Redstate

So what are we waiting for?

Some basic assurance that private schools will not simply raise their cost in response to school vouchers, therefore accomplishing nothing but arbitrary taxpayer spending.

How is it possible for every kid to go to a "good" school?  Isn't there a law of numbers at some point?

is all that we have now. And overall a very unresponsiveness to the demands of the taxpayer and education needs.

Everyone could go to a good school.  They can't all go to the best school.  For example, everyone in America could live in a good house (sturdy, roof doesn't leak, etc).  But only a few could live in the best houses.

Vouchers are good because they give additional incentives to both public and private schools to improve their services and responsiveness to parents and students.  Schools can get better and they respond to incentives the same way every other business does.

Private school tuiotion is over the map. The schools are priced to their market, like any good or service. If all the existing private schools priced themselves out of the range of voucher users (it won't happen, but say that it did) there would be plenty of new competition for those students.

Think about the other things you buy: Homes, cars, food, car maintenance, etc. Are all of these goods of the same quality? No, but the vast majority are of good quality. Those that do not offer good quality lose customers, and face extinction if they do not improve.

Maybe your real question is: Can we attract enough good people to teach? We will have to see. However, the answer is probably yes.

There are many people who would be willing to teach part time--something our current public system usually does not allow. Most college professors are not allowed to teach k-12 because they lack the required "teaching certificate" issued by most states.

In addition, the whole structure of the school could change. Research has shown student learning improves even when an older student teaches younger students. In other words, one does not even have to be a college graduate to help students learn.

When you go to the doctor, does he perform all of the tasks that help provide you with medical service? No, he has nurses of various levels, lab technicians, and various others who help him provide the service. Maybe teaching could be done the same way, which would reduce cost and allow more students to receive quality education. One master teacher (like the doctor) with many less qualified assistants (like the nurses) could all work together to help educate students.

Cost is not at all indicative of the quality of the education you get. Just because you can't afford an elite $25,000/yr school doesn't mean your child won't get just as good an education (or better) for 1/5 that price.

Just like a Lamborghini Diablo isn't a better daily driver than a Taurus. You aren't paying to get from point A to point B at that level.

First off, this article is so one-sided that's it's virtually an advertisement for the voucher program.

It's good that people are exploring new ideas and questioning the status quo, etc.  But as far the voucher program, what is it actually supposed to achieve?  You give a bunch of money, essentially, to a few families so that they can put their kids in private school, while the rest of the families remain in the public school that the providers of these vouchers claims is terrible (or at least sub-par).  Those few students get a good education, the rest of them remain, and the public school rots.  Is that really what we want?

Also note the cost:

"Because the yearly tuition at Rock Creek International is more than $19,000, and the vouchers are capped at $7,500 a year, the school is subsidizing each of the Opportunity Scholarship recipients."

So if the school did not voluntarily subsidize the remainder of the tuition, you'd have a situation in which the very poor still would not be able to attend the private school (great, I've got $7,500; now just give me another $11,500 each year, and I'll be on my way), only middle-class students could attend (those who could afford the other $11,000).

Further, the fact that these schools are so expensive exposes the lie that lack of funding is not a crucial problem (if not the core problem) with the public school system.  I often hear "just throwing money at it won't help anything" (though I seldom hear this about Pentagon/defense spending from the same voice).

In short, taken to the extreme, we would just give all the students a bunch of money so that they could all go to a private school, and then shut down the [now vacant] public school.  Why not just provide more funds to the public school, which would help everyone?

1. Caters to the children of "international corporate executives and foreign ambassadors."
   
2. Offers an "International Baccalaureate program, and she is taught regularly in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic."
   
3. Offers "Trips abroad - to Europe, Africa, South America, the Middle East - are part of the curriculum, and Breanna will participate."

Obviously this is a very high end private school, but there are great private schools who have tuition far lower than the per student cost for a public education.

My sister just tried to find a decent school for her child. A vouncher for $7,500 won't get my niece a school year of education (approximately 9 month), but no more then just a hair over half of that. Maybe in DC they are cheaper.

Tuition has really gone up in the last 5 years.

You can not treat children like commodities in market. You need a working school, not the one that is ruled by business rules. If some school with oh lets say 4000 student overbudgets and goes bankrupt in the middle of a school year what happens to the kids?

The parents will frantically run around trying to stick them in a new school, paying more for a new school. Kids will need to adapt in teh middle of a schol to new classes, classmates and etc.

Not to mention the fact that a private school is essentially a business and the point of a business is to make money (not to cater to customers as many people think).

I want my school administrator to be concerned with my kids and nto how to bring in more profit.

Public schools need to be fixed. But vouchers are not the answer.

the kids are the goal and the parents get to decide. Pssst, keep this under your hat, just between you and me, alright.  But we have been giving more money to the public schools and it don't make a damm bit of difference. Washington D C has one of the highest per capita expenditures in the nation and what do you get?  Competition may help the public schools, it may even cause a revolution in teacher education.  We may wind up in some happy day when we have well educated,literate,and qualified teachers instead of the education-theory boobs we have at present.  Impossible, we'll see.

The idea overall behind vouchers is to help parents get their children out of the state monoply known as public education,[ a possible misnomer].  It doesn't or can't promise everyone that it.the program, will pick up all costs for all possible users.  It's a start,with somebody else's kids, not mine & not yours.  You mention your sister,do you or she expect the vouchers to pay the full freight?  How bad does she or any other parent want to make the move?  In passing, and no offense, did you try to talk her out of it?  If not then why in general with any number of other parents.  A modest proposal; in the early 50's the $600 child deduction was begun, Bush and Congress raised it to $1200.  Estimate the effect of inflation over 55 years and guess what that deduction should be now.  Make the adjustment in the tax code and let's see how many parents make the move to private education, and for that matter how many don't.  Less vouchers would be required leading to I hope, less complaints abot taking money from the scam known as public education.

frantically running around trying to find a better school for their child right now?  Isn't the child trying to adapt to the thugs in his/her shcool right now?  How is the nightmare scenario you attempt to paint worse than what we currently have?  What happened to the liberal mantra 'If it helps just one (insert disadvantaged group), then it is worth the price'?

Bull Connor isn't gone.  He just turned around.

What about the kids that are currently trapped in dangerous and failing schools? Most private schools are not for-profit institutions. And even the ones that are, how is the profit motive any worse than the motives of the teachers unions and administrators? They clearly don't have the best interest of the kids in mind.

Nothing is going to fix the failing schools other than competition. More money isn't going to solve anything. That has been tried.

I've been thinking about this one for a while and can't get my head around it.  School choice? absolutely, where you live shouldn't mandate anything.  Now my problem comes in here, I can see eliminating public school, or at least federally funded public school, but how do voucher advocates get off telling me that my taxes should go to send their children somewhere, and not all children.  But my biggest gripe is this, I don't have children, I might in the future, but then again I might not.




So my question is this:  Can I get a voucher w/o having kids?  Public school is enough of a welfare,  but at least it is provided to everyone equally, and keeping the physical assets(buildings etc.), why do conservatives want the government paying for anything of theirs, and worse yet redistributing our income?

You can not treat children like commodities in market.

Perhaps you've merely mistated yourself, but it's not children being treated like commodities.  No one is advocating buying and selling children.  The commodity in question is the service of education.  If you have a choice between someone offering a high quality vs. low quality of service, you'll buy the higher quality if possible especially if this is the future of you children we are talking about.  However, parents don't get that option now.  They are stuck with whatever quality of service the education system chooses to offer.  Monopolies don't respond very quickly to outsiders trying to force change and I'm not willing to wait that long.  A proposition here in California to extend the start of teacher tenure from 2 years to 5 years failed.  If something as simply as straightforward as this fails, there's not a lot of hope for much else.

I guess we should just let the government just run everything then as ALL businesses just want to make money and don't care about customers. They can make our cars, run all the stores, etc. It will be great. Every trip to the grocery store will be like going to the DMV.

I would think anybody living in America would understand that businesses only stay in business by making their customers happy and making great products. There are a few businesses that take advantage of people, but they don't last long.

It would be no different with schools. Any schools that didn't run things effectivley would go out of business almost immediately as parents would have ZERO tolerance for poor schools.

All the schools that survived more than a couple years would be great schools and would never just stop in the middle of the year and go bankrupt.

Give me a break.

really understand the issue.

It seems you have two objections. First is paying taxes. Can't help you there. We all pay taxes to fund things we don't like. Some don't like buying bombs and guns. Some don't like the FBI and DEA. Some don't like public schools. But as long as we're all in this together I don't see a resolution to your dilemma in this regard. In the immortal words of Frank Barone: Suck it up, nancy.

The second problem I think comes from a misunderstanding of why vouchers are favored by conservatives. While we may like, in principle, the idea of a free public education we don't necessarily like the idea of a public education system that exists as a government monopoly. Even moreso when they tend to be inefficient, for instance, of the $388 billion spent on public education in 2003, $150 billion (39%) went to non-instructional services.

The concept behind vouchers, even those funded with your begrudging tax contribution, is that the education dollars follow the child. A parent may use their voucher for private education (paying the difference) or they may use it in a public school or a charter school. Or they could homeschool individually or as a group.

So vouchers also serve all children equally, the value the parent gets from their voucher will vary. Perhaps with a bit of competition public schools can reduce their overhead from 39% to even 30% pushing billions of dollars back into the classrooms.

In terms of redistribution of income vouchers are no more a redistribution scheme than the present system, you just have more control over your child's education.

$7500 may not be enough for a good education...

But how much do the public schools get? If we gave out vouchers for the same $ amount as the public schools receive then I would think that would be sufficient if that's enough for the inefficient public schools to get mediocre results.

I don't have any links on hand, but I did read a couple years ago that the avg amount spent per pupil in public schools was around $6500 while the avg spent per pupil in private schools was around $4500. If that is the case, then private schools are likely able to give a better education for 2/3 of the cost. And private education should be much better if they get the same funding as the public schools.

the per student expenditure is over $11,000.

I think vouchers are a good idea, and people should not let perfect become the enemy of good enough.

But then again, who ever thought of common sense in politics?

This program is sure to make a tremendous difference in her life.  

What about the kids that no one is going to want to compete for?  What about the kids with parents who aren't willing/able to find a good school for them?  What about the kids who have families that can't pay the difference between the voucher and tuition?

I was just saying this morning that it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that having high-quality public schools for every citizen of this country isn't a point of patriotism.  I'm not opposed to school choice per se, but I don't see any way of implementing a large-scale voucher program that doesn't result in leaving a substantial chunk of have-not children rotting in schools that are worse than they were because the kids with the parents who advocate for them are now in other schools.

Far too many of our public schools are unsafe, dirty buildings where very little education occurs.  We can abandon them, or we can commit to making them work, and work well--for all of our kids.  This shouldn't be pie-in-the-sky type stuff!  

Apart from the moral issues that I have with embracing a system that leaves Breanna's peers truly behind, from a strictly practical stance, the quality of education these leftover kids receive can make a difference for them, too.  They can grow into adults who are net contributors or net consumers.  It is not beyond our capabilities as a country to provide a truly quality education for all of our kids.  I honestly feel sometimes like we just don't want to.

of repeating the same activity over and over and expecting different outcomes.

What about the kids with parents who aren't willing/able to find a good school for them?

As is the case now, the public schools are available.

I'm not opposed to school choice per se, but I don't see any way of implementing a large-scale voucher program that doesn't result in leaving a substantial chunk of have-not children rotting in schools that are worse than they were because the kids with the parents who advocate for them are now in other schools.

Sorry to be callous here, but I've got three kids. They aren't a social experiment and live is too short to fight a recalcitrant education system. My wife and I had this argument thrown at us by acquaintances when we voted with our feet and abandoned DC two years ago. We left a house and neighborhood we loved and a 15 minute commute for me because the schools in DC are beyond horrible. We were told on several occasions, "if parents like you leave, how will the system ever get better." Short answer, I don't care it isn't my problem. If I could have gotten a voucher then we might have stayed as it would have paid the freight at a very good parochial school, but I don't have enough time to change the world.

Far too many of our public schools are unsafe, dirty buildings where very little education occurs.  We can abandon them, or we can commit to making them work, and work well--for all of our kids.

And whose fault it this. This is not an education issue this is a basic function of any organization. But the degree to which we pump billions into school infrastructure and it just gets worse and worse should give us a hint. The system is just broken. While I could be enticed into destroying the current system and starting from scratch, I'm not going to support reinforcing failure.

Apart from the moral issues that I have with embracing a system that leaves Breanna's peers truly behind, from a strictly practical stance, the quality of education these leftover kids receive can make a difference for them, too.  They can grow into adults who are net contributors or net consumers.

Snark aside, it would seem your real objection here is to Breanna having parents willing to take the time to move her ahead and in preference to her succeeding you seem to perfer the uniform failure guaranteed in many of our public schools.

I probably should have made it clearer, but the last thing I'm in favor of is more of what we already know doesn't work.

As for your decision to leave DC for the sake of your children: I wouldn't throw the argument your acquaintances did.  Every parent has to do the best they can by their children.  You did that and I wouldn't second-guess you for any reason.

From a policy standpoint, to me it's far preferable to not have had you in that situation to begin with.  The better situation, to my way of thinking, would be for you to have had a quality public school for your kids without you having to move to find it.

Because I'm coming to this conversation more from the perspective of a teacher (and with the exception of my student teaching, the only schools I've ever taught in have been similar to the ones you find in DC), because the kids that I've come to care about so deeply are those that tend to have parents who don't advocate for them, I'm most interested in devising a system that works for all of our children.  Were I a parent of school-aged children, I'm sure I'd be in favor of whatever would serve my children the best and the quickest.

I don't support reinforcing failure.  There are a lot of things about the way public schools are run that perpetuate failure, and I think those things need to be changed, yesterday.  I think it's better for our country and our children if we had a public school system that succeeded in educating nearly everyone.  Then parents wouldn't feel this overwhelming sense of urgency to escape.

I don't view the voucher debate as a choice between doing something or nothing.  Things aren't working now.  The debate needs to be about doing something or doing something else.  The reason that I'm opposed to vouchers in a broad sense is that I think adopting vouchers on a large scale is likely to simultaneously make us less likely to address the problems currently plaguing public education and make things even worse for the kids who are left in those schools.  

(There's the additional problem of how special education students are addressed in voucher programs that I rarely see addressed.  Special ed students are about 10% of all students, and they tend to cost a lot more.)

Finally, this:

Snark aside, it would seem your real objection here is to Breanna having parents willing to take the time to move her ahead and in preference to her succeeding you seem to perfer the uniform failure guaranteed in many of our public schools.

is most assuredly not the case.  I meant it when I said I was happy for her.  I guess it's hard to convey sincerity when "I'm happy for you" statements are usually sarcastic.  Of course I don't prefer "uniform failure."  That's the polar opposite of what I prefer.

and it's very expensive, and mandated by law.

"I did read a couple years ago that the avg amount spent per pupil in public schools was around $6500 while the avg spent per pupil in private schools was around $4500. If that is the case, then private schools are likely able to give a better education for 2/3 of the cost."

Private schools, as cream-skimmers, don't have to take very expensive special ed students and have resource rooms with very small student-to-teacher ratios and draft IEPs for all fo them.

The high cost of special ed (which does not benefit normal kids at all) is what keeps those costs up...if you took special ed kids out of the equation, I think you'd be shocked how low some of the spending on normals poor students is.

funded separately from the education of other children. So the education money available for "Normal" students isn't X minus Special Ed, it is X.

They were REALLY expensive. When they first came out it was just the very few who could afford to buy them. Eventually they dropped in price as more manufacturers started making them. Now you can get one for $30.

Currrently private schools are expensive, possibly for the same reason. There is less demand now because not too many people can afford to pay 65-70% of their property tax to the public system as well as another $10,000 on top of that. By implementing vouchers it is true that maybe the richer amongst us will be the only ones who can pay the whole ride but eventually, when entrepreneurial people see a market arising, more private schools will pop up, and then schools specializing in math or arts or special ed will appear, bringing the cost down through raised competition.

As for the kids left in the public school. Imagine you are currently a teacher in a public school. Because you have a powerful union that cares about you, not your pupils (I remember hearing a NYC union boss say once "I'll look out for the children when they start paying union dues.") you cant get fired if the kids grades are bad. You cant get fired for much of anything. And you have no competition. No fear. Why would you make any extra effort (besides the truly ideallistic)? There is no incentive.

As public schools start to see kids leaving their school for better opportunities, maybe, just maybe, the fear of actually losing their jobs might make them come up with better and creative ways of educating children.

If it doesnt work we could always go back to the crummy monopoly we have now.

I love the idea but have one concern.

Lets say Bob wants to send his kid to BrainyKid Elementary. The city gives him a voucher to do so but decides, because they are footing the bill, to add strings to it. Now they are telling BrainyKid what they have to teach, who they have to hire and what to serve for lunch.

This enventually kills the very reason BrainyKid was such a good school.

Vouchers will work if they are not suffocated by extensive regulations so how do you guard against that?

If it starts coming with major strings attached that jeaporize their mission, they will stop accepting the money.

having lost virtually all the court battles over vouchers that has been the tack taken by the public education mafia.

to address this problem:

As public schools start to see kids leaving their school for better opportunities, maybe, just maybe, the fear of actually losing their jobs might make them come up with better and creative ways of educating children.

that don't entail vouchers.  Like performance pay, for example.

That is what you want to happen.

I think that established private schools that already have an established history, reputation and following it would be easier to drop the extra money and go back to the way they were.

But, as I mentioned in another reply, hopefully as a result of vouchers, there will be more and more new private schools appearing. This is a good thing. The downside is if this new school is a venture of vouchers that are initially unburdened by strings, how easy will it be for them to deny the only source of income they have ever known due to bad regulations.

The regulation wont come quickly, it will be bit by bit and as we know, once someone has their hand in the till it is very hard to take it out.

I dont want to be a buzzkill to vouchers, I am definitely behind them but i think it is something to think about. When you tell your Senator you want vouchers, to remeber to tell them you want them no strings attached.

by saying that I like the idea of vouchers.  It seems like an earnest attempt to fix the problems that our public school system have.

But I have a good deal of misgivings about implementing vouchers as currently envisioned.

I don't think that it is reasonable to expect public schools to compete with private schools.  Public schools must accept any and all students.  Private schools don't.  That is a major disadvantage for public schools.  Public schools must contend with local political interference which private schools do not.  Lastly public schools must contend with a powerful teacher's union which private schools do not.

Also how do we implement voucher systems for the majority of our public school system that is paid for primarily through local property taxes?

Another problem is if we begin to treat our school taxes as optional why should childless taxpayers still be obligated to pay for public school?  How long before they push for an opt out?

I personally think that a better idea would be a public school voucher system.  If your local public school system isn't up to snuff then you can take your voucher and enroll in neighboring school systems.  This would be particuarly appealing in urban settings.  By doing this you are creating a level field of competition.  Public schools would be competing against other public schools.

Of course that would be just the start.  I would then tie school administrator pay to enrollment and performance.  You lose 20% of your student body in one year and you get a pay cut.  You raise student achievement test scores 20% and you get a pay increase.  

Lastly I would look to break the teacher's unions.  They have atrophied and are doing more damage than good for both the teachers and the students.

I am all for performance pay, but try getting that past the union. That still doesnt address bad teachers. It should be easier to fire them. That creates incentive, like any other job.

Vouchers would solve the issue of pay for performance too, indirectly. People often say teachers dont get paid enough. Not true, GOOD teachers dont get paid enough, bad ones get paid too much. By raising the bar and increasing supply of schools, good teachers will have more choice when looking for a job. Schools will also want to intice good teachers to their school. If you are a teacher how many different choices are there right now?

Another problem with instituting performance pay in the current system is who decides the criteria? With vouchers you have competition, which means the market, a.k.a. parents will drive who gets performance pay.

Hey, if there is a better idea besides vouchers, Im all for it. None have been offered though.

how do we apply your performance pay cut idea to Congress?

And I don't think there is an easy way to prevent it... but the market will still do it's job. There will be schools that continue to take the money with the string attached, but if they become substandard as a result, they will lose enrollment.

I would guess strings are inevitable... as they are with all federal money.

but if they become substandard as a result, they will lose enrollment.



good point

if stings get attached to one school they are attached to every school. so, if your school opts out, it is out completely from the voucher system.

Impossible to quantify.  

I don't think that it is reasonable to expect public schools to compete with private schools.  Public schools must accept any and all students.  Private schools don't.  That is a major disadvantage for public schools.  Public schools must contend with local political interference which private schools do not.  Lastly public schools must contend with a powerful teacher's union which private schools do not.

Actually public schools have chosen to accept all students. There is no constitutional barrier to public schools expelling troublemakers. They choose not to because their federal funding is based on a headcount not student quality. While it is possible that under a voucher system the public schools would serve mostly special needs students, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Private schools have just as much, if not more, interference as public schools. The source of the interference may be different - their board, the parents, the alumi/donors.

Most states don't have strong teachers unions. Those states which have closed shops, that is, membership is required as a condition of employment, are below:

Alaska       

California       

Connecticut       

Delaware   

Hawaii       

Illinois   

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

New Jersey

New York

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Washington

Wisconsin

are two different things.

If you don't think the teachers union is a problem I commend you.  Where I live it is a prolem.  Seems like it is a problem in almost every non-southern populous state as well.

I guess that we will have to agree to disagree on private and public schools not playing on the same playing field.

accepting can be a problem if there is the will to expell. As I said, we could very well see the public school system devoted to serving only the hardest to serve but I think that would be a quantum improvement over the present situation in which many, perhaps most, children are prevented from learning due to the policy of accepting and keeping all comers.

The plural of anecdote is not evidence. Teachers unions might very well be a problem where you live but most states do not have a union shop.

I have no idea what you are talking about in terms of playing on the same field. They don't and I never claimed they did. I just think you maximize the difficulties of public schools while minimizing the incompetence and sheer gutlessness of those running the show there. Private schools have problems but a lot of their problems - student behavior, facilities maintenance, curriculum - are mitigated because ultimately they serve a customer and the customers can vote with their feet.

But what happens to the most diffuclt to teach?  One of the problems that public schools face is that not having a High School diploma has such a stigma today that public schools are unwilling to expel students for anything except for really egregious behavior.

By creating a voucher system to siphon public money to private schools you are doing nothing more than enabling the more capable students to leave while ensuring damnation to the less capable students.

Look at the New York School system.  It has some of the best and worst schools in the country.  Truly gifted students get to go to Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, or Stuyvesant.  Poor students get to go to terrible schools that no one cares about.

Basically you are creating more Bronx Science schools, which is great, but leaving the least capable completely unequipped to advance.

Do you really want our primary school systems to mirror our university system in which the gifted go to exceptional school and the ungifted are left out?

part comes to play

But what happens to the most diffuclt to teach?  One of the problems that public schools face is that not having a High School diploma has such a stigma today that public schools are unwilling to expel students for anything except for really egregious behavior.

If public schools aren't willing to take the step back from being daycare centers nothing else matters. I don't see why the public school system should concern itself with the "stigma" attached to a disruptive student and not concern itself with 25+/- other students whose education suffers because of the one student.

In short, I don't care what happens to that student, I care what happens to the others. That isn't my concern it is something for his parents to ponder on.

By creating a voucher system to siphon public money to private schools you are doing nothing more than enabling the more capable students to leave while ensuring damnation to the less capable students.

It doesn't siphon off just money, it siphons off the students, too. So with each decrement in cash there is also a decrement in the level of effort the schools need to expend.

I don't know what would be left in the public schools but if step 1 is followed it certainly would not be "damnation." Again, I'm more concerned about the "damnation" of the capable students under the current system and I don't see how the "less capable" are any worse off.

Poor students get to go to terrible schools that no one cares about.

Which ironically undercuts your previous paragraph and its objections about vouchers. If we already have voucherless school systems with terrible schools that no one cares about it is difficult to visualize how that gets worse with vouchers.

Basically you are creating more Bronx Science schools, which is great, but leaving the least capable completely unequipped to advance.

Not in the least. I don't see vouchers as a boon for magnet schools but only as a way to provide safe haven for the middle 50%. There are a finite number of students who can benefit from a Bronx Science school but a great number who can benefit from a safe and orderly learning environment.

Do you really want our primary school systems to mirror our university system in which the gifted go to exceptional school and the ungifted are left out?

We already have it. See your NYC example, for instance. I'd rather see it parallel the old California system of top-tier UofC schools, middle-tier CalState schools, and lower tier community colleges. Where the public schools fit would be dependent on what they did to reform themselves.

The valedictorian of the class of 2003 from Fortier High School in New Orleans finally passed her high school exit exam. On the seventh try.

The dropout rates in these schools are astronomical. We've gotta start giving some of these kids a chance. Some is a distinct improvement on none.

Many of the teachers and administrators in these substandard schools are products of the same system. Keeping the status quo out of "fairness" is unfair to all.

So what's the solution, flyerhawk? Throwing money at the problem has already been tried in Washington, D.C. and it hasn't worked worth a darn. Traditionally, teachers' unions fight attempted reforms, especially ones that take away the union shop, privatize the schools, or hold teachers accountable.

Vouchers are a secret weapon to destroy affirmative action. See, by promoting vouchers in the inner city, you will create a class of minority students who receive a decent education, and thus are more likely to have successful careers and make more money. Society will eventually realize that "hey, black people are actually smart enough to succeed in America without affirmative action".  That will be the death knell for the "soft bigotry of low expectations", simultaneously crushing affirmative action and robbing Democrats of their stranglehold on the poor black demographic.

When you look at vouchers from a generational view, it becomes painfully obvious why Democrats are so vehemently opposed to them. It's not about teachers, it's about keeping a group of Americans uneducated and poor. Sen. Byrd must be proud.

Teacher's unions can't be the whole problem--they are relatively weak in the South, and certainly people are moving to Arkansas for our fine quality public schools.

Actually, one lobby group that is strong is school administrators. One group that might be even worse than teacher's unions.

While some of the concerns here are the DC voucher program are reasonable, this is still a relatively small scale venture. It's an experiment. Let's see if it works.

As one of those Democrats who are opposed to vouchers that you just insulted, I'm not going to take offense at your assertion.  I will suggest that it's patently false in the vast majority of cases.  

People who are both thoughtful and reasonable can disagree on this issue, but I'd say that the impetus for the majority of folks opposing vouchers has more to do with attachment to the idea that public education is a right that accompanies citizenship coupled with concern for students not in a position to take advantage of these programs.

I live in rural upstate NY and our consolidated school district is it for schooling unless you have the finances and the time to drive your child 20-30 minutes twice a day to the larger areas.  While my family is fortunate enough to have options, we are still trying to work within the district to make positive changes.

Teachers' unions have tied the district's hands.  They have engineered a small student/teacher ratio - on average in the elementary school 17:1.  A couple of classes have 21 students and the teachers are claiming they can't handle it.  In a rural (ie. poor to middle class) area, this poses a real financial hardship.

During last year's budget season, I did a lot of homework.  My district spends $9400 per student.  It jumps to $17,000 for special ed students.  We have 900 students in the entire district, 180 of them have special needs.  I believe that fits the average.

I am completely in favor of vouchers and charter schools.  Competition is essential to reinvigorating the public schools.  I volunteer all the time in my son's school and offer my services in any way possible.  I have found that the teachers most confident in their skills and their love of the job are the most welcoming of help in and out of the classroom.  Anything to stretch their time further.  I have also discovered that make suggestions that tread on anyone's turf in terms of extra-curricular learning and it gets knocked down in a hurry.  Heaven forbid you ask anyone but the most dedicated teacher to go the extra mile.  They are the worst clock-watchers I have ever witnessed.

Performance pay would be great, but it's not enough here in NY.  The unions have to have their legs cut out from under them for real change.  

Interestingly, NY state has 100 applications available for charter schools throughout the state and the teachers' union in NY recently applied for two of them.  Perhaps there is hope after all.

If public schools aren't willing to take the step back from being daycare centers nothing else matters. I don't see why the public school system should concern itself with the "stigma" attached to a disruptive student and not concern itself with 25+/- other students whose education suffers because of the one student.

I admit to not being extremely well-versed in policies governing these sorts of things except WRT special education students, but I find it hard to believe that mere stigma is keeping the most disruptive students from being expelled from these inner-city schools.  My good friend has been teaching at the "worst" high school in Minneapolis for ten years.  He tells me that they have to accept almost all of the students kicked out of other schools in the city, but that they have an extraordinarily hard time expelling anyone.  Perhaps the district has decided that it's in their interest to have one school serve as a dumping ground, that they're willing to sacrifice one school to serve the others?  

I'm not sure.  But given the gymnastics undertaken by administrators in an attempt to get low-performing students off of their rolls before high-stakes testing, I don't think they can just get rid of students for anything short of a major weapons violation.  It has always been my rather strong impression that it's more of a matter of "can't" than "won't" when it comes to expulsions.  I believe that it's related to mandatory schooling.  You can't say that children legally must be in school until their 16th or 18th birthdays and then not have a school that will take them.

Just to address one of your other points:  the way that it's assumed vouchers will make things worse for the kids left behind in the under-performing public schools is that when the people who can leave do, the ones who stay will exclusively be the ones who were unable to go anywhere else.  With all the "squeaky wheels" gone, there won't be anyone left to demand that the schools improve.  So they won't.  This is no child's fault, but they will be penalized.  Making underperforming schools function isn't an impossibility--that's the goal I need to be fighting for.  Of course I don't expect this to be persuasive to you, and I certainly understand and respect your position on this.  I just wanted to explain where I'm coming from.

What about the kids who had to attend those school while they were failing? You do not think they would suffer the consequences of that. Or is that just collateral damage.

Comparing children to electronics is your argument?

How come the inner city black communities overwhelming support voucher programs? Is it because "they just don't know any better?"

Face it, this is an area where the sheet is pulled back on rank Dem elitism.

I guess you saw right through me.

the way that it's assumed vouchers will make things worse for the kids left behind in the under-performing public schools is that when the people who can leave do, the ones who stay will exclusively be the ones who were unable to go anywhere else.  With all the "squeaky wheels" gone, there won't be anyone left to demand that the schools improve.

There will be plenty of people left to demand that the schools improve, mainly the administrators and teachers who stand to lose their jobs if too many parents decide that the public school isn't good enough for their children.

Without vouchers, the monopoly education industry offers practically guaranteed lifetime employment for any teacher who doesn't rock the boat.

Take the case of the teacher that the rest of the staff all know is incompetent. Currently the other teachers just bite their lips, because any teacher who tries to protect the children by pressing the administrators to fire the teacher is creating headaches for the principal, and is branded a traitor by the local union boss. The teacher who complained about the incompetent teacher is more likely to get fired.

Giving parents the choice of vouchers changes the incentive equation for administrators and competent teachers. If the incompetent teachers remain, some significant number of parents will take their to other schools, and with a smaller student body some teachers and administrators will be laid off. To avoid losing their jobs, both the competent teachers and administrators will have a powerful incentive to take the heat of forcing incompetent teachers to find a different occupation.

Rachel,

good post.

(I was going to quote several things you wrote, but then realized that I was quoting the entire post.  So, instead, I will again just reiterate:  good post.)

then why are private schools so expensive?

If we (you, me, all of us) made a decision to pay public school teachers more, would that not (according to free-market theory) draw the best teachers into the public schools?

I don't view the voucher debate as a choice between doing something or nothing.  Things aren't working now.  The debate needs to be about doing something or doing something else.  The reason that I'm opposed to vouchers in a broad sense is that I think adopting vouchers on a large scale is likely to simultaneously make us less likely to address the problems currently plaguing public education and make things even worse for the kids who are left in those schools.  

Since you're opposed to vouchers (the "something"), what is the "something else" that you propose be done that will change the current system enough to turn failure into success?

A great many of them are run for less than the public schools. Not every private school is an elite school in NYC or DC with a waiting list of who's who parents. Those are a tiny minority.

If we (you, me, all of us) made a decision to pay public school teachers more, would that not (according to free-market theory) draw the best teachers into the public schools?

That might work after you eliminate the market-distorting teachers' unions which are a blight on public schools.  

Until then, no.

Teachers choose to teach in private schools for less money than public all the time. Some schools are not particularly safe. Some schools have lousy administrators. Some schools just give off a bad vibe.

There's a whole lot more to choosing a job (ANY job) than looking at the salary.

then rather than sending a small minority of students to an extremely excellent school, wouldn't it make more sense (as a society) to make sure that every student has access to a good school?

Unless we desire a society in which the rich get an excellent education and the poor remain uneducated, the goal should be (at minimum) a good education for everyone.

is that you get what you pay for.  This very idealist notion of competition driving out the bad and sustainting the good means that, if you can pay for it, you get a good education; if you can't, sorry, you're out of luck.

If we truly believe in equality, then our goal must be to ensure that every student receives a good education, and thus an equal opportunity in life.

If you believe that teachers are incompetent, lobby for higher standards for teachers and higher pay for better teachers -- I have absolutely no problem with that (provided you're willing to pay for the teachers' salaries).

But to suggest that some kids should be blessed with a higher education and the rest, well, they'll just serve as a negative example . . . that seems immoral to me.

 not "uniform failure" . . .

We were told on several occasions, "if parents like you leave, how will the system ever get better." Short answer, I don't care it isn't my problem.

This is the fundamental/essential/underlying problem with the system.  Why are you solely concerned with your own children, but seemingly couldn't care less about the other children -- your neighbors, the kids next door or across the street or in another district?  Does that represent American values?

Is that really how you feel?  That all that matters is whether or not my kid gets an education, and who cares about the kid down the street?

Actually public schools have chosen to accept all students. There is no constitutional barrier to public schools expelling troublemakers. They choose not to because their federal funding is based on a headcount not student quality. While it is possible that under a voucher system the public schools would serve mostly special needs students, I don't see that as a bad thing.

This might be leading into a discussion about "strict constructionism" . . . but there is no explicit Constitutional mandate for public shcools at all.

If you believe that some kids should simply be expelled and not receive an education, fine.  But then I don't want to hear any talk about "equality, freedom, democracy, liberty, equal rights," etc.  You must instead openly argue for a caste-system, or aristorcracy, or oligarchy (whatever you want to call it).

Furthermore, I don't want to hear any complaints about gang violence, or crime in general -- unless you can make a sound argument that there is no connection between lack of education/opportunity and crime.

Private school seems costly because you see the price tag. With only some modest tax advantages, private school parents must pay the whole freight of their schools' expenses. Meanwhile every homeowner, every income earner, every renter, every taxpayer in your community pays toward your public schools; more and more places are topping the $10K per pupil range. If the rich had to pay taxes to fund roads for everyone else but, to avoid potholes, had to pay for their own private road system, how long would the situation hold? We would quickly see a taxpayers' rebellion and fewer potholes in public streets.

My rep in the VA House of Delegates is trying to arrange it so that 65% or more of public school budgets get spent in the classroom. What that means is that right now it is not. Education majors at my old university were politically-attuned enough; but they have layers and layers above them, isolating the next layer from actual educating. In a letter from my old PA state rep, she compared the ~$90K salary at her level (to which salaries of some judges and other public officials are tied) unfavorably with those of many area schoolteachers. (Her point was you need to attract good people to government, and that there is a difference between making a sacrifice and limiting public service to the independently wealthy.)

Teachers start low but get increases atypical of the private sector, and with regularity not seen by other workers during financial downturns. But the bosses are paid even more, and more importantly number far too many. I remember a school with two counselors (A-L, M-Z), a nurse, a pricipal, his vice, and their secretary, three lunch ladies, the equivalent of four bus drivers (considering sharing with other schools), and over forty teachers. Low pay in the cafeteria and behind the wheel, and a few teachers with advanced degrees, probably meant that teachers made up 75% of the payroll costs as well as the body count, or 3:1 tooth to tail. Today Virginia is trying to legislate just to get to 2:1. Run public schools like private ones, like businesses, and money will be less of an issue, competence will be the real test and slackers will be shaken out.

the monopoly education industry offers practically guaranteed lifetime employment for any teacher who doesn't rock the boat

Someone on this thread said that good teachers aren't paid enough and bad teachers are paid too much.  I couldn't agree more.  It drives me just mad to see terrible teachers.  They spend time with kids that can't be gotten back--bad teachers do a lot of damage.  Arguably, they do the most damage to kids that vouchers are supposed to save because those kids tend to come to school relatively behind and they also tend to have a higher proportion of bad teachers.

I think it's overkill to move to vouchers solely to address this problem, however.  There are less intrusive ways to do that.  One thing about teachers unions: while I think that a lot about the way teachers get paid, get job assignments, get tenure, etc. is really wack, I do think that it's important to have some sort of mechanism in place to prevent them from being unilaterally fired with no recourse.  For all the talk of terrible teachers (and I've seen some doozies) there are some terrible administrators out there too.

The overarching problem you bring up--that it's so hard to get rid of bad teachers--is one I'm in total agreement with.  That doesn't serve the kids at all.

education for all is a song without end,you will hear it to the day you die.  I hope by then you will begin to question why you have heard it for so long. Your last sentence anout a better education for all raises two points; as I read it it is a tacit assumption that private education is or will be better than public, the others being left behind scenario.  The 2nd point about money,almost a god like faith is expressed in $ expenditure and considering where school funding has gone over the years this faith is decidely misplaced.  As to morality; please consider the morality of people who will go to the mat to prevent parents from choosing among options for their own children.  Thanks for your response.

Some businesses are easy enough to get into that there are a lot of scam artists. But the amount of funding and work needed to put a private school together and make it profitable would ensure that almost every school was at least decent. And schools have to build up their student body (and thus profits) slowly. They start with a few students, prove themselves, get a few more, etc. The way the business model works makes it very difficult to just set up shop for a year and scam a lot of people...and if they did you can bet the parents would go after them hard in court. It is just not a business that would attract sleazy types.

Besdies, it is hard to imagine any private school being worse than some of the public inner city schools. I mean, if any private school was like that do you think they would get even one student enrolled?

No system is perfect. Don't let the lack of a perfect system prevent us from much to a much MUCH better system

to get back to you; I'm having a really busy day.  But it's an important question you ask and I do want to at least begin to address it.

The single most important variable impacting student achievement that falls within the purview of the educational system as it stands is teaching.  When the teacher is exceptional, kids in even the lowest-performing school can make gains in a single school year far beyond the typical.

The problem, as I see it, is that the system set up as it is now does nothing to encourage exceptional teaching--so when it happens we are usually dealing with someone who views teaching, particularly in  low-performing schools, almost always with low SES students, as a calling.  Proportionally, there aren't a lot of these guys, and the system doesn't reward them for it.

Great teachers work more hours than do poor or average ones, but they aren't rewarded for it.  They usually work harder, and by definition they do a better job.  But the way for a teacher to increase his paycheck is by staying in one district over the years and taking graduate classes.  This may or may not result in better outcomes for his students, but the available data pretty much tell us that the impact isn't large.

I believe it could have a dramatic impact upon student achievement if we implemented a system that rewarded teachers for producing higher than average gains with their classes.  I don't believe that teachers should be paid strictly by a matrix--people will do what gets reinforced, so the way things are currently we shouldn't be surprised that what our system has produced is a bunch of teachers staying in one district and taking graduate classes (those who don't drop out in the first five years, which I recall is about half).

Teaching in inner-city schools is a tougher job and it should pay more.  If we had exceptional teachers competing to be there, rather than a few people who feel a calling surrounded by many others who weren't skilled enough to get an easier job and who are difficult to dismiss, I think we would see things turn around very quickly for these kids.  Additionally, I think it would encourage talented, highly motivated people to consider teaching as a career whereas now there's this perception that teaching is a middle-of-the-road sort of job that requires exceptional self-sacrifice to make a real impact.

I have quite a lot of other thoughts about this, though I've probably already written more than you're interested in reading, so I'll stop here.  But fundamental to my concept of "The Way Things Ought To Be" in education is the idea that it isn't only ethical but that it's in our country's best interests to do what it takes to produce a system that takes seriously the charge of a high-quality education all of our students, not just the ones lucky enough to have an adult willing and able to fight for them.

that we are probably in agreement on more than we disagree.

I think the crux of the argument comes down to a philosphical question, should we fund an education for every child or should we fund a system that provides an education for every child.

If you believe, as I do, that if society has any responsiblity here at all it is in providing each child with an opportunity to receive an education then you'd come down on the side of a voucher system.

In theory a system of publicly funded schools that are all things to all people is great. I just think our experience tells us that public schools, like any other enterprise, have core competencies they need to develop and extraneous functions they need to outsource and they haven't done that.

objectively, a failing school system is run by people who rose to the top in a failing system. Why should we expect them to change the rules and environment that allowed them to succeed?

Just one thing I'd like to touch on.

If you believe, as I do, that if society has any responsiblity here at all it is in providing each child with an opportunity to receive an education then you'd come down on the side of a voucher system.

I don't see vouchers providing each child with an opportunity to receive an education--unless we're saying that what goes on in the public schools in these worst districts is actually education.  There are disabled kids whose educations cost a lot--no private school would be obligated to accept them even if they had a voucher.  There are lots of families too poor to make up the difference between the voucher and the tuition at the only private schools available.  And especially important to me, there are many many kids who don't have responsible adults in their lives both willing and able to take advantage of a system like this.  I cannot support a system that would abandon them.  I just can't do it.

We don't have children yet, but for me the face of this voucher debate is that of a former student of mine who I'll call Darryl.  I used to teach in a middle school in the projects in New Orleans (that actually was one of the feeder schools to Fortier, mentioned by another commenter in this thread because the valedictorian finally passed her exit exam on the seventh(?) try).  That school seems to me like a reasonable picture of what the kids left behind in the public schools after vouchers would be facing, because every parent in that neighborhood who was able to get their kid out of that school did it somehow--and what was left over wasn't pretty.  Darryl was angry, and difficult, and smart.  His dad was not there and his mother was an addict so she wasn't really there either.  This was not his fault.  

He took care of several younger siblings and he loved his older brother who provided for him by dealing.  He was sitting on the front steps with his brother when some men came by and shot his brother in the head.  This was not his fault.  He got brains on his shirt and he wrote about it in his journal.

I worked my butt off with this kid because for some reason angry kids really speak to me.  He did okay, too--it was definitely a struggle to keep him in line (a struggle I sometimes lost)--but he was struggling, too, to try to keep everything in his life together.  He lived in a crazy house and went to a crazy school.  And he studied language arts in my classroom that may have been marginally less crazy than average.  

Because he worked really hard, and because he had a teacher who tried to keep him in line, he ended up graduating the 8th grade (with only 50% of his classmates) and going to Fortier High.  Where is he now?  (I don't even know that he freaking made it out of New Orleans to be honest and now I'm getting a little worked up...)  I don't know, but he's 18, wherever he is.  The odds are obviously extremely low that he finished with his diploma, but channeled properly, he was a hard worker, so I don't know.  Not that that diploma from Fortier means much.

But what if his middle school had been a good (not even a great) one?  What if Fortier weren't such a cesspool?  Like Breanna's opportunity, this could have made all the difference in the world for him.  I have got to believe that I live in a country where people believe that this kid, who has lived through things that would have made me give up, deserves a chance to acquire the tools to make a life for himself.  I have got to believe that we can't just look at this kid and say, "Not my problem."

(btw--as I look back over this long post, I'm realizing that even though there are a few other comments in this thread that I wanted to address, I should probably step back now.  I do respect where you're coming from and I appreciate the conversation.)

Thanks for the response.

I don't think I disagree with anything you've said, but as a practical matter the unions and entrenched bureaucracies are a huge barrier to the idea of rewarding good teachers and dismissing the bad ones -- as I said to ungezeifer in #63, the "free market" approach can't work when you have forces in place which prevent free market dynamics from effecting change.

Private schools respond to the sort of free market incentives being advocated, they just have a high cost of entry for the "buyers" to enter the market.  Vouchers eliminate (or at least mitigate) that high barrier to entry, giving parents (and more to the point, their kids) access to schools that do make efforts to attract and reward the best teachers, and do shun the bad ones.

If public schools start behaving like the private ones -- having administrators and teachers more focused on and interested in what's best for the students rather than what's best for their union or their own personal power base -- then I'll agree that vouchers aren't be needed.  

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see that kind of massive upheaval happen in public schools until vouchers (or some other external force) threatens their viability.

I cannot support a system that would abandon them.  I just can't do it.

We already have that system, it's called public schools.

good point.

I have heard the argument a few times here that, when all other arguments fail, we still cant do vouchers because special ed children will fall through the cracks because of the expense in dealing with their situation.

I think this is a non-issue depending on the way the voucher system is set up.

If I am to understand correctly, special ed kids are currently in public schools. They are also currently more expensive to educate. If this is a known fact then it would stand to reason we know what the number is. If you just gave a voucher for that larger amount to the special ed kids, it is a wash since we are paying that now already.

Then you can send your special ed child to a school that best caters to them, and that may very well be a public school that has retooled and focused on special ed needs.

I'm from North Dakota, and I feel like I got a decent education -- despite the fact that N.D. teachers are close to last (maybe they are actually last) in pay scale in the country.  So it may be true that money isn't everything when it comes to education.

However, who would deny that rich kids get a better education, regardless of whether or not they deserve it (have earned it?  Why are Harvard, Yale, Princeton so expensive?

That is the private school model.  The "free market" model.

"

education for all is a song without end

"

What, exactly, are you saying?  That not everyone can get a decent education, so why bother?  Just give a few kids some money, and forget the rest?  I don't understand.

Finally, the point that is so often missed:  choice is limited by means.  Technically, every family in the country has the "choice" of whether to send their kids to the local public school, or to a fancy private school.  This choice is meaningless (nonexistant) if they can't pay for it; that's obvious.

The point is, everyone should get the best education that we can provide.  I wish we could all at least agree on this much . . .

(and helps in figuring).

"

Meanwhile every homeowner, every income earner, every renter, every taxpayer in your community pays toward your public schools

"

Is that a bad thing?

I think we have agreed (paragraph 2) that teachers should be paid more.  Is that what you were arguing?

Your last paragraph simply baffles me.  Could you explain it better?  I think having most of the "body count" (alive, I trust) and salary belong to teachers is exactly what we want.  Or are you actually arguing that teachers are overpaid?  Confused . . .

Last paragraph:  Run public schools like private ones, and you could easily have teachers making minimum wage.  Alternately, only those who could pay would get an education.  Neither alternative is terribly attractive.

No, only the rich would get an education. All others would be sent to the mines. It's what Republicans long for.

... compare price. Should educating children be a community responsibility? Well, before universal "free" education, it wasn't just the rich who went to school, but it wasn't every family that could afford it for all of their children, so the answer is probably yes.

But take the case of government cheese. The cheese is not bad in itself; the process reaks, however. Diary farmers overproduce and poor families get bland, hard-to-prepare food with no variety. Take the money from the farmers (they'll do fine in an open market; you can't import fresh milk from China all that efficiently) and give it to the poor families to use in the market to buy sliced Provolone. Or apples, or oranges, or something else fitting. But in any case do not open a government food shop.

Similarly government schools need not be the default choice; yet you base your pricing estimation on comparing private schools where, with the possible exception of bussing and some tax advantages, the consumer (parents of pupils) must bear all of the cost. The price tag may be no less than the community pays for each child in public school. So, experiment and see who can do better with the funds.

We agree that a greater percentage of the money should go to teachers and books rather than redundant layers of administration. A competitive environment is the best way to achieve this goal; monopolies breed waste.

From my comment earlier today:

Should educating children be a community responsibility? Well, before universal "free" education, it wasn't just the rich who went to school, but it wasn't every family that could afford it for all of their children, so the answer is probably yes.

But in paying for a public good, it is not necessary that government become (or remain) a monopoly provider. Notice I seem to praise food stamps because they send people into the market, both physically and figuratively.