There is currently a free market in education. There are about a dozen private schools in my county that are about as free market as they get.
What we are trying to prevent is taking the money for that free lunch and giving it to the parents so they can use it to leave the tip at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse once a month.
I don’t think everyone on the anti-voucher side is disagreeing with you.
And we don’t need vouchers to do that.
That is not the sort of Voucher system that conservatives have in mind. The DC voucher program is more of a scholarship than the sort of voucher system that people are proposing in state capitols around the country.
Once you pay it to the government, its not your money anymore (in the sense that you have rights to it or get to decide what happens to it). You get to vote in the folks who decide what happens to the money but its not really your money any more than the money spent on the military is still your money.
The DC voucher recipients rarely paid anything out of pocket, the school would provide a scholarship for the difference. Sidwell Friends, in DC, costs about $25-30K/year, they have several of these voucher students. All of them have a full ride. This is true for virtually ALL of the DC voucher recipients. The DC voucher system is a scholarship program more than a real voucher system the way conservatives envision it.
I don’t think there is general agreement on that at all. I think people feel that public schools in POOR NEIGHBORHOODS are not performing and these folks generally wouldn’t have access to as non-charter private schools even with a voucher system.
This is all public assistance. Are you suggesting that we get rid of the public education system and replace it with a need based subsidy to poor people to go to private schools? Because that is decidedly NOT the sort of system that conservatives in DC are proposing. They are proposing that rich people should get a check from the government that they can use to pay some of the tuition at Andover.
And another part of it is to allow rich parents to get the government to subsidize their children’s tuition at Choate.
Conservatives across the country hope it will equal a significant percentage of the per capita public expense.
And how do you feel about charter schools?
Ahhh, if the poor all had just one neck.
And THERE is the rub. None of the voucher systems that are being proposed by conservatives are interested in “the same or less money” educations. Charter schools do that already. They want to use this money to subsidize a significantly expensive education.
To anyone who is interested in this subject I highly recommend this book.
Instead of the government subsidizing their children’s tuition at another school.
No, I am afraid this is false. It is advocates of the current public schools who are uninterested in “the same or less money”. Members of teachers’ unions are rivalled only by farmers in the strength of their liplock on the public teat, and are very nearly desperate to maintain that lock.
Regards,
Shodan
[sarcasm] Government monopolies are wonderful things that accomplish a lot of things very effectively, but they can’t do everthing. [/sarcasm] And one of the things they simply do not do is guarantee quality service for anyone. As it stands now, many children are stuck in bad public schools; many go to middling to good public schools. If through a voucher program, some of the children in bad public schools could go to better schools, why should we stand in the way of that? Of course it isn’t fair to some children that they are stuck in bad schools - but does it make it any less fair to those children to keep other children there that otherwise could go to a better school? Equality through mediocrity is not a noble goal.
Did you read my post above? The DC voucher program is worth at most $7500, while per pupil spending in DC is above $24,000. Granted, the $7500 does not always cover 100% of tuition, but many private schools charge far below $24,000 a year. So students and parents are more happy with a product that costs far less than the public option - yet people are against this? :smack:
No sir, you are very very wrong about how to look at that tax money.
Just because it is “paid” (past tense) does not mean taxpayers shouldn’t be able to get it back. Yes, they can get it “refunded” by electing officials that will change the laws to give that money back.
BUT THAT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY.
Another legitimate way for a “refund/rebate” is to ask for vouchers. Either mechanism to put money back into the pockets of parents is valid. Sometimes, one is more expedient than the other.
To expect citizens to completely let go of that tax money JUST BECAUSE IT CHANGED HANDS is to encourage the worst kind of irresponsible citizen.
Good Heavens.
I think we’ve found of the root of the problem, here. And it shows up in a lot of your other posts above, when you use phrases like ‘incremental spending’ and ‘subsidies for the wealthy’.
You started to make some nice-sounding noises about the objective of education and all that, but you still cling to the notions that (1) the money is the government’s and not the taxpayers and (2) anybody who is fairly well off, who gets some of that money to educate their kids, is somehow gaming the system.
What about the two steps below, do you object to?
Give all the tax money currently going to schools back to the citizens.
Give vouchers to those who cannot afford to send their children to school.
Let schools compete however they wish for those resources, subject to the decision by the parents.
The end.
Is there something above that is too complicated?
You are mixing up the analogies in this thread.
The free lunch is an example of a “subsidy”. The free lunch IS NOT a compulsory collective fund that EVERY CITIZEN uses to get their food. The free lunch analogy was in the context the food free market. There is no corresponding “voucher” in the food free market because it’s already free market. Taxpayers don’t need a voucher to go and decide to buy a Bic Mac from McDonalds – the money is already in their pocket!
Here’s where my earlier comment that this really depends on how large the vouchers are comes into play.
Clearly, in theory the vouchers could be of various sizes, and how big they are would lead to different effects. In my assessment, there are three different relevent benchmarks:
A) The point at which the vouchers are large enough to encourage a significant number of parents to start withdrawing their kids from public school and putting them into private school, presumably to the benefit of the kids.
B) The point at which the vouchers are large enough that losing the voucher money inhibits the ability of public schools to provide the same quality of education to the remaining students.
C) The point at which the vouchers are large enough that issuing them causes all kids to be pulled out of public school and sent to private schools. Note that its not enough to just pay tuitions - you also have to cover housing or travel costs in the likely event there’s not a private school in every neighborhood, and you’d have to pay enough of a ‘bonus’ to incentivize the parents who really don’t give a crap about their kids to go through the effort of sending them to private rather than public school - and to incentivize parents who don’t want to send their kids away, if that would be necessary.
If vouchers were smaller than A, there would be literally no benefit to society from allowing vouchers - the only effect they would have would be to give rich people an unneeded tax rebate on the kids they’re already sending to private school.
If vouchers were smaller than B, or larger than C, then there isn’t a “damage to the quality of education of remaining students” argument against the vouchers.
I oppose vouchers that are less than A, on the principle they’re a money grab by people who don’t need more money that causes no societal benefits, and I oppose vouchers that are larger than B and less than C, because they are an amoral attack on those children who would remain in the de-funded public schools.*
I don’t believe for an instant that the vouchers will be greater than C, unless the governement literally disbanded and shut down the public school system. (Which is not what’s being proposed, probably because it doesn’t have any chance of happening.) As long as the public schools are still around, it’s too fricking easy to just send your kid out to get on the bus and go to public schools. And if the public schools have been abandoned to a significant degree, this wouldn’t punish the lazy parents; they’d punish their poor kids, who don’t have a choice in the matter.**
And finally, because I don’t disbelieve in economies of scale, I believe that B is smaller than A. Which is to say, I don’t believe that any voucher system that is effective at removing kids from the schools will fail to damage the quality of education for the remaining kids. (Especially when you remember that you have to first pay for all the kids who are already going to private school before the schools even start having a single less kid to try to educate.)***
So yeah, all that in combination leads me to oppose vouchers unequivocably.
** I think that some people here may believe that the free market will have the effect of shutting down the public school system. This is, of course, nuts. I also don’t believe what happens to kids whose parents who just don’t bother using the vouchers has been addressed.
*** I think some people here may disbelieve in economies of scale, or be operating under the impression that if you starve the public schools enough, they’ll tighten their belts and make the drastic internal changes that these people really should be arguing for rather than this voucher crap. Personally, I don’t believe this is the case; in my limited knowledge schools are much more likely to pack more kids into classes and cut extracurricular programs than, say, try to break the teachers’ union.
I don’t really know anything about them, myself. I’m arguing purely against this money grab masquerading as support of the free market or choice or whatever.
Sometimes I really think if this were the case, there would be people who would cheerfully suggest to somebody else that they hire somebody to conveniently drop an axe, you know, as an unintended consequence of doing something good that we never imagined could have negative effects, no really, it never crossed our minds.
Here’s your problem: “Of course it isn’t fair to some children that they are stuck in bad schools - but does it make it any less fair to those children to keep other children there that otherwise could go to a better school?” The answer to this is that pulling the funds from public schools to pay the way for kids who “escape” will, in my opinion, lower the quality of education for those left behind. (That is, I think B is smaller than A, as I laid it out at the top of this post.) Given this, then that is how it makes it “any less fair” to those children who are left behind.
Certainly there are voucher amounts that would not have a detrimental effect on the kids still at public school (like, $1 vouchers), but I don’t believe that vouchers small enough to do no harm will be enough to impell anybody to leave. Either the vouchers are a socially benefitless subsidy for the rich, or they’re a damaging attack on the poor. Or both. I do not beleive there is a middle ground where neither of the above is true.
I think he was referring to looting soup kitchens and stealing food stamps, and giving the proceeds to the rich.
Amazing… you just followup Damuri with continued misunderstanding of the analogy.
The soup kitchen and is not a COMPULSORY FUND that the majority of citizens get their daily calorie needs from. There is no “voucher” to extract out of the soup kitchen because the soup kitchen isn’t a mega fund that has everyone’s food $$$. There is no need for the “rich” or the middle class to get a rebate of $$ from the soup kitchen… the citizens ALREADY HAVE the money.
Will better public schools help educate people to analyze analogies correctly? Nah… wishful thinking.
There lies your problem. You don’t realize that it’s actually the public schools that masquerade as an optimized place for learning. They convince people like you that their funding is sacred and worth defending. The public schools and their brain-dead curriculum are graduating dysfunctional young adults. Public schools harm poor people more than they help them.
begbert2, did you even read my post about the DC voucher program? It provides up to $7500 for parents to send their children to a private school - enabling many middle and low income families to send their children to much better schools. Yet the DC school system spends $24,000 per pupil. For every student that leaves a DC public school by voucher, over $16,000 is left in the public school system. If we are to believe the teachers unions, and all that is needed is more money in the public schools, they should be pushing for a voucher program, as it would lower class sizes and increase the amount of money available to be spent per pupil. Your opinion on vouchers lowering the quality of education is only that - an opinion based it seems only on your feelings about this topic. The numbers would suggest otherwise.
Where have you found evidence that this is a better solution? Many public schools provide excellent educations to their students and are a very integral part of their communities. Why do you want to dismantle this system because of the poorest performing rung, which is clearly in the minority of schools?
Do you really not understadn the diffrence between fully paid charter schools that must accept all applicants (on a lottery system if there are too many applicants) and subsidies for private schools that charge more than government will pay per student?
Your second statement does not prove the falsity of my statement that advocates of voucher systems (as opposed to charter school systems) are not looking for a finance a “same or less money” alternative to public schools.
A voucher system could certainly be constructed to be a “same or less money” sytstem but that would essentially be a charter school system with looser chartering requirements.
If I am wrong then what does a voucher system do in a “same or less, take all comers” scenario that a charter school system does not?