remained at their school, I would have to go to fifth grade. She responded by withdrawing my re-enrollment and sent me to public school. Funnily enough, it turns out the public school's curriculum was relatively similar and the teachers were just as competent (not to mention a heck of a lot nicer!). Oh, and I got to actually meet and socialize with minority students, something that was not a dynamic available at my previous religious school. Believe me, I felt far better serviced by the public school than the private school.

Yes, my mother did pull me out of the bad school, but she was just lucky that it happened at the school year's end and we had the summer to enroll me into the public school. Imagine now a whole group of voucher parents have a similar experience and decide their kids need to be out of the bad school immediately. Do you think any school (public or private) would be able to suddenly transfer in large groups of kids at any time in the school year? The resource strain on the new school may be unbearable and force them to deny enrollment until the next school term. Guess those kids would be "left behind"...

Oh, and concerning your idea that "General standards could be and often are set up with private schools (state accredication).", many of these fundie driven Christian schools actually fight state standards for a regulated curriculum. Some think that all instruction should be biblically sourced and are likely to argue against being forced to teach science as an infringement upon their religious based instruction. Then you'd also have Christian biases being taught within history, current events, and civics lessons. Yes, I do think that private schools should be required to meet a state regulated curriculum, but the reality is that many of these schools will do all they can to either skirt around or even outright violate those regulations.

And once some of these private school learn that by accepting state based funds requires them to adhere to state and federal non-discrimination laws, you're going to see them dropping voucher student like hot potatoes. That's why most voucher programs are written to distribute the money from the state to the parent, who then pays it to the school. It's to get around that pesky non-discrimination clause attached to state funds. It's sort of a religious based money laundering scheme if you think about it...

[aikoaiko]

190. I agree that there are bad private schools too.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I thought all private schools were perfect because I feel quite the opposite.

There are some private schools here where the religousosity is too severe that I would prefer to send my kid to a public school. But there are jewish, catholic, and christian schools in my area where the religion is a small part of the curriculum and children are not indoctrinated.

There are societal issues on how we educate all children, but there is the personal level too where parents make choices about their kids. To have some financial relief in the form of a voucher would expand the choices for me.

[knitter4democracy]

189. We send our kids to Catholic school, and we're against them.

I even taught for three years in Catholic schools, and almost all the teachers I worked with were against vouchers, including our administrators.

The reality is, Catholic schools do what they can to make their schools available to anyone who wants them. It's the newer schools without the endowments, the Baptist schools and various Christian schools, who want the vouchers.

Vouchers aren't needed if the private school is committed enough to making its doors open to all students. I get a new fundraiser thingy for my kids every month, and that money goes to scholarships and the general fund to keep tuition lower than the real costs would make it. We don't need public money, the public schools do. Keep the money there.

[OregonDem]

109. Why not attach the money that they would spend per student to the student

and let parents choose which school they go to, making sure that the money could only be used for a secular education. If you wanted to send your child to a religious school the money could only be used in non-religious classes (math, science ect.), the parent would have to pay extra for religious classes (bible study for example). Competition would improve our public education and would reward teachers who do an excellent job.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

113. And why doesn't the Oregon legislature fund public schools

sufficiently, so that math classes in Portland high schools don't have to have 45 students, i.e. more students than there are desks in the room?

[OregonDem]

171. Good funding and competition will improve education

They are both necessary, but I think more parents would support increasing school spending if they had more say in how those dollars were used. They also want to make sure that an increase in school spending will actually mean that their schools improve, otherwise they are just left with the same schools and higher taxes. Competition would insure that schools work to improve to be able to earn the funding they receive, it would reward successful schools and allow them to expand to accommodate more students while bad schools would have to strive harder to improve before they received more funding.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

180. With your emphasis on "competition," you sound more like a

Libertarian than a Democrat, one who believes in the Religon of the Holy, Sacred, and Infallible Free Market, the one that has caused formerly intelligent TV channels to devote themselves to WWF wrestling and celebrity poker.

Elementary and junior high schools in Japan have no real "competition," and yet, they turn out, as one writer said, "the best average students in the world." Having lived there, I can attest to that. The same is true in most of Europe--excellent publicly funded schools that turn out secondary school graduates with the equivalent of our first year or two of college.

In the UK, private schools and religious schools do get government funding. This has had two negative results:1) In Northern Ireland, it has led to a double system, where Protestants and Catholics attend separate schools and never get to know one another, 2) Far from improving the state schools, "competition" with the private schools has drained resources from the state schools, so that they have a bad reputation and pay teachers poorly. I had long noticed this on the Internet, and I saw it up close when I spent three weeks there last month: British people write either superbly and eloquently or nearly illiterately. There didn't seem to be anyone who wrote at what we would consider an average level. Perhaps this is what you get when your state school system is so underfunded that it offers low salaries and the private and religious schools are able to lure away the better teachers. (If I'm wrong about this, I'd welcome correcctions from any of the UK Duers who see this.)

Now that I'm in Minnesota, I'm living among a system where you do have free choice--but only among public schools. Any student who is a resident of Minnesota can attend any public school in the state that has room for him or her. (My brother and sister-in-law took advantage of this when they moved from one town to another when their older daughter was in her last year of elementary school. If they were willing to transport her, which they were, since the school was on my brother's way to work, she could finish elementary school with her classmates.)

The elementary schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul give priority to local residents, but they all have some sort of magnet program and accept applications ffrom outside their attendance boundaries. The middle schools and high schools are even more specialized and have more mobility among students.

BUT...and this is huge, the urban schools are underfunded for the populations that they have to teach, including a LOT of immigrants from Latin America, Southeast Asiia, and Africa. A middle school near where I live emphasizes the arts, but it has to hold fund drives to finance its orchestra.

I know one teacher who worked in a high school in Minneapolis for eighteen years, struggling to work miracles on a limited budget, until she finally took a job in an affluent suburban district, where suddenly, she gets everything she needs and doesn't have to dip into her own pocket to buy supplies for her classroom.

The state has been extremely stingy with money under its current Republican administration (and these are "new" Republicans, tax-cutting, fetus-worshipping, gay-bashing fanatics, not like the moderate Republicans I knew when I was growing up, who ran the state competently when they were in office). Unlike Oregon, districts are allowed to tax themselves to fund their school systems if they choose, so as always, the wealthy areas have great schools and the urban areas struggle with student bodies that are more difficult to work with in the first place.

It WOULD be possible to have excellent public schools, but we would need some serious reorganization and a change in our national culture, so that instead of pushing sports and fashion and commercial pop music, our media begin promoting the idea that it's good and useful to know things.

[Bridget Burke]

115. As a non-parent, I want some money, too!

I'd love banjo lessons. Or obedience classes for the cats.

Or--let's just use the school taxes that everybody pays for the public schools!

[aikoaiko]

121. but the states responsibilty paid for by everyone's taxes is to the kids

and their education -- not to the public schools. I know you didn't say otherwise, but sometimes it seems like the antivoucher rheteoric loses sight of that.

[Bridget Burke]

122. No, that money goes to the Public School Systems....

Over which we have a bit of control, through voting for school board members.

Taking money away from the public schools won't help them. But it will make the fundies & other Republicans happy.

[sandnsea]

128. That would destroy rural schools completely

We have a hard enough time with school funding in rural areas that already suffer from the loss of forest and fishing economies. You're suggesting the majority of school districts in Oregon lose a significant amount of funding to support a smattering of schools in church basements, which will mean a horrible education for ALL students. What a great idea!!

You also don't represent the views of any Democrat in Oregon - in fact Ron Saxton is the one who is pushing the voucher/choice bullshit this year.

[OregonDem]

170. Nobody has more interest in the success of a child than their parents

Thats why a parent with greater options to send their kids to school will ultimately help improve a child's education. If parents had more of a say in their kids education they will be likely be to ask/vote for an increase in school funding, and be more involved to make sure that their kid is getting the best possible education. Right now when state/local legislatures ask for more money from parents for schools, the parents aren't sure that those dollars will be used wisely so they are more hesitant in supporting increase school spending especially if they are already streching every dollar in their household income.
The only ones who would lose funding would be bad schools, which would have to work harder to improve their education, while good schools could expand to teach a greater number of students.
I want Kulongoski to win and have voted for him in the primaries, simply because there are more issues than this one and I find that my beliefs are more in common with his than Saxton's. Saxton's ads are just cleverly hitting on something that a lot of Oregonians want, while he tries to hide everything else he supports.

[sandnsea]

186. Nobody wants vouchers, what a crock

Nobody in rural Oregon would put their local districts at risk by funneling money off to a bunch of schools and administrations. The districts in the cities already have a variety of programs and charter schools to choose from. There's no push for vouchers in Oregon, it's just recycling campaign slogans to try to create division. I question the motives of anybody who would get involved in this.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

112. The REAL reason the Republicanites want vouchers:

They're set up a false dichotomy of "public bad, private good," and they are doing their best to "prove" this by making sure that public schools deteriorate as much as possible.

Since they know parents aren't pleased, they hold out vouchers as a vain hope.

Yet there is a better way.

If you look around the country, you will find some superb public school systems. What they have in common is that they are in affluent areas inhabited by people who value education.

College towns usually have excellent public school systems, too, even if the town itself isn't affluent, because all those college professors raise hell if their kids aren't getting a good education. I lived in such a town for seven years, and students from the local school routinely did well in statewide math contests, music contests, foreign language contests, and writing contests. While the college professors kept the school system on its toes, the majority of the population were farmers, lumberjacks, and saw mill workers.

But you don't have to be rich to demand a good public school system. The Repubicans know that, and they know that if poor people learned how to band together to demand better schools (by hounding the school board or even running for school board themselves--after all, U.S. schools are locally controlled), there's no telling what they might demand next--a higher minimum wage, national health care, affordable housing. The Republican heart quakes in terror.

And that, OP, is the REAL reason Republicanites want vouchers. They want the poor to think that public school is the enemy. They don't give a damn about whether poor children are educated or not. In fact, the more ignorant people there are, the better it goes for them.

If public schools actually improved, they'd hate it.

[Aristus]

127. Thsi is the sound-bite I developed to explain why school vouchers

are bad:

School vouchers give money to kids who are already doing well in school by taking it away from kids who still need some help.

[patcox2]

134. Vouchers = Segregation, plain and simple.

Segregation based on class and race.

They will also lead to government support of churches.

They are all bad, in every way.

[techtrainer]

135. public schools must have competition to improve

I attended and graduated from Denver public schools (East High) and received a great education. I have firsthand seen the decline that has taken place in the last 20 years.

Nobody here seems to want to mention the elephant in the room.

It's the teacher's union that fights vouchers tooth and nail where ever they are proposed. It is not about rich or poor, or separation of church and state, or how much money is spent on education. It is about preserving the monopoly on primary and secondary education.

How can it be that the U.S. has the best college and university system in the world, yet has some of the worst public school systems? Since we are dealing with the same population base, the main difference is that colleges and universities (both public and private) have to compete for the same students. Until public schools are forced to compete they have no incentive to improve.

To suggest that poor people's only recourse is to be elected to the school board is disingenuous at best. To put their children's education at risk for political expediency is a shame.

[Bridget Burke]

138. Ah the evils of Unionism!

Public schools need more money, first.

Here in Texas, funds have been cut & cut again. The schools have not benefited. California schools have definitely suffered because of funding cuts.

Your own state of Colorado?

In 2000, Colorado voters took the first step toward protecting our schools by passing Amendment 23—ending a ten-year slide in funding for K-12 education. It guarantees modest annual increases but clearly does not require the substantial investment that many of our schools need. If Amendment 23 is honored for the next six years, in 2011, we will finally spend as much per child in real dollars as we did in 1989.

Yet, Colorado continues to be ranked in the bottom quarter of states in K-12 funding, class size and drop-out rates. In 2005, Colorado schools received the smallest increase in funding in 30 years!

Colorado voters understand why it is so important that we invest in the education of the next generation. Even in these tough economic times, 67% of Colorado voters believe K-12 education and local schools are deserving of increased financial support from new or higher tax rates.

www.copops.org/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

147. Competition? It's not a fucking fast food chain.

"It's the teacher's union that fights vouchers tooth and nail where ever they are proposed."

Damn straight. That's because teachers haven't got their heads shoved up their asses. And that's why the Bush administration calls the teacher's union "terrorists.

"It is about preserving the monopoly on primary and secondary education."

Do you even fucking understand what a monopoly is?

"How can it be that the U.S. has the best college and university system in the world, yet has some of the worst public school systems?"

Well, it's real simple. You've got these old rich bastards who want to gut the school system, especially in poor and black areas. So they spend a lot of money convincing really dumb people that things like vouchers and NCLB will fix the problem. And there's negative feedback. The more they dumb down the schools, the more dumb people there are to believe this shit.

[DocSavage]

156. Why is the US

college system so good? It is competition. You are going to go to the best school that you can afford for the best education that you can get. Colleges are businesses. They make money by having students pay for an education. Good colleges charge more and are more selective.

Teachers unions fight vouchers because it brings a degree of performance based evaluation into the system. If the school that they work in is good, less students leave. If not, well, less students, less need of teachers in that school.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

184. As a former college professor, I disagree with you that the U.S.

college system is good because of competition.

Most American colleges offer very similar curricula and appeal to the students on the basis of their location, atmosphere, religious affiliation, or historic reputation. After making their admissions decision, they compete on the basis of financial aid. That's as far as "competition" goes.

There are two types of colleges: those that will accept any warm body within reason, and those that advertise their selectivity. The most highly regarded colleges START OUT by advertising that they will take only the top students. (Reed, a relatively new college, founded in the 1920s, is an example.) In California, the University system (Berkeley, Santa Cruz, etc.) takes only the top students, the State Univeristy system (San Francisco State, Humboldt State, etc.) accepts the top 1/3, and the community colleges are the "second chance" for everyone else.

It is the calibre of the students admitted that makes it possible for a college to offer a high-level curriculum. For example, Yale, where I was a graduate student, admits 25% dumb rich kids like George W, but most of the rest of the rest of the undergraduates are so bright and self-motivated that they're scary. I knew someone who was an Olympic athlete with a double major in two widely disparete subjects. There was an immigrant who had earned a straight-A average at the Bronx High School of Science while working six hours a day in his family's grocery store. There were students who produced and directed plays, directed and ran choirs and orchestras, and organized and ran film series. Yale College did very little in the way of organizing extra-curricular activities for its students and merely funded students who had their own ideas for activities.

In an atmosphere full of such high achievers, there is no limit to what you can do in the classroom. It's not the George W Bushes but the achievers who set the pace. Professors in the Ivies, at UC Berkeley, or at Reed report that the students are eager, motivated, and interested in learning more. The brilliant students reinforce one another.

It's the opposite in less selective colleges. There you have maybe 5%-10% achievers, and most of the rest are in college simply because that's what middle-class youth are supposed to do. The mediocre students reinforce one another. You simply cannot require the same perfomance of these students that you do of students at high-powered schools, because they will either break down in frustration or become sullen or resentful. This may actually be a good environment for a high-powered student who lacks self-confidence, but it can also teach him or her to "coast."

When I first started at my last teaching job (X College), the school was coming out of a period of financial problems and had gotten into the habit of taking anyone with a pulse and a bank account. The level of instruction was low, because the students would not tolerate anything more, although the athletic department was very good for a college of that size. Then the new president declared that X College would no longer accept students with SAT scores below 1000. That ruling decimated the football recruiting program, but it greatly improved the atmosphere in the classroom. (1000 is still not a terribly high score, though. The most selective schools won't even look at anyone with a score of less than 1200, and at some schools, the average entering freshman has a combined score of 1400.)

What I'm trying to say is that your perception of "competition" among American colleges is skewed. The top colleges are at the top because they admit only brilliant students who can keep up with a demanding curriculum. If they suddenly declared open admissions, their quality would drop within four years.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

157. So why have the schools deteriorated in the last twenty years?

I'll give you two factors that I've seen.

1) Bad parenting and a sick pop culture

In the old days, if a kid was disruptive in school and was punished for it, the parents would make sure s/he got an equal measure of punishment at home. Nowadays, the kid can be throwing desks around, and if the teacher intervenes, there will be a call from an irate parent about how the teacher is picking on their precious little angel.

Parents have also surrendered their role to the mass media and the sports establishment. Why buy books for your children or take them to museums or let them explore nature when you can plunk them down in front of a video or think you have to put them into every sports program that your community offers?

In fact, our whole pop culture glorifies athletic ability and encourages minute knowledge of celebrity trivia while denigrating readers and musicians and artists as nerds or flakes.

Frankly, my own schooling in the 1960s was not the best the era had to offer, but my parents compensated by making sure that we had a house full of books and that our vacations always included trips to historic sites, and that we watched the science programs on TV. Even the poorest parents can take their kids to the library or make sure that they watch Nova, and most importantly, that they study instead of goofing around and that they behave in class. Asian immigrans living in slums send their children to MIT. Why can't everyone else?

2) Lack of money

It SOUNDS like a lot of money, $7,000 per pupil, but you won't find a GOOD secular private school for less than $10,000, and the private school absolutely will not take the troubled kids unless it's an even more expensive private school that specializes in behavior problems or learning disabilities or chemical addiction.(Think $20,000 instead of $10,000.)

There are two reasons why religoius schools charge less. One is that they are heavily subsidized by churches. In fact, you read about Catholic schools closing because their diocese has decided not to support them anymore. The other is that they pay their teachers much less than the prevailing salaries, a holdover from the days when all the teachers were nuns or brothers and worked for just room and board.

How can the schools have too much money when class sizes are growing? (And if class sizes don't matter, why do rich people send their kids to those $10,000 schools where the class size is 15?)

I think administraitve bloat may be part of it, but that's something for you to take up with your school board.

And poor people need to UNITE, not just moan and groan, because nothing scares the Republicanites (or establishment Democrats) more than poor people organizaing, and I think that scaring Republicanites, (instead of swallowing their nonsense exactly as FAUX news hands it out) is a GOOD thing.

[SmokingJacket]

146. Takes public money for private interests.

Public schools have to educate *everyone*. Not so private schools. They can take your tax money, teach whatever shit they like, and kick out the problem kids... or whoever they want to kick out, actually.

I object to it on that level.

It'll end up draining money from the public system which is already struggling and giving it to churches and private companies.

[Thickasabrick]

152. Vouchers my ass. If people don't like public schools they need

to fuck off or work to make them better. Abandoning them and then expecting to get a "Voucher" to help put their spawn into private schools is beyond ludicrous.

What about people like me who have no children and still pay huge property tax bills. Do we get a "voucher" because the public school systems suck? Hell no. All those people who support vouchers can fuck off.

[CarlVK]

162. Because its a subtle way of gutting $$ for a good free public ed.

If you are a poor family, or hell, even a working poor family, what the state gives you in a "voucher" won't even cover your kids' clothing expenses let alone getting them enrolled in a private school. That is the big lie the purveyors of school vouchers don't tell you. They proceed from the fantastical notion that all families are mid to upper-middle class and can actually use the voucher money toward a private education for their kids.

And on another front, the idea is failing. Charter Schools, for example, get worse failing grades every time they study them.

Did you know that something like 11 million dollars a DAY is blown on this ridiculously stupid militaristic nightmare in Iraq? Can you imagine how that would help some local school program?

Don't let those who want to shunt off our social needs to the advantage of the superrich's shrinking tax bracket succeed. Let's work to make sure that our country's kids can get a solid, quality and free public education so that no kid is really left behind. Vouchers are not an answer, but one convenient tool in the opposition's agenda to duck the problem.


(edited, spelling)

[Realityhack]

164. Well.

There are a lot of problems that people have mentioned.
Another problem that sometimes gets missed is that this is typically seen as a ‘magic bullet’ solution. It’s thought that just making vouchers will fix education.
But there are currently a limited number of seats in private schools (and far fewer if you exclude religious schools). With a limited number of seats they will pick the best students out of those who can afford to pay.
Now would a voucher help a poor family with a deserving child get one of those seats? Sure especially if it where large enough. And (ignoring for the moment the drain of funds) that’s not a bad thing. In fact it’s quite good.
But it won’t fix the problem. All the students that are not naturally easy to teach stay in the public system. And the really elite schools still require thousands and thousands of dollars beyond what anyone with a voucher can afford so they are still strictly elite.

The result would be a few things.
1. More private schools but not necessarily good ones. They would have to run near the voucher level of funding (less than the existing ones could charge) and would have to have lower entry standards. As a result they would not likely score in the way current private schools do.
2. Existing private schools would suddenly see a redistribution of funds from public ed. To them.
3. Public education would be left with all the problem students but would be sapped of the money to do anything about it. Children with a variety of problems cost more per pupil to educate. It is however very very important that we do educate them.
4. You would likely see an increase in barely licensable extremist religious schools.

Helping deserving poor students afford quality education is an admirable goal. But I think in the long term it is much better to just fix as many problems with public education as we can.

[footinmouth]

182. Private schools don't play by the same rules

I live in one of the best school districts in the state. Except for religious education, there is nothing the private schools offer that our public schools don't. We pay very high taxes for the privileges of living in a great school district. Why should my tax dollars support those families that want to go elsewhere?

We already provide services to the private schools that fall within our disrict boundaries. Transportation, school nurses, textbooks etc.

We find a place for every student, the private schools take only who they want.
We must work within state mandates, I'm not sure that the private schools do.

The vouchers don't provide an even playing field. Some of our private schools charge $12-15K a year in tuition. What good will a $2,000 voucher do for a student who's family is not affluent. The voucher will simply give a tax break to those who can already afford to send their students to these schools.