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 ...
It would be worthwhile to collate the various methodologies and administrative policies at successful charter schools and at those Catholic schools....and publish the results.
Which “public schools”? DC or US public schools IN GENERAL? Seems like a flawed report.
If they did better than DC schools, then they are a success! The DC Public School system is a basket case. I doubt that the DC charters did no better than DC Public Schools.
They've done similar studies in Milwaukee, New York City, and I believe Cleveland, with rather mixed results.
I don't think any of the studies has shown a definite advantage for vouchers, but I do know that in Milwaukee, for instance, there was a lot of fraud in some of the private schools, which might have skewed the results.
On the other hand, if vouchers were used nationwide, I think there would continue to be lots of fraud in some of the private schools, so maybe that's not such a skew after all....
Now you’ve got me curious. What kind of fraud are you talking about in private schools?
You wrote:
“An educated society is a vibrant growing society.”
I agree. I never said anything against education in itself.
“The vast majority of parents would NOT educate their children without government mandates.”
Untrue. The vast majority of parents want good things for their children and want them to have better lives then they themselves had.
“Certainly higher education, both Government run Universities and private Universities would NOT be anything like they are today.”
You mean exalted vocational schools that don’t really educate men and women but prolong the adolescence of teens well into adulthood while training them to be clerks? Yeah, you’re right. They could be better than that.
“Pure research would be nil, and society would be agriculture based.”
No. The industrial revolution started in this country BEFORE mandatory education - it was in fact dependent upon the cheap labor of children. Sad to say, but true. Also, pure research would still have been carried out, but it would have been performed by wealthy scions from aristocratic or mercantile families.
I am all for education. I just don’t like my government involved in it since it isn’t part of the original constitutional mandate.
Unfortunately, in general, you are correct about the lack of any real teaching. There are some exceptions. In the few instances where you find some good teachers (and a supportive administration) you discover that inner city students actually respond well to a challenging curriculum. When things are too easy, it’s boring and creates a climate ripe for behavior problems.
I don’t know whether vouchers are working or not, but I do know for certain that home schooling is FAR better than public schools. I would NEVER send a child to a public school these days.
The entire concept of vouchers is to allow the free market to weed out the bad schools and encourage excellence.
If a student performs well in a school, then the school attracts more students. A poorly performing student would then use the freedom to choose a better school.
Two years????
This amount of time is entirely inadequate to assess the success of vouchers. Its not even enough time for a single student to assess whether or not a single school is good or not.
This is blatent propoganda by the WaPo. And people are smart enough to recognize that two years is not enough time to make any kind of judgement.
But then when the students get too smart, they’re accused of “acting white”. Also, when the inner city students see schoolwork that’s too challenging, they start complaining and they throw fits instead of trying to learn how to do the work. They’re really not used to hard work.
You wrote:
“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...”
Maybe, but it would just be you paying for it just as you aren’t the only one paying for it now. In my area, the total cost (and I think this is an underestimate) for a public school education is something like $9,000 a year. A Catholic high school in the area announced that it will be doing it for only $6,100 next year. The parents at that Catholic school pay less than $3,000 tuition as well. The parishes kick in the rest. These are good schools too. Private schools can be much cheaper than public schools.
You’re telling me that private schools, when given $13,500 per student can’t perform better??
The US Dept of Ed is lying.
_______
You either missed the point of the study, or you’ve not made your point clearly.
Many of the students paying 13.5 are doing better, namely the ones that are NOT there on vouchers. The study has looked at the kids using the vouchers and determined that they (not all of the students) are doing little better in their voucher school than they were doing in the public school. The students NOT there on vouchers ARE performing better.
The first sentence of the linked article makes it clear that the ones NOT doing better are the participants in the voucher program, not the general population of the private school.
Initially, they complain....but the passion to meet the challenge ultimately overcomes that immature response. The good teacher gives a realistic challenge that CAN be met, though it takes effort. The GENUINE self-esteem that comes from effectively meeting the challenge is addictive. ;-)
(Remember I referred to good teachers and supportive administration.)
I’m not surprised by this. I have never understood the logic behind solving a problem by moving the problem from one location to the other. The success or non-success of a school is mostly determined by the students, not the teachers or the school. Good students will do well even in bad schools. Bad students will do poorly in good schools.
It’s interesting to note that the noticeable improvements came from students who did relatively well before entering the voucher program. This is understandable since these students showed motivation before and are more likely to take advantage of a better environment than the kids who did poorly before entering the program. A voucher program will most likely help the kids who needed the least help in the first place.
When you look at the black community, you see a steady increase in blacks achieving high professional status while at the same time, you see an increase social failure of many. What you are seeing is one group gradually receiving more benefits from taking advantage of the opportunities today while another group is becoming less and less motivated and getting worse and worse. This is what is being shown in the voucher schools. The motivated inner city students, who did fairly well before, will improve while the ones who didn’t do well (typically the unmotivated ones) will do no better.
We don't have enough teachers in Georgia, either, especially in subjects like high school math & science, and in special education.
Apparently in the northeast, union teachers get paid much more than teachers in the rest of the country, and there's no shortage.
IIRC, common themes are a focus on the basics and strict discipline.
For instance, there was the private "school" whose students watched videos and cartoons all day, and the one run by a convicted sex offender.
Some shysters began private "schools" to get the voucher money, but didn't bother teaching anything at all. At least some of them were eventually caught.
Good discipline and a focus on the basics are important, but I’d also like to see the teaching strategies used and how the administration supports good teaching methodology and interacts with parents.
What private school system? There are very few private schools in this country and for most people, public school is the only game in town.
I would like the government to have some management oversight about where this money goes. But people who take money and provide no value should be cut off and (when appropriate) charged with a crime.
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