# Romney's voucher system for schools **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919 "2012-06-12T14:37:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/81 "2012-06-13T21:00:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not true for charter schools, though. They also have to take every child and they deliver the same performance at lower cost. > > So this says to me that the public school system is broken. That’s assuming that all charters are successful, which they aren’t. And that’s a lot of money being wasted. More than $900k. Examples of famous charters with crappy endings or scores: [Urban Prep](http://www.urbanprep.org/sites/default/files/documents/annual-reports/FY11%20Data%20Findings.pdf) (Higher than the neighbors, but at a considerable cost) [KIPP](http://www.movoto.com/public-schools/co/denver/middle/080336001865-kipp-sunshine-peak-academy/375-s-tejon-st.htm) [KIPP: Adios!](http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2007/07/kipp-school-closes-after-principal-bails/51214) [Cheaters never prosper](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/crescendo-charter-schools-cheating_n_830415.html) and so forth and so on. Every major district has a charter that closed. Keep in mind it costs money to start a school and fund it. That means public money. As far as corporate charters go? Yeah, let’s not do that. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/82 "2012-06-13T21:27:31Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Allow me to be concrete: > > In city X, there are 10,000 students enrolled in K-12. The district spends 10,000 per student (a bit below the national average), for a total $100 million budget. Let us imagine that a charter program is enacted by which parents in the district may receive a voucher for $4000 to towards private school tuition (don’t know the national average voucher, but that’s about typical), and let us further imagine that 25% of the parents take the deal. > > Under those numbers, the district loses $10 million from their budget … but they also lose 2,500 students; meaning that per-student spending among the 7,500 students still in the public schools _rises_ from $10,000 to $12,000 (90 million/7500). There may be advantages of scale between 7,500 and 10,000, but they’re easily offset by the 20% increase in per-pupil money. And the more students take the vouchers, the more per-pupil money the publics have. > > I don’t know how to make the math any plainer. I just LOLed. You have to assume that per pupil spending will increase and not just be put somewhere else in the budget. Oh, wait, you forgot overhead, grants, state and federal budgets, etc. So that screws up your logic right there! The projected per pupil spending in a certain district near me has decreased while the number of enrolled students increased. And yes, new charters opened this year. DPS has an open enrollment policy, btw. Here’s an [example](http://www.boarddocs.com/co/dpsk12/Board.nsf/files/8U9TEK770585/$file/Adopted%20Board%20Book%20Presentation.pdf) for you to look at. And finally, charter schools still take districts’ time and money. Who do you think oversees them? In your scenario, a district ‘lost’ 2,500 students. A high school. But these students are spread out from K-12. It doesn’t mean they lost all the overhead required for managing these schools. When a kid leaves the district, he doesn’t take a building, a teacher, a cirriculum officer, etc. with him. The shiny admin buildings are still there. The Superintendent is still cashing a nice paycheck. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/83 "2012-06-13T21:52:47Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Ok, after recovering from my sense of _deja vu_, would you tell me where this system to pay people to opt out of the public school systems exists. In the budget, right now. Our hypothetical district had a $10,000,000 budget. > [@](#): > > I’d be really surprised if all the parents of kids already in private school didn’t object to being left out of the deal. Voucher programs, as they exist in nearly all cases, are only open to the poor and/or those in very bad school districts. Yes, there are some very poor people who are already paying full price for private schools, and for them the voucher would be a windfall; since they’re poor, they can probably use it. But more often, the people paying full-price for private school are middle-class or wealthy, and they aren’t eligible. They’re only “left out” in sense that they’re “left out” of food stamps or welfare. > [@](#): > > Also tell me how $4000 is not less than $10,000, because that’s what happens to the public spending on students who take the deal, and everybody after the public school closes down, which was the intention in the first place. So wait … your real objection is not that per-pupil spending for students in the public system would go down (you understand it won’t, right?). And your objection is not that a parent would balk at paying the difference (they will, and do). Your objection is that the money won’t get spent on that particular kid, _even though the parent has opted out of it_? Is that right? In other words, if the government was giving out $5 hamburgers to kids, and a parent said they’d rather have a $3 hot dog and you could keep the rest to spend on other kids or whatever else you wnated, you’d be opposed to them having that choice? I really have no response to that. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/84 "2012-06-13T22:01:13Z")
> [@furt](#): > > In the budget, right now. Our hypothetical district had a $10,000,000 budget. > > Voucher programs, as they exist in nearly all cases, are only open to the poor and/or those in very bad school districts. Yes, there are some very poor people who are already paying full price for private schools, and for them the voucher would be a windfall; since they’re poor, they can probably use it. But more often, the people paying full-price for private school are middle-class or wealthy, and they aren’t eligible. They’re only “left out” in sense that they’re “left out” of food stamps or welfare. I’m a little baffled by this example since it’s only utility would be where the public schools are underfunded and this simply contributes to that. Why should we provide assistance to a few while leaving the rest in an underperforming school? > [@](#): > > So wait … your real objection is not that per-pupil spending for students in the public system would go down (you understand it won’t, right?). And your objection is not that a parent would balk at paying the difference (they will, and do). Your objection is that the money won’t get spent on that particular kid, _even though the parent has opted out of it_? > > Is that right? > > In other words, if the government was giving out $5 hamburgers to kids, and a parent said they’d rather have a $3 hot dog and you could keep the rest to spend on other kids or whatever else you wnated, you’d be opposed to them having that choice? > > I really have no response to that. I have no idea what that means. Voucher systems take money out of the public school system, plain and simple. If you want to cover the costs of giving everyone a quality education, I’m all for it. But I only see proposals that continue to reduce the funding of public schools. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/85 "2012-06-13T22:44:39Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Are you going to seriously argue that the enormous difference in success levels between students in good inner-city charters and inner-city publics is completely due to the contagion effect of their being in the same room with the kids with non-shit-giving parents? Inner city charter schools as a whole do not to better than public schools, so your supposition is incorrect. See [here](http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/02/16/new-review-of-georgia-charter-school-performance-finds-they-dont-outperform-traditional-public-schools/), [here](http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2012/02/twin-cities-charter-schools-fail-deliver-promised-gains-study-claims), [here](http://k12christinestead.com/2012/03/13/charter-schools-perform-worse-than-traditional-public-schools/), [and here](http://www.educationjustice.org/newsletters/nlej_iss21_art5_detail_CharterSchoolAchievement.htm). More cites if needed. > [@furt](#): > > And for that matter, what about _bad_ charter schools (they do exist, though they tend to lose their charters), where students have _less_ success than public-school peers? How is the failure of such schools possible, given that they only accept kids whose parents give a shit? Why would you think a school could not fail under such circumstances? I don’t think this is particularly a mystery, nor does it really need an explanation. > [@furt](#): > > And that leads us back to the question of what we’re supposed to tell people whose kids are in bad public schools and who want something better. "We’re sorry that your kid’s school sucks, and we know you want to help him learn, but while a voucher program would help your kid out, it’s better for society if he stays right where he is while we keep looking for a way to improve public schools. What things do you think a charter school can do that a public school can’t, and why don’t those differences result in demonstrably and reliably better results? Seeing as they collectively don’t do better than public schools, I wonder why you think the solution lies with charters. That’s not to say they can never work, but seeing as we view success as outcome-based, I don’t think the market can guarantee the results we want. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/86 "2012-06-13T22:56:07Z")
You’ve already got a socialized school system - wouldn’t this scheme be a huge step towards a communist system? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/87 "2012-06-13T23:35:43Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > If you don’t think that being smarter makes you a better teacher than I think that displays more contempt to the teaching profession than my belief that we should raise standards and pay teachers more. You misunderstood. Your contention is that smarter people are better teachers. I would contend that most people who go to college and have professors who are probably, on average, smarter than most secondary teachers, would realize that those smarter professors are generally considered inferior “teachers”. It’s like arguing that if actors and directors were 10% smarter, we would have better movies. What about if our pharmacists were smarter, would the pharmacy field look different? What about if we had more intelligent politicians, doctors, judges, or garbage men? You are ignoring that fact that teaching is not (generally) about raw intelligence, it’s (largely) about being an effective and engaging communicator. Those two characteristics are not well correlated, so focusing on intelligence is misguided so long as teachers are smart enough to teach (eg. does the calculus teacher understand calculus). Yes, it would be nice if every 4th grade teacher was a genius, but that would not mean they would be better teachers, just smarter people who happen to teach. > [@fumster](#): > > I just can’t imagine someone maintaining that being smarter doesn’t make you a better doctor, or engineer, or accountant. And yes I do think that while college grades do not _measure_ intelligence, they certainly do _reflect_ intelligence. Don’t you? No, not really. And the fact that you think being smarter makes you a better doctor makes me think you don’t know what most doctors do all day. Why do you think being smarter would yield better results for patients? Please keep in mind that the average doctor is already very smart. Why do you think being 10% smarter will make it easier for him to recognize a child’s cold, or bill insurance companies more efficiently. There are so few fields where more raw intelligence is that big an advantage over the median intelligence in that field. > [@fumster](#): > > Teachers seem to have the notion that alone among professions, their’s defies any attempt to measure relative performance. Somehow we pay engineers based on merit even though they may be working on very different projects. The same is true of architects and lawyers and other professionals. But those things are not analogous for a number of reasons. Most obviously, lawyers who make a lot of money are providing more value in measurable, objective terms (eg. money). As such, it is easy to reward them using the same metrics. If you are some rainmaker who can bill 2500 hours/year at $900, you can easily demonstrate your worth, and can thus command a certain salary. They don’t pay those people more just for being “good at their jobs”, or for “being smart”, they do it because the person brings more value to the company in a seemingly measurable way. Even so, many lawyers and other professionals are still paid via a rough scale based on experience, just like teachers. If you are a great teacher who can rightfully claim credit for raising kid’s scores 30%, who is going to realize that value? It’s not the teacher, the school board who hired the teacher, the state who pays the teacher, or even the student (in the short term). So why would you pay a teacher more for being better? It doesn’t directly contribute to your bottom line. Obviously, some places with money and resources might pay to attract great talent, but there is no pressure for them to do so. That’s why the average salary at Sidwell, the the Obama girls go to school is 56k, whereas it’s 66k at DC public schools. You seem to think people will pay for results for which they see no direct personal benefit. I don’t see any reason to think that’s the case over the long haul. People won;t even pay to keep their drinking water clean, what makes you think they will pay exorbitant teachers salaries because test scores went up 2%? That said, feel free to suggest a way to do it that is fair, accurate, and doesn’t cost much more money. You also seem to be accepting as a predicate that engineers and lawyers, etc. are paid fairly and rationally, and that the public would support paying teachers in a similar fashion. I don’t think either of those things are true. Do you really think people would be okay paying a teacher fresh out of school 150k+ like some lawyers? > [@fumster](#): > > How on the one hand can you maintain that having smaller classes will result in a better outcome for students and then on the other hand say that it is impossible to measure outcome? I didn’t argue either of those things. > [@fumster](#): > > In any school it is pretty well known who the great teachers are. I’m sure if your children went to the school where you teach you would try and get them assigned to the better teachers. Why wouldn’t you want the great teachers to be paid more than the mediocre ones? First, you seem to be under the misapprehension that there are “good teachers” and “bad teachers” when in reality, that us usually not the case. It’s not static. It’s a moving target, and one that is very subjective. I have no issue with paying effective teachers more than others, but measuring that is very difficult, and would likely result in a year to year fluctuations that would result in fewer people wanting to teach. > [@fumster](#): > > Instead we have the teachers unions acting like they are representing factory workers. You keep saying this, but you don’t explain what you are talking about, or why you think that is bad beyond the fact that you obviously feel factory work is not desirable work. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/88 "2012-06-14T02:14:18Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I have no idea what that means. Voucher systems take money out of the public school system, plain and simple. You are clear on the differences between “total government spending,” “total spending, public and private,” and “per-pupil spending” right? You can grok the idea that a school system can have a smaller budget, but still be spending more per-pupil, yes? And that by offering to pay part of the tuition, you’re incentivizing parents (and often donors) to invest their own money on top of the the government’s, you’re increasing the overall amount of money going into education? I don’t really care if you agree. I’m just trying to figure out if you at least understand how it works. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/89 "2012-06-14T03:05:07Z")
> [@Farmer\_Jane](#): > > That’s assuming that all charters are successful, which they aren’t. And that’s a lot of money being wasted. More than $900k. > > Examples of famous charters with crappy endings or scores: > > [Urban Prep](http://www.urbanprep.org/sites/default/files/documents/annual-reports/FY11%20Data%20Findings.pdf) (Higher than the neighbors, but at a considerable cost) > [KIPP](http://www.movoto.com/public-schools/co/denver/middle/080336001865-kipp-sunshine-peak-academy/375-s-tejon-st.htm) > [KIPP: Adios!](http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2007/07/kipp-school-closes-after-principal-bails/51214) > [Cheaters never prosper](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/crescendo-charter-schools-cheating_n_830415.html) > > and so forth and so on. Every major district has a charter that closed. > > Keep in mind it costs money to start a school and fund it. That means public money. > > As far as corporate charters go? Yeah, let’s not do that. As I mentioned in another thread, you’re using an unfair metric. Charter schools should not be compared to schools generally, but to other inner city schools, i.e., the ones they sprout up to replace. Through them, kids get helped that wouldn’t have much of a chance if the charter school wasn’t there. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/90 "2012-06-14T03:20:23Z")
> [@furt](#): > > You are clear on the differences between “total government spending,” “total spending, public and private,” and “per-pupil spending” right? You can grok the idea that a school system can have a smaller budget, but still be spending more per-pupil, yes? And that by offering to pay part of the tuition, you’re incentivizing parents (and often donors) to invest their own money on top of the the government’s, you’re increasing the overall amount of money going into education? > > I don’t really care if you agree. I’m just trying to figure out if you at least understand how it works. I understand your utopian concept where just the right number of students are financed for just the right amount of money without anyone caring about the disapproportionate distribution of public funds or demanding lower taxes to account for the magic dollars saved. Not of it explains how a voucher system can work on a large scale basis without decreasing the cost of public funding per student or increasing taxes to cover the additional costs. Parents, donors, and taxpayers are disincentivized to invest in public education in your concept, which as I said before, is the reason for this idea. If you want to convert to a private education system, give every student sufficient funds for a minimally qualifying educaton and cover the costs somehow. Otherwise there is no way to ensure the right of a student to an education. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/91 "2012-06-14T03:22:51Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Inner city charter schools as a whole do not to better than public schools, so your supposition is incorrect. See [here](http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/02/16/new-review-of-georgia-charter-school-performance-finds-they-dont-outperform-traditional-public-schools/), [here](http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2012/02/twin-cities-charter-schools-fail-deliver-promised-gains-study-claims), [here](http://k12christinestead.com/2012/03/13/charter-schools-perform-worse-than-traditional-public-schools/), [and here](http://www.educationjustice.org/newsletters/nlej_iss21_art5_detail_CharterSchoolAchievement.htm). More cites if needed. Hmmm. Maybe I should have qualified that statement by specifically limiting it to good charter schools. Oh, wait: I did. > [@](#): > > Why would you think a school could not fail under such circumstances? I don’t think this is particularly a mystery, nor does it really need an explanation. I note your keen grasp of sarcasm > [@](#): > > What things do you think a charter school can do that a public school can’t, and why don’t those differences result in demonstrably and reliably better results? Seeing as they collectively don’t do better than public schools, I wonder why you think the solution lies with charters. That’s not to say they can never work, but seeing as we view success as outcome-based, I don’t think the market can guarantee the results we want. Look, I’m not really interested in debating this. I’ve mainly been trying to give information and explain facts here. If you’re really perplexed as to why anyone would support charter schools, you can take it up with a politician who I think is pretty good on ed policy: > [@](#): > > Can we spend our way out of it? > > OBAMA: We can’t spend our way out of it. And I think that when you look at the statistics, the fact is is that our per pupil spending has gone up over the last couple of decades… > > (CROSSTALK) > > LAUER: While results have gone down. > > OBAMA: Even as results have gone down. Money plays a factor. And, obviously, there are some schools where money plays a big factor, you know, they don’t have up-to-date textbooks, they don’t have computers in the classroom. So those who say money makes no difference are wrong. On the other hand, money without reform will not fix the problem. … > > But you can’t – you can’t defend a status quo in which a third of our kids are dropping out. You can’t defend a status quo when you’ve got 2,000 schools across the country that are dropout factories – and they really are – where more than half of the kids are dropping out. > > In those – in those schools, you’ve got to have radical change. And radical change is something that is in the interest of the students and ultimately in the interest of the teachers. Because the vast majority of teachers want to do a good job. … > > LAUER: You mentioned dropout factories. One of the other things you’d like to do is you’d like to identify the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in this country and either close them down or in some cases turn them over to charter operators. > > OBAMA: Right. > > LAUER: That would increase the number of charter schools in this country enormously. It could double… > > OBAMA: Right. > > LAUER: … the number. > > Are you worried that by expanding that program so rapidly you would dilute some quality in charter schools? > > OBAMA: Well, look, charter schools are not a panacea. In fact, one of the things when you’re looking at school reform is it turns out there’s no – there are no silver bullets here. > > Reform is hard, it’s systematic, it takes time, but we know that there are some charters who have figured out how to do a very good job in the lowest-income schools, with the kids who are two, three grade levels behind, and yet they can achieve 90, 95 percent graduation rates, boost reading scores and math scores very high. > > What we’ve got to do is to look at the success of these schools, find out how do we duplicate them, and make sure that we are still holding charter schools accountable, the same way we are all the schools. We shouldn’t say just because a school is a charter that it’s an excellent school, because there’s some actually very poor performing charters. > > But what I – what I’m interested in, what my secretary of education are (sic) interested in is fostering these laboratories of excellence where we start learning. Arne Duncan, said sec of ed, is about as vocal and enthusiastic champion of public charters as Obama could have named. And Obama is not some outlier: hell, [Randi Weingarten](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/education/16teacher.html?pagewanted=all) has seen the writing on the wall and adopted an if-you-can-beat-em-join-em attitude towards charters. Like it or don’t, pretty much everyone who has juice thinks the future has a lot more charter schools. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/92 "2012-06-14T03:24:04Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I understand your utopian concept where just the right number of students are financed for just the right amount of money without anyone caring about the disapproportionate distribution of public funds or demanding lower taxes to account for the magic dollars saved. Not of it explains how a voucher system can work on a large scale basis without decreasing the cost of public funding per student or increasing taxes to cover the additional costs. Parents, donors, and taxpayers are disincentivized to invest in public education in your concept, which as I said before, is the reason for this idea. If you want to convert to a private education system, give every student sufficient funds for a minimally qualifying educaton and cover the costs somehow. Otherwise there is no way to ensure the right of a student to an education. I’ll take that as a “no.” ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/93 "2012-06-14T03:56:44Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Hmmm. Maybe I should have qualified that statement by specifically limiting it to good charter schools. Oh, wait: I did. Then what is your point? That _good_ charter schools are better than _shitty_ public schools? That is obviously true by definition. > [@furt](#): > > Look, I’m not really interested in debating this. I’ve mainly been trying to give information and explain facts here. If you’re really perplexed as to why anyone would support charter schools, you can take it up with a politician who I think is pretty good on ed policy: When did I say I was perplexed as to why anyone would support charter schools? In fact, I have said they have been successful in limited circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/94 "2012-06-14T06:20:03Z")
**brickbacon** you may not have convinced me (yet) to change my views, but you state your case very well and are a strong counter example to some of the perhaps unfair stereotypes I have developed about teachers. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/95 "2012-06-14T09:01:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Every autistic and special ed child, some of who are pretty severely handicapped and really should be in some sort of special facility, but their parents are poor, so they can’t afford that kind of place, so the public schools must attempt to educate them as best they can. WHAT!!! That is effing offensive! Sped DOES NOT mean “cannot learn.” Most sped kids are LD or ADD style kids…not exactly Harvard level, but then again not exactly mentally unable either. A lot of the underacheivement in sped, especially with blind/low vision and deaf/hard of hearing is due to the fact that public schools can get away with proviiding minimal accomondations so the kid struggles instead of really thriving with the type of accomondations/training that would be available at a dhh or a blind/low vision school. But yes, I do agree with you that autistic (and REAL autism not HFA/Asperger’s) and mentally handicapped kids do need their own special schools/facillites ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/96 "2012-06-14T11:39:48Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > WHAT?!?!?! That is effing offensive! Sped DOES NOT mean “cannot learn.” Then it’s a good thing nobody said that, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![PJMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PJMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PJMom)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/97 "2012-06-14T12:51:09Z")
IMO much of the reason public schools are currently “broken,” in the states I have lived in anyway, is because money has already been siphoned from them in the form of funding cuts that resulted when tax revenues were capped, largely by measures enacted to contain property taxes. In place of tax revenues, schools have increasingly supplemented their budgets by allowing/encouraging private sector involvement in the form of PTAs, PTOs, and foundations that are, with largely the best of intentions, injecting their agendas into the public school system. As a result, Johnny gets all the best teachers because Mommy Sue will make the principal’s life a living hell if he doesn’t; the high school gets a new astroturf football field because 80% of Podunk, USA’s citizenry turn out for Friday night games and it was easy to sell raffle tickets there to raise money; the middle school gets a fabulous new marquee because Sally’s dad, Mr. Bob, sells it to them at cost plus 20% (because 20% of something is better than 50% of nothing!) And all he had to do was convince his buddies on the Fabulosity Foundation to support the idea!; and elementary school A has a volunteer art teacher, who is a parent, while elementary schools B and C have music instead because their parents have collectively raised $80k a year to pay for programs. Nevermind that the districts’ history books all still say the Civil War was about states’ rights; disregard the fact that kids have to share Algebra books; so what if there’s no bus service anymore? I’ve always been one of the active volunteer parents and I’ve generally been on, or friends with, the budget-supplementing organization’s officers. I’ve lived in four states–one on each coast and two in the middle. It is the same everywhere. Our public schools will fail to turn out excellent students at the rate industry requires them as long as we, as a nation, fail to establish a baseline for what constitutes a good education and ensure that our schools have the resources to provide it for each and every kid. After the baseline has been established and systems are in place to provide it on a nationwide basis (with federal tax dollars), then we can begin to talk about supplementary education that is paid for by mobile money at the state and/or local level. In the meantime we will have a largely uneducated electorate that fails to investigate, or even support investigation of, the lies pumped out of our political campaigns; our jobs will continue to be outsourced to other countries where only the very brightest get a good education and become engineers, doctors, and other highly skilled professionals (that come at a fraction of the salary of the same in the US), while the remaining population can be happily employed for peanuts. And we will continue to decry the deteriorating state of education whilst complaining about the quality of teachers, all the while turning out fewer and fewer people interested in trying, or qualified, to fix it. Who benefits in this scenario, you ask? Guys like the one who wants the vouchers. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/98 "2012-06-14T14:14:12Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > How well do you thing public schools would be doing if they only accepted kids whose parents give a shit? > [@furt](#): > > Are you going to seriously argue that the enormous difference in success levels between students in good inner-city charters and inner-city publics is completely due to the contagion effect of their being in the same room with the kids with non-shit-giving parents? > [@brickbacon](#): > > Inner city charter schools as a whole do not to better than public schools, so your supposition is incorrect. See [here](http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/02/16/new-review-of-georgia-charter-school-performance-finds-they-dont-outperform-traditional-public-schools/), [here](http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2012/02/twin-cities-charter-schools-fail-deliver-promised-gains-study-claims), [here](http://k12christinestead.com/2012/03/13/charter-schools-perform-worse-than-traditional-public-schools/), [and here](http://www.educationjustice.org/newsletters/nlej_iss21_art5_detail_CharterSchoolAchievement.htm). More cites if needed. > [@furt](#): > > Hmmm. Maybe I should have qualified that statement by specifically limiting it to good charter schools. Oh, wait: I did. > [@brickbacon](#): > > Then what is your point? That _good_ charter schools are better than _shitty_ public schools? That is obviously true by definition. YES! Looking at the overall success of all charter schools nationwide, most of which are only a few years old, is missing the point. The intention of creating charter schools is not that they will all succeed immediately; it’s that some will succeed and some will fail, and we learn from both. Kids entered in the charter lotteries (i.e. whose parents give a shit), but who do not win the lottery do not drastically outperform kids from the same populations who were never entered into the lottery. Kids who do win the lottery frequently do better --sometimes wildly so – and sometimes do worse, depending on which charter they get into. Thus, the quality of the school makes a difference, regardless of whether or not the parents give a shit. Parental involvement can make a good school better, or it can mitigate the damage of a bad school, but at the end of the day the school matters, and it matters a lot. And thus, the answer to your question above (“How well do you thing public schools would be doing if they only accepted kids whose parents give a shit?”) is _“better, but not as good as the effective charter schools – the ones everybody’s trying to reproduce – already do, because school quality matters.”_ ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/99 "2012-06-14T14:17:45Z")
> [@PJMom](#): > > IMO much of the reason public schools are currently “broken,” in the states I have lived in anyway, is because money has already been siphoned from them in the form of funding cuts that resulted when tax revenues were capped … Which states were these? ---
**Author:** ![PJMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PJMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PJMom)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919/100 "2012-06-14T14:44:42Z")
Furt: I’d rather not say so that I can maintain anonymity should I decide in the future to direct real world friends to this forum in the future, but they are states on the list in the following link: (scroll to page 11) [https://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/dl/1412\_986\_Property%20Tax%20Assessment%20Limits%20rev.pdf](https://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/dl/1412_986_Property%20Tax%20Assessment%20Limits%20rev.pdf) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-voucher-system-for-schools/624919.md?page=6)