Intended, maybe, but I don’t think anyone here will deny that school services are not universal in any state. The quality of a school district can vary widely within a state let alone throughout the United States.
Perhaps they could but how long would it take to enact needed reforms? If I have a first grader receiving a sub par education how old would he be by the time the board fixes the problem? Will he be a third or a fourth grader? Because by that time the damage has been done and it’s going to take a whole lot of effort to get him caught up. The Dallas Independent School District had problems for years with poor performing schools and corruption so sometimes they don’t really solve the problems all that quickly.
The former Superintendent (not a Ph.D. so far as I know) of D.I.S.D misappropriated funds to the tune of roughly 10,000 dollars to furnish her own living room. D.I.S.D. has a long history of overtime fraud, kickbacks, and have been the subject of number investigations by various agencies. Some school districts have some serious problems that are entrenched and there’s no simple way to solve them. It’d be nice if we could find that strong consensus but in the menewhile what is someone suppose to do with their child who is receiving a sub par education?
I was fortunate to go to a very wealthy district with an excellent board of education, fantastic teachers, and facilities that I thought were pretty much standard in all schools until I learned differently after my graduation. I’m not down on public education in general but there are some districts that are just plain dysfuctional and if I had a kid in one I’d really want some other options.
Again, in some areas there is an entrenched culture of corruption and incompetence. If you were in that kind of area don’t you think you’d be looking for other options?
The Superintendent when I was in school, who had a PhD BTW, was kicked of office out for groping young girls. He was later arrested for taking advantage of a developmentally challenged adult for sex. He also used to smoke dope with friends of mine.
My main argument against vouchers is what happens to a kid who is bright, intelligent, and willing to learn, but has the bad luck to be born to parents who don’t care about education or him? Those parents aren’t going to use vouchers to send their child to a better school. To them, it’ll be one more bureaucratic hassle. Too many bright kids fall through the cracks as it is; I wouldn’t like to see a system which makes that even easier.
It’s been my experience that parents have been able to change the way things are done in public schools, and not always for the better. My city brought in a new school superintendent who they hoped would reform the school district and save money by closing under-used schools, among other things. The school board, however, disagreed, made a lot of noise about “closing neighborhood schools” and the end result was little change was made.
You have the same amount of choice when deciding what police or fire dept to be protected by (more to a different city/county/state), or in a much larger sense, what armt to be protected by (move to a different nation, but taht’s harder). You decide where to live, paert of that decision is looking at what benefits your tax dollars get- what shools, what kind of police proection, etc.
Is if fair that people living one block apart may live in juristictiosn that differ in police funding by 50% or more? Those other jusrisitictions either have wealthier taxpayers or have decided to prioirtize they tax funding on public protecttion, or schools, or highway maintenence, or whatever. In the USA you have complete freedom of moverment, and you may choose a jursistiction that has the funding priorities set as you like them, and then you can inlfuence that spending. We call that democracy.
When a barrier exists to prevent religious groups from controling public funds, and a specific religious group sees it in their intrest to flout the law & control those funds, & justifies flouting the law & controling those funds by claiming it is “God’s will” that they do so, & a political party (the Republicans) have allied themselves with that specific religious group, and this alliance is so strong that the two groups & their goals are now indistinguisable as separate entities, & the specific religious group’s doctrines are viewed by the Republicans as more significant that upholding the legal & Constitutional responsibilities of public office, then the law will be flouted by the Republicans.
No, they can’t. Not if the tax dollars going to fund them are mine. They wanna play that way, they had damned well better be willing to take my daughter. And right now, that won’t happen. There currently exist certain programs in Catholic schools wherein they are willing to allow special needs kids to attend, and grants cover paras and specialized instructors. These, however, are the exception.
Problem being, those same private and parochial schools don’t want to be held accountable to the same standards. Because that would require them to have certified teaching staffs and take students that they would much rather have nothing to do with. And that’s not just special needs students, but BD kids as well. I think you underestimate the standards met by public schools.
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Originally Posted by Stratocaster
*And private schools can have whatever admission policies they’d like. *
Yes, yes, they can. In fact AFAIK, every Voucher program has not limited the private schools in any significant way. They want both to be able to have their own way of doing things and teaching things- and still get public funding.
And that’s what’s wrong with vouchers- either their schools are un under the same set of rules and public scrutinty as Public School, or I am not funding them with any of my tax money.
Note that a Public school nessesarily has to be fully run by the local school system- there are some very sucessful Charter Schools, which are Public shools also.
Right, which is why I will fight the introduction of vouchers. I know that they exist elsewhere and are not limited, which really steams my beans. Again, I know that I’m biased, but I hope like hell that I would fight vouchers even if I weren’t. Damn my sense of right and wrong, anyway.
And I don’t necessarily get as torqued by charter schools, dunno why. Maybe because most of the ones around here are spectacular failures and they serve as cautionary tales.
I have to confess an illogical abhorrence of vouchers based on two things: First, my admitted bias concerning private schools. I’m a product of public schools, for better or worse, and people who want to use tax dollars to send their children to private schools are telling me my education just isn’t good enough. (I know, I know, that’s probably not what they’re really saying, but that’s what I insist on hearing!) Second, I perceive that most private schools are religious in nature or sponsorship, and my separation clause radar just goes clanging when I think of the local Catholic school getting a penny of tax money.
In addition to all of that, I feel despair when I see people abandoning what was once a stellar public school system (here in Colorado, anyway) rather than trying to boot the federal government out and returning it to local control. We screwed this thing up by accepting evil, addictive federal funds to get shiny new gymnasiums, and now we’re abandoning it rather than work hard and make sacrifices to make it good again.
None of this is “factual” or even very logical, but it’s philosophical. Mostly, I just grumble that I’m damn glad I don’t have kids in school any more.
MGibson, the more you use what might happen to your own kid as a reason to get out, the more you prove my main point: People are pushing for vouchers out of self-interest for their own kids, not because they care about the school system as a whole. Also, a few anecdotes about bad adminisrators or districts are not evidence of anything. There are dysfunctional businesses, city and even state government, but that doesn’t make it okay to cut and run. Things don’t get better when everyone just looks out for #1.
I’ll bet the Dallas school district was lousy for years, but a lot of people didn’t give a shit until their own kid went there. Well, tough. A civic responsiblity is not an abstract concept–it aplies to all of us equally and personally. If you live in a place where the schools are degrading, ultimately YOU share a small part of the blame, for no other reason then that you live there. They are YOUR schools. Treat them as if you really care, and they might reflect it.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive you know. If I had a kid stuck in a bad district I’d certainly want to change things for the betterment of all but how long should I let my child languish in a subpar learning environment? My attitude isn’t one of “fuck everyone else I’ve got mine” but when it comes down to the brass tacks I’m more accountable for my child’s education than the local school district.
You can find similar incidents in other areas. I’m not down on public education, as I said earlier I went to a fantastic public school, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think all school districts are good. Again, should I my kid receive the first four years of his education as a subpar school and spend a good chunk of the next eight years trying to catch up, or is it my responsibility as a parent to see that he gets a good education? Ultimately, I’ll choose my family over the rest of society.
There may be other reasons as well. Unfortunately some districts have some very serious and complicated problems and there’s no one easy solution. I don’t think vouchers are a bad idea but at the same time I don’t believe for a second that they’re the answer to all our education woes.
Yes, well unfortunately a lot of people don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about the local school districts until their kids are ready to enter. Me, I’ll just move into an area with a decent school district even if it means sacrificing in other areas.
I’m a childless adult. I own a good sized home, and I pay a fair amount in taxes to my public school district to support the schools. And I don’t have a single problem with that. I even occasionally give money to support additional public and private school activities. That’s my choice.
Now, if they decide to take the money that I pay, and hand it out via vouchers to a private school, religious or otherwise, I’m going to throw a fit. That’s not the social contract I signed up for. I understand that, where I live, part of the cost of owning a house goes to support the public schools. It’s a community effort to provide an education for any kid who’s parents wish to send them there. It’s not meant to provide money for the parent to chose to send their children to the very pricey private school just across the river.
The only voucher system I’ve thought up that I would possibly support would allow parents a voucher for as much as they have paid into the system or the average pupil cost, which ever is less. That way, no one is having to double pay, but also, my money isn’t going with them when they move their kids. Even that would take some convincing to get my approval.
I do feel sorry for parents currently having kids in bad schools. A 5 year reconstruction plan can be darn long when it’s your kid in those schools. Unfortunately, while those parents have to look at what to do NOW in order to help their kids, I, as a non-parent, look at the long term and the greater good. There are schools that need fixing, but not by destroying them.
Oddly according to Freakonomics, “a good school district” has no significant effect on a childs learning. Books in the home, a climate of learning and such were all far more important.
This is essentially what happened when the government tried to control Medicare costs by letting HMOs get in the game. The HMOs’ payments were based on the average cost of a Medicare patient. But the HMOs promptly signed up people with the lowest expected costs and let traditional Medicare deal with the more expensive patients. Result: HMOs get rich, Medicare gets more expensive.
What makes anyone think that vouchers would be different?
Why can’t school boards and superintendents do more to improve schools and make changes?
One huge reason is the teachers’ union. They could teach the Teamsters a thing or two about vicious power-hoarding. I have known several great superintendents who just weren’t willing to have any more desperately needed changes blocked by teachers unions and quit the superintendency altogether.
Anything that threatens to change what teachers get or how they are dealt with gets killed- it could be changes in pay, hours, tenure, hiring/firing, whatever.
Then do you disagree with public funding for busing to private schools? It occurs in my state, and it has not been subjected to any constitutional assaults.
Why exactly do you see this as a breach of the establishment clause?
So, any institution that accepts public funding must accept your daughter, eh? Try getting her into any school that accepts federal funds even if she doesn’t meet the school’s admission standards. Let me know how you make out. And let me know how that’s any different from school vouchers.