Our higher education system is not an apt metaphor. Why?
[ul]
[li]They don’t have to take everyone. Some people will NEVER find a college to go to.[/li][li]They have insane drop-out rates that we would never accept for primary and secondary schools[/li][li]They leave people- rich and poor- in debt for decades[/li][/ul]
Not only that, college is not mandatory, public school is.
Why are they trying to kill them? Because they’ve been shown to not work:
US DoE study of DC Voucher program
and
another voucher program that didn’t work (warning, pdf)
DC’s public schools don’t work, either, so can we close them, too?
The thread was about why congressmen were killing the voucher program. It doesn’t work. They kill it. Wasteful government spending is prevented. Why aren’t you happy about that?
Because it certainly seems to be working to those who are using it – if it wasn’t working no parents would be using it, would they? Clearly those who have escaped the DC public schools are very happy with the voucher program.
That’s the joy of a market-based system – you actually have an objective metric to decide if something is working or not. You don’t need a variety of studies. You simply look at whether or not their is a demand for the product or service. There clearly is a demand for education vouchers in DC. The parents of these students clearly think vouchers work. And yet you are going to tell them it’s “wasteful government spending”? If you were really after wasteful spending I’d point you towards the DC public school system.
If you bothered to read the study, parents FEEL like it’s working, but there’s no improvement in grades and scores. The students also DON"T FEEL like there’s a difference. So the government is paying these parents to FEEL like their kids are going to safer schools.
There may be metrics the study isn’t considering, you know. Instead of dismissing the parents as idiots, perhaps you should consider that maybe they know their kids better than you or some researcher does. Perhaps they know that there are intangibles that are better now when their children were forced to attend crappy, unsafe DC public schools, even if scores haven’t improved.
Funny how the students don’t share the same feelings as their all-knowing parents. I thought the purpose of vouchers was so that children could get a better education. My bad.
I would personally be fine with vouchers if that stipulation was included (and enforced).
There could be a variety of reasons not to desire to send your kids to DC public schools. Again, that’s the advantages of a market-like system – people have the freedom to choose the products or services that best meet their needs. I see no compelling reason to take away this small step towards more education freedom for those who are trapped in DC’s horrible public schools.
Other than the fact that students have shown no improvement over their peers in their old schools.
Again, there are many problems with DC public schools other than its poor academic results.
Again, students report not feeling any safer in their new schools.
All the more reason to make sure kids aren’t stuck in a bad situation, wouldn’t you say?
The executive report indicated that the students in the private schools have access to libraries and other facilities such as computer labs. Did you take a look at the article I linked to which showed pictures of Cardozo High.
I must have missed the part about voucher programs fixing dilapidated schools. Can you point me to it?
It’s the magic of the market! If vouchers become common, public schools will allegedly feel the pinch and somehow magically turn themselves around because the magic of competition cures all ills!
In reality, conservatives love vouchers because they spell the end of public education, which means they spell the end of universal education, which means more people will vote Republican/conservative (whichever party takes over the conservative mantle in the future) because they won’t be educated as to the absolute shithole conservative policies have made of this nation in the last 28 years (minus the 8 of Clinton’s administration).
The silence on the point that I brought up in post 86 is deafening.
When the discussion is social welfare programs, conservatives love to bring up scammers and leechers as a reason why such programs don’t work (e.g., “welfare queen”). But a voucher program would be a scammer’s wet dream since there are opportunities on both sides. Besides the gentrying yuppies, you’ve got the wackjobs who would open “schools” in their garages. You’ve got the unscrupulous headmasters who would put voucher kids in segregated classrooms to appeal to wealthier families. You’ve got the parents in good school systems arguing that their Johnny and Suzy are too “special” for their neighborhood schools and deserve “better”. Can school districts really handle even more law suits?
Say you’ve got a school who would takes voucher money and then shuts down shortly afterwards. Does the school system use emergency funds to put those kids in a NEW private school? Or does it put them back in their neighborhood schools, despite not having enough teachers available to accomodate them?
These are real problems. I’d love for the people beating the voucher drum to address them.
monstro, there are a handful of voucher programs that exist around this country, in Milwaukee, Ohio, and Florida, for instance, not to mention DC. None of them experience the situation you describe, so obviously there are fairly easy ways to deal with it. Or if the situation you describe is widespread, how about some proof of that.
Do you really think that the people designing the program don’t think of this type of elemental fraud and take steps to address it?