Posted on 02/17/2005 9:50:05 PM PST by libertarianben
It should surprise no one that Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to pay California teachers bashed on job performance. He has firsthand experience with merit pay, having earned millions for muscular box office appeal in his former career.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
In some areas that's true. In some areas the community and parents have also failed.
I've noticed in my school that students who have concerned parents who value education generally do quite well, while students with parents who just use the school as a babysitting service often don't do as well.
Schools need to be in the free market, so if one school is failing you can take your child out of it and into another.
I understand your point, and in theory I agree with you. My question was on the finer points of how you will finance it.
To reiterate, would the "tax credits" you propose provide parents with a set amount per student no matter how much tax (and tuition) a parent paid, or would parents get a rebate of property or income taxes up to a certain amount per minor child? Would these tax credits be given by the federal or state governments, or both?
The other problem is going to be the whole transportation issue. I live in a very rural area, so most parents wouldn't be able to get their children to another school anyway, unless they started their own, which I suppose might be an option.
In the closest urban area, mandatory busing for integration caused problems in some neighborhoods, because some students no longer went to nearby schools, and parents didn't have the transportation to pick up sick children or attend parent conferences. I could see some parents being unable to take their children out of failing schools for similar reasons.
Tax credit programs fall into two main categories. One type of program allows parents to take a direct tax credit for tuition they have paid to a private school. The other type allows individuals or corporations to receive a credit for contributions made to private scholarship organizations, which then distribute the collected funds as scholarships to qualifying students. Scholarship tax credits are one way to help children from low-income families attend private schools. Six states--Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania--currently offer tuition tax credits either for parents or for contributions to scholarship organizations.
The Arizona Scholarship Tax Credit program illustrates the growing popularity of tax credits and their potential impact on a state's education system. In Arizona, individuals, businesses, and corporations receive a reduction in income tax liability of up to $500 for donations to a nonprofit clearinghouse, which gives private-school scholarships to needy children. It is estimated that by 2015, the Arizona scholarship credit will allow the nonprofit scholarship organizations to raise $58 million per year, funding 35,000 to 61,000 scholarships annually.
Found this at the Cato institute website. You might want to look at it. You and my friend Matt should talk. He is big into education.
Only helps parents who can afford the private school to begin with, not to mention those who have good private schools nearby.
Scholarship tax credits are one way to help children from low-income families attend private schools.
Yes, more helpful for poor families, who arguably need them the most. Again, assumes that there is a good private school nearby and transportation is available.
You and my friend Matt should talk. He is big into education.
Talk him into signing up! I'll be right here! :-)
We need to get the federal government out of education. Is what I meant to say.
The second sentence is not a complete one. It should be attached to the first one.
We need to kill the teachers union. They've absolutely ruined the education system in this country. They spend millions to make sure they won't be held accountable. They've spent the last 30 years brainwashing and dumbing down our kids. If we don't stop them now they'll win and rule the whole country.
Yes, we have to watch out for those Rambo teachers. They are singlehandedly responsible for everything wrong in the world today. We had better watch out for all those kids in the military they educated. It could be one grand conspiracy. Let's borrow what the liberals do and hold one entity solely responsible for the ills of society (yes, in our country today people are not responsible for their own choices--they can't choose, the teachers put mind devices on them).
That being said, as a teacher I'd love to see merit pay implemented. :-)
One thing to think about, though--the education liberals' idea of merit pay probably wouldn't be any more than you receive now.
I don't know how you can say "some still aren't", I don't see any evidence that any of our school systems have gotten better in the last thirty years.
Schools tend to reflect their communities.
Some public schools are quite conservative (including the one where I teach) and some are very liberal.
In some areas, the unions have a huge influence; in some they are virtually non-existant.
Some public schools provide an excellent education, and some don't really provide an education in any sense of the word.
As with housing, it's all LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
Decent comments. Yes, it is the negative that gets reported. The little miracles I see in my classroom don't warrant news coverage.
Why not have tuition tax credits that allow parents to pay for private school tuition with the money that they would otherwise pay in taxes?
I'm not sure I understand what you want here...would this be a set amount per student no matter how much taxes a parent paid, or would parents get a rebate of property or income taxes up to a certain amount per minor child?
The U.S. Constitution does not give Congress authority to collect taxes for, fund, or operate schools.
The U.S. Constitution does not give Congress authority to do many things they do, IMO, including Medicare and Social Security, which are much more expensive programs.
Nonetheless, the federal government has steadily eroded state and local autonomy in this area over the past 50 years, so that it now takes an active role in almost every issue related to education.
As I say, most of the federal government's role is in response to perceived failures in the local systems.
Decent debate here. Tuition tax credits are liberal, though. Someone else is saying to the other taxpayers, "subsidize my personal choice and help me pay for my kid." That's the same kind of thing that some liberals say.
The U.S. Constitution does not give Congress authority to collect taxes for, fund, or operate schools. According to the Tenth Amendment, education should be entirely a state and local matter.
Wouldn't Federal "tuition tax credits" just be another way for the Congress to finance schools?
Hi, moog! I agree that the negatives get the attention and the positives are ignored. It's kind of like the newsman's saying, "If it bleeds, it leads."
It's very easy to blame the schools for all the ills of society - those that the media doesn't get the blame for, that is.
As I observed on another thread earlier today, if the majority of people had the values they claim to have, our "popular culture" wouldn't be nearly as popular.
IMO, the decline in the schools reflects and is at least partially caused by the concurrent decline in many facets of our culture, including broken homes, the "self-esteem" movement, lack of discipline among children, and the womens liberation movement.
Schools seem to make a comfortable scapegoat for many people however.
The education tax credit under consideration here has two components. The first is a parental choice credit, under which any parent could receive a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income-tax liability of up to $500 per child for money spent on tuition. The second is a scholarship credit, which would raise funds for children in low-income families. Under the scholarship program, any individual could receive a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income-tax liability of up to $500 for donations to a nonprofit scholarship clearinghouse, which would pair the money with needy children, much as a highly successful program of this kind does in Arizona.
In this analysis, we assume that every dollar spent on the tax credit would result in a direct revenue loss to the federal government, for a total cost of $9.2 billion. At the state level, however, use of the tax credit results in tremendous savings. By reducing the cost of private schooling, the credit would encourage some parents to transfer their children from public to private schools. As students transfer, state governments have fewer pupils to educate and can reduce expenditures accordingly.
The parental choice component of the credit could help approximately 330,000 new students attend a school of their parents' choice, in addition to making private schooling more affordable for the millions of families with students currently enrolled in private schools. We project an estimated savings across the states of $2 billion, with significant variation by state. Savings to taxpayers in states such as California would be an estimated $250 million; in states like New Mexico, an estimated $8 million. We also find that the credit's scholarship component could raise enough money to give nearly 3 million students scholarships worth $2,000 apiece. If 2 million of those scholarships were used to move low income students from public to private schools, taxpayers would reap $12 billion in savings. Taking both components together, the parental choice and scholarship credits would enable roughly 2.3 million new students to attend a school of their parents' choice at a savings across the states of $14 billion.
A federal education tax credit promises an additional benefit for the state: taxpayer savings. In a new analysis, we find that the parental choice component of the credit could encourage 1,400 new students to attend private school across New Hampshire. Since the public schools would no longer have to educate these students, the state stands to save $ 9 million per year. The scholarship credit promises more savings. Modeled after a highly successful scholarship program in Arizona that raised $ 14 million for scholarships last year, reasonable estimates suggest that nearly three million scholarships worth $ 2,000 apiece could be raised for low-income students nationwide. The nation as a whole stands to save nearly $ 12 billion as scholarship students leave the public school system. If some of these scholarships go to public school students in New Hampshire, the savings for the state will be significant. As savings pile up, lawmakers in Concord can pass them on to taxpayers in a well-deserved tax cut.
But more important than the potential tax cut is that these reforms begin to give parents greater control over education. Instead of pouring more federal spending into the state education system, Congress should return those dollars to parents and concerned citizens and let them determine how the children of New Hampshire are educated. A $ 500 education tax credit is a first step toward this bright horizon.
Found both of these at CATO.
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