Posted on 07/22/2008 6:14:20 AM PDT by Amelia
...The fundamental problem with the voucher debate is that it is always seen as an either/or proposition. For Republicans, it is the panacea to all the educational woes, and that is nonsensical. For Democrats, they say it will destroy public education, and that too is a bunch of crap.
I fundamentally believe that vouchers are simply one part of the entire educational pie. There is no surefire way to educate a child. We've seen public schools do a great job (I went to them from kindergarten through college) along with private schools, home schooling, charter schools and even online initiatives. This is the kind of innovation we need, not more efforts to prevent a worthy idea from moving forward...
(Excerpt) Read more at madison.com ...
Roland gets one right.
My only problem with vouchers:
Take a child from a failing school, and give him/her a voucher to a quality private school.
The child fails MISERABLY and/or is expelled from the school. I can see this happen, particularly with the majority of the kids in the failing schools.
Now, what happens to the voucher money? Do the parents have to repay it? I would like to see them collect on it.
I want accountability on the other side if you choose a voucher and I want it enforced. I don’t think that is asking too much.
My problem with vouchers: The private schools are good partly because they can expell and punish any student they want to. Would public school kids on vouchers be somehow protected from consequences? As they are in public schools? Would there be tremendous uproar when consequences were applied? Because it is federal money, would the strings entangle whatever good the privates were providing? THAT is what I would worry about.
So far as I know, from how vouchers are supposed to work, the amount of money being spent for the child's education would be the same in each situation. In the event of the child's failure in private school, you ask:
Now, what happens to the voucher money? Do the parents have to repay it?
I ask: Why is that an issue? Do you expect taxpayers to repay tax money if their child fails in public school?
My position: Public schools pretty much have a monopoly and they are seen as more justified in asking for additional funds if they are seen to fail in their task of educating children. Therefore: they fail to education children. Private schools, on the other hand, get additional money based on their success within a competitive education market. Private Schools do not offer a guarantee, but I think they have a better inventive to succeed than their public school counterpart.
The voucher system has been vetted, tried and proven without a doubt to work. As proof of my contention, I give you the GI Bill as my example. The post WWII GI Bill opened doors to a college education that was before WWII only available to a very small and elite portion of our population. In fact, most historians give credit to the GI Bill as the engine that drove the post WWII industrial boom. As a product of the Vietnam era GI Bill, I can say that I probably would never have attained my degree without it. So, let's not bother with discussion about whether or not the voucher system works. We know it works. Now, it's time for the electorate (we the people) to make it known via the ballot box by voting out those who do not support it and voting in those who do that we want it implemented - asap...
Is there ONE topic Obama is right on??? I have never disagreed with anyone so much in my life. The guy is a loser on EVERY issue.
Of course, Obama is considered the furthest Left of all the US Senators. That's not just a "interesting factoid" (as some people seem to view it) -- it's central to who Obama is, and why he is a very dangerous choice to lead this country.
One thing that has happened with the D.C. voucher program is that many of the students from failing schools can't meet the entrance requirements for some of the better private schools.
I have not heard of those things being problems so far in any of the places vouchers have been tried, but D.C. is the only place where federal money has been involved.
What I'm more worried about...so far voucher amounts seem to be based not on the amount the district is already spending per pupil, but (at least in the case of D.C.) on the tuition cost of parochial schools.
One problem with this is that parochial school tuitions are often subsidized by the diocese (and other religious school tuitions are often subsidized by those churches) as a ministry, and teachers often accept reduced salaries for the same reason. Would churches want to, and be able to, also subsidize educations for voucher students? It might be considered a form of evangelism, but churches might also decide they can't afford to do this.
To pay for most independent school tuitions, voucher amounts would need to be much higher, and there are additional administrative expenses in managing the voucher program which aren't counted in the "per pupil" amounts. I'm not sure what the administrative expenses would be, but IIRC, they were higher than originally expected in D.C.
If you haven’t seen it already, you need to find today’s Shelby Steele article on Obama and read the whole thing. :-)
So long as the private school can control it's own curriculum, avoid hassles with teachers unions, and kick out troublemakers (public schools can take the kids who don't care about education), then I think the private schools can maintain a reasonable level of quality.
I agree with that article that we need a wide range of choices and options, and that no one option will be right for every child.
Vouchers may be a useful option in that list, but I think we ought to recognize that they aren’t the “be all and end all” to all the educational woes in the U.S., and like everything else, they have both advantages & disadvantages.
ping for later
There would be the government stores giving away poor quality food complete with shortages and very little variety and choice. Yes, we would have elite private boutique food stores for the wealthy with expensive and exotic tastes in food. We would also likely see private food stores that catered to those with religious and cultural needs and the food there would be a lot more basic.
This is what we have now due to our price-fixed, monopoly government schools. We have expensive private schools for those with expensive tastes. We have inexpensive private schools catering to those with specialized religious needs.
By the way,...I bet if you compare children from the same socioeconomic families, I bet there is little difference academically from the child attending St. Joan of Arc parochial school with the child from Lawrenceville Prep. There is a difference though. The exclusive school is offering country club facilities and manicured lawns. St. Joan of Arc will not have a weight room and indoor swimming pool.
Also, the exclusive private school is selling more than education. It is selling social **contacts** and the possibility of networking with those of high social status.
One problem with this is that parochial school tuitions are often subsidized by the diocese (and other religious school tuitions are often subsidized by those churches) as a ministry, and teachers often accept reduced salaries for the same reason. Would churches want to, and be able to, also subsidize educations for voucher students? It might be considered a form of evangelism, but churches might also decide they can’t afford to do this.
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This is a valid point and I am interested to see what others say about it.
But...how much are the charters receiving per pupil? Is it more or less that the vouchers?
School bump.
Actually let’s make that
“Private School bump!”
To some extent, especially in inner cities and poor rural areas, that is a very good analogy. However, in the United States, the situation is a bit more complicated than that.
This is because public schools are funded from a combination of federal, state and local taxation. We could say that all schools get the same federal funding, but this is not necessarily true: there are programs such as Title I that give more money to schools in high poverty districts, or to schools with more disabled students.
State funding may be the same per student at all schools in a state, but school funding does vary from state to state. Also, if you think of the old saying about households, "two can live as cheaply as one," we know that isn't strictly true, but it may be that if per pupil funding from the state is equivalent, smaller districts are still able to do less with that funding than larger ones.
Finally, there is the local funding. Wealthy areas with expensive property generate more money from property taxes than inner city areas or largely unpopulated rural areas do, so those areas have more money to spend on education. In some of these areas, schools are much more like those elite private schools than they are like inner city schools.
Now, another way this can vary -- in some areas, especially with poor, uneducated parents, more of the money often tends to go toward fraud and waste, because the parents tend to be uninvolved and also don't know how to challenge the system and demand accountability.
By the way,...I bet if you compare children from the same socioeconomic families, I bet there is little difference academically from the child attending St. Joan of Arc parochial school with the child from Lawrenceville Prep.
I believe there have been studies showing that when one controls for socioeconomic status, there is little difference in achievement between public schooled, private schooled, and homeschooled students.
Also, the exclusive private school is selling more than education. It is selling social **contacts** and the possibility of networking with those of high social status.
Very good point, and that is worth a lot to some people.
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