Posted on 06/18/2008 6:35:43 AM PDT by Amelia
Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally did no better on reading and math tests after two years than public school peers, a U.S. Education Department report said yesterday.
The findings mirror those in previous studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Could be, but I'm not sure why they would be. This program was passed by the GOP congress specifically in hopes of proving that vouchers worked, and it's George W. Bush's education department studying it.
Why should anyone have to pay to educate anyone other than themselves or their own dependents? Private pay or private charity is the one fair way.
That does make quite a bit of sense...I had looked at some of the studies earlier and found that on the whole, although the most exclusive schools in D.C. claimed to be participating in the program, most of them didn't have any voucher students, because they said the voucher students couldn't meet their admission standards.
I look at George W. Bush's Education Dept, and I see the same thing.
Government employees Unions are likely to support the Teachers Unions. Why? Well, the teachers unions are also Government employee Unions. It would be bad form to start trashing such institutions.
I’m not so sure they should. I at least can see the idea that that helps all of society, but public education just ain’t cuttin’ it.
There was some of that, but perhaps not in the sense you intend...
Eleanor Holmes Norton (even a stopped clock...) is correct in saying that some of the voucher students were not "rescued" from failing public schools...some were already attending the private schools on private scholarships or other funds, and then received public funding to keep going to the private schools.
If you read the studies, they don't seem to have received as many applications as they'd hoped from the very worst schools, and they weren't sure why, except that there was a lot of paperwork & initiative involved to participate in the program - parents had to file (apparently complicated) applications, & research and apply to the private schools seperately. They also had to figure out transportation to & from the private schools, if their children were accepted. Lots of hurdles, especially for minimally educated parents in the inner city.
It would be interesting to see which schools had the voucher students and then to look at the scores of all the students in those schools. Of course, other factors SHOULD be looked at as well, such as parent involvement, overall motivation of the voucher students, behavior, etc.
I'm not saying it's not a better system than what most of the country uses. What I am saying is that I see fifth generation families on welfare who can't afford anything spending $200 on a pair of sneakers or $400 on an X-box, but there isn't a book or magazine in the house. To me, that says they don't value education very much and, as such, I'm not too inclined to spend more on them.
No matter the school..there will always be those that won't/don't learn.
Very true. Perhaps one solution is to let them take vocational education only, rather than traditional courses. Another solution is to encourage them to take advantage of the largest and best vocational training institution in the world: the military. They'd learn a skill and find self-worth along the way.
Do you give any of this burden to the teachers, system, etc..?
There's enough blame to go around for teachers, administrators, and parents. My experience, however, it that the parents should shoulder the largest share of the blame for their kids' failures.
I don't know about y'all, but my yearly property taxes (which are on the high side for where I live) wouldn't cover the tuition for even one child in a good (or even mediocre) private school in this area...
A great school can’t completely compensate for bad (or non existing) parents I guess.
I am against vouchers because they would destroy the private school system. Now private schools can pick the students they want to admit and those they want to allow to remain, while public schools must admit every one that applies . With vouchers they become public school with the same admission criteria. Ask any P.S, teacher how this works out.QED the present article.
barbra ann
The key here is that it is D.C. schools. In any other city you would see a difference.
An educated society is a vibrant growing society. The vast majority of parents would NOT educate their children without government mandates. Certainly higher education, both Government run Universities and private Universities would NOT be anything like they are today. Pure research would be nil, and society would be agriculture based.
So we give the vouchers program a two-year trial period? And how many years have we given public education to prove itself? Or insufficient immigration enforcement? Or welfare benefits? Or a whole host of other great society programs? Since when is any government program judged on just two years? Or, just Republican ones? Okay then.
That's true. If you look at the list of participating schools (especially looking at the schools that actually enrolled voucher students) most of them were Catholic schools and very small religious schools. Some of the smaller schools may not have had very rigorous academic standards to begin with, but Catholic schools usually do.
Even with the voucher program, many of the Catholic schools can't afford to stay in business, more's the pity.
Some of those in D.C. thought that there should have been less focus on vouchers and more on charter schools such as KIPP that were showing great results (although not all charter schools are doing well academically either).
A great education is important. So is safety in the schools. I’d rather my son get a “B” in a safe school as opposed to an “A” in an inner-city jungle where the inmates run the asylum...
Who is talking about giving "more"?
Very true. Perhaps one solution is to let them take vocational education only, rather than traditional courses. Another solution is to encourage them to take advantage of the largest and best vocational training institution in the world: the military. They'd learn a skill and find self-worth along the way.
I've no problem with either of those solutions. Maybe if we gave people those "choices" with vouchers they would take it.
There's enough blame to go around for teachers, administrators, and parents. My experience, however, it that the parents should shoulder the largest share of the blame for their kids' failures.
We can sling blame around 24/7...it doesn't solve the problem. The NEA has a ve$ted interest in keeping things like they are. And that is the FIRST obstacle, IMO. Why not tackle the things we are more likely to change?
The point, of course, is not how the children fare on tests etc, but should the parents have a choice. If we decided programs based on the scores of the kids on the tests many public schools would be closed and we would be looking for an alternative.
I agree. I’ve been a victim of inner city schools. They do not, and I mean DO NOT “teach”, they just make you repeat what the teacher’s doing.
I’m glad that my mother taught me while I was growing up because the schools would have made sure I would have fallen through the cracks due to my disability.
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