Explain to me what is wrong with school vouchers as an idea

Great Debates
1

First, I saw the John Oliver segment. I am well aware that sloppily regulated private schools are no better than public schools and often much worse. However, that’s a failure of the state to properly regulate those schools or force them to be truthful in their
advertising and to disclose properly all relevant data.

The voucher idea seems like a good one. So do healthcare vouchers.

Basically, here’s the problem. Take a middle class family with 2 incomes and they are not in the top 1%. Let’s suppose the local public schools are bad. As individuals, going to PTA meetings or school board meetings will accomplish fuck all. Nothing. The bad public schools will still be bad. Johnny still goes to a bad school and is being bullied or not learning at an appropriate pace.

Voting with money has real power. If you pay $10k a year for Johnny to go to the most elite private school in the city, as soon as your check clears and a new term begins, Johnny is getting a proper education.

The issue is, you’re paying in taxes thousands of dollars a year that you don’t have to apply to that $10k a year payment, and as a middle class family, you don’t have enough after taxes to really afford it.

Vouchers solve that problem. The public school system is penalized for being bad, and the money they would have been given to educate Johnny goes to the private school. The middle class family only has to make up the difference, which might just be a couple thousand bucks a year.

This argument I will just copy and paste for universal healthcare. Exactly the same issue could arise if you wanted coverage for something the national plan doesn’t cover well, but you are out the taxes you pay to that plan, so after taxes, you cannot afford an elite private plan. So you should be able to apply a voucher for the amount the national plan would have spent covering you, such that you only need to pay the difference.

What is wrong with this idea?

2

My biggest issue with school vouchers is that they do nothing to address the core problem, which is a terrible way to solve something. The problem: public schools need to be fixed. Any solution that does not do this will make the problem worse, and that’s bad. School vouchers run from a problem, not solve it.

3

And a system that encourages people, over time, to take their kids out of public schools hastens the day that public schools will be seen as schools of “last resort”. Not a good thing for social cohesion.

4

If the state demands, and controls, that private schools meet the same standard as public schools, then what’s the difference? Schools cost a lot of money: qualified teachers, building repairs, heating costs, school books. Either the state (= all taxpayers) pays this money, and all children can go to this school (because the rules say that each class can not contain more than 28 children for one teacher, so if more children come, more teachers are hired).
Private schools, meanwhile, spread the same amount of basic costs over a smaller number of people: the parents who send their kids there. (Whether the parents pay out of their own pocket or through vouchers comes after the calculation of how high the amount per pupil = parents paying is.

So in one case you have costs of X 100 000 $ per pupil per year (Total cost of this school divided by pupils attending), spread out over all taxpayers = number Y: public school.
Or you have the same amount at least (since private schools advertise with being better, they should spend more money on more teachers, better equipment etc.), spread out over only the number of pupils attending: number Z which is much smaller than Y.

So why should a few people pay more instead of spreading it out? The whole idea of funding infrastructure through the state is that a large sum is manageable spread out over hundred thousands of taxpayers, instead of thousands of one group that is directly affected.

Vouchers just mean that first, a high cost is calculated, but the parents don’t get upset, they pass the cost on to the taxpayer.
And the taxpayer pays twice: for the public schools, which continue to exist, and for the private schools through vouchers.

If private schools had a good recpie for better education, (not just fudging results by exlcuding pupils with bad grades and similar tricks), then it would be easier and cheaper for the state to adopt that system for all public schools and pay only once, instead of paying for two seperate systems.

Not that it’s a secret what’s necessary for public schools to be better, and it starts with “spending more money on them” (not as only step, but as basis for all other steps, like more teachers, more equipment, better curriculums instead of being fixated on one test; stop cutting failing schools off from funds etc.)
But vouchers are the opposite of giving public schools more money: it means draining students with good grades plus the money and possible activism of their parents from public schools into private schools.
With the pupils who are doing bad - and therefore need more help! - left behind, and less money available (because money going to the vouchers can’t be spent on public schools), the public schools will fall even further behind.

I really don’t see where there is a positive solution there at all.

5

That assumes that “social cohesion” can only occur in public schools. Why is that?

Why wouldn’t a system that levels the playing field so that poor people have similar access to private schools as more well-off people aid in “social cohesion”?

6

If the problem is “the public schools here are bad,” then how is “remove money and other resources and committed, involved parents” a solution? What does this do to fix the public schools?

If the solution is to remove ALL of the kids from the public schools into some new system, then all you’ve accomplished is to replace one school system with another, and vouchers aren’t likely the best or most efficient way to do that. If you’re not going to remove all of the kids from this “bad” system, then, who gets to escape and who gets left behind? It’s not just a matter of distributing the vouchers in a fair manner, either–for example, if the choice is between walking or taking the bus to your local public school or your parents being responsible for taking you to some distant voucher school, then the kids whose parents don’t have cars or who have to be at work themselves early in the morning or have other transportation issues can’t really take advantage. You end up with a two-tier system, and that perpetuates its own set of problems.

7

Depends on the city, I’m sure, but one of my sisters teaches at a private school, and I can tell you that $10K wouldn’t even pay for a semester where she teaches.

8

Many voucher programs don’t level the playing field. Vouchers generally don’t cover the entire cost of a decent private school. So they’re a subsidy for middle-class or wealthy parents who can, for example, pay half the tuition of sending their child to a private school but don’t help poor parents who can’t afford the first half.

You can argue the pros and cons of social assistance programs. But it seems to me that social assistance should be needs tested. Vouchers are essentially anti-needs tested.

9

I don’t want my tax money going to support religious schools. Vouchers that can be freely used at the School of the Giant Hellfire Resurrection where a certain religious doctrine is promoted seem like a fundamentally un-American idea, and should be prohibited as unconstitutional.

10

Social cohesion isn’t dependent on public schools; it’s dependent on everybody having similar experiences that meld them together as a group. These people over here going to an entirely separate network of schools from those people over there, with little or no mixing between the groups, doesn’t give you much in the way of shared experiences.

What sort of system, other than a replacement public system, would make sure that poor people really do have similar access to these schools? Vouchers, by themselves, don’t, because of issues such as transportation barriers. Private schools, for example, ordinarily have no requirement to participate in the free/reduced-price school lunch program, which can make a big difference in whether or not kids from poor families can participate.

11

Because there is already an existing problem with ghettoes, that is, seperation along money (and therefore, often ethnic) lines in places where people live? What other places can young people meet people from very different other backgrounds and get to know them? Sport clubs cost money, which poor people don’t have (also, often requires the oppportunity to drive across town).
School is the easiest way - if children are required to attend school - to get a basic level of education in facts as well as some basic social competence to all children, no matter their family backgrounds. (Provided that the school and teachers are interested in that, instead of ignoring bullies)

Because so far private schools in the US with the voucher system don’t level the playing field. They don’t have a better system to raise students who perform badly to do better; they select only students who have already good grades, so they can boast about how good their test scores are. (and in several cases, it turned out that the teachers in private schools were less qualified, since the state didn’t require the same qualifications, or control if regulations were met, as for public schools; and hiring less-qualified teachers of course means lower wage, so more profit for the people running the private school.

Look up a bit at the history and real reasons behind the “christian” schools in the South, which started after de-segregation. Christian was a cover for “white” schools, not by explicitly saying so, just rigging everything so that black kids wouldn’t get in.

It starts with the parents needing to be involved enough, self-confident enough to believe they can change anything about their circumstances, and informed enough, to search for a private school and apply with their kid there, before passing the hurdle of being accepted, without knowing the parameters of acceptance (since private schools aren’t required to make their reasoning public. They just don’t accept this child; public schools must accept almost all children, except for those with serious physical handicaps or extreme behaviour problems, which may need a special environment.)
A middle-class- family knows both the importance of education, and believes they can change the lives of their kids for the better.
Poor parents are often overworked and stressed, and have decades of experience of not getting anywhere no matter how hard they try.

So a voucher system doesn’t help against existing inequalities, as much as improving public schools for all children would.

12

Another problem is that currently parents who send their kids to private school right now are overwhelming rich. Not all of them are, of course, but the vast, vast majority of them are. A school voucher program winds up being a huge tax break for the rich, and it’s paid for by raiding the funding of public schools. Screwing over poor people’s children to line the pockets of rich parents is hardly fair.

13

It’s simple. The management of public schools are only loosely accountable to the State. When I say “bad”, maybe I meant “suboptimal”. Maybe parents would rather their kid went to a high school that meets all the graduation requirements in the first 2 years and the second 2 years are spent on either vocational training or taking college courses from a nearby affiliated community college. That is totally doable, by the way. The high school curriculum for graduation in most states is not going to take a smart or even average student 4 years. Maybe they would rather 0 dollars is wasted on athletics, since that only benefits students who have exceptionally rare talents in sports. Most students are going to benefit from training that will let them either get a job right away, or will let them be half done with college so they can get a job soon. Sports do fuck all, except as a college application padder and a source of scholarships for under 1% of the student body.

Maybe they’d rather the school lunches be a grade above that fed to prison inmates. Maybe they want an anti-bullying policy that is more than lip service. Maybe they want reasonable policies towards student conduct that explicitly mean the school does not care about things students do off campus, outside of school hours.

And so on and so forth. Since not all parents, much less voters, can even agree on what I outlined - you were really hearing my own rough beliefs on the matter - a city could have several private schools and parents could choose.

As for it being a “two tier system” : yeah. That’s true. This is why conservatives are for this kind of thing more than some social justice liberals. If the parents don’t have “real jobs” making a near 6 figure or above combined income, they aren’t going to be able to afford to send their kids across the city to a nicer school, even if the voucher system makes it more affordable. That’s reality, and that’s how the rest of America works. If you aren’t in that economic class where you make about 70k a year or more, you are not treated well in America and I’m not expecting this voucher proposal to change that.

14

Schools vouchers is like dismantling the Titannic to build a smaller ship for some passengers to sail away on while leaving the rest on a ship that’s sinking even faster.

15

Yeah, 10k gets you into a private school that is probably a bit better than a good public school, but not by much.

This is also assuming that your kids grades and other vital statistics are good enough for them to accept.

But yeah, vouchers are pretty much a tax break for the rich, allowing them to remove the tax dollars that would have gone to the public school, and instead, use that to subsidize their tuition at a private school.

If you can’t afford a private school, the vouchers won’t change that. If your kid has special needs or is otherwise struggling with school, vouchers won’t help that.

However, what vouchers will do is to remove money from the public school system, so if you cannot afford to go to a private school, then instead you are going to one that is being “penalized” as the OP put is, for not doing as well as a private school with a bigger per pupil budget, active parents, and the ability to choose only the best students.

This will be very good for wealthy kids, an improvement for above average students with middle class parents, okay for average kids with middle class parents, and a massive blow to everyone else.

16

(post shortened)

Currently, there are people who believe that there is no incentive for public schools to improve. Public schools will get tax dollars regardless of how you, the taxpaying public, think they are performing. A voucher system could/should create real competition. Parents would sent their children to the school that best prepares their children for their future endeavors. Your choice, not the public school teachers unions.

17

This a hundred times over.

Not that it’s really relevant but as someone who was educated k-12 in a private (catholic) school system, it was terrible and I’d have been far better off in the public school system with access to a larger range of classes, extracurriculars and academic opportunities.

18

But there is no reason those schools have to be public schools. In fact, given our segregated society, you’ll almost certainly get more “social cohesion” if more kids don’t go to their neighborhood schools.

I don’t see what any of that has to do with “social cohesion”. Can you clarify? Or, if you’re making a different argument, that’s fine. But let’s not assume that addresses the issue raised earlier about “social cohesion”.

19

Well, if you are okay with the existing inequality, and don’t see the huge rat tail of problems that follows - then you’re right, vouchers are not a bad idea.

Many people however, think of the consequences of the widening gap of inequality, and are looking for a way to fix it, instead of increasing it. And for fixing it, voucher system are a bad idea.

20

Correct. It also allows you - if you have the means and want your kid to do better than average, in this dog eat dog world of vicious competition - to spend more money on your kid than the public system would allow. Even a few thousand extra bucks a year might let the school buy new computers every 2 years, issue every kid their own laptop, have classes in robotics, and so on. Or bring in teachers from a local community college so they can get the first 2 year college courses out of the way.

The taxpayers don’t want to pay for that. They just want to pay for the minimum. Though they do want a football team, because those create events they can attend and watch the bloodsport spectacle.

Why do you think the food is the same they feed to prisoners? Because it’s the cheapest food that meets the minimum requirements. (for both prisons and schools generally)