On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 01:29:12AM -0500, Vitaliy wrote:

I have no idea how this thread got jump started again after a month or so.

> Byron Jeff wrote:
> >> We often get angry about our government's misuse of tax dollars. It makes
> >> me
> >> even angrier when the solution is simple and obvious. In the case of
> >> public
> >> education, the solution is "vouchers". As long as public schools remain a
> >> government-run monopoly, situation will continue to deteriorate.
> >
> > As an educator and a parent I don't think that vouchers are as simple as
> > you think. Here in the US the concept comes across the boards every few
> > years. The problem is that as presented as a supplemental resource instead
> > of an inclusive one. So for better schools that have high tuitions,
> > vouchers
> > become a subsidy for families who can fundamentally afford it.
> 
> Public schools get their money from taxes. They are also available to
> everyone (rich or poor). In my state, the government spends $9000 per
> student per year on public education[1]. If I decide to send my child to a
> private school, I would essentially pay twice: I have to forfeit my right to
> the $9000 that my taxes went toward, plus I have to pay the private school
> fees.
> 
> Does this not seem unfair to you?

Those taxes paid are not specifically for your child. What about DINKs who
have no kids at all? They still pay and get no specific benefit for those
funds.

The public school funds are for the benefit of the entire society, not just
specifically for you. So paying them are orthogonal to paying for tuition.

Also I address your argument later on when I point out that if a private
school accepts vouchers, then they cannot accept any additional tuition
funds from the parents. In essence it is a transfer of the $9000 for your
child to that school, but nothing else.

> > Also such
> > schools will have entry requirements that many students will not meet.
> 
> This point is irrelevant to the discussion. Academic ability is not tied to
> a person's economic means, many a poor student entered MIT and Harvard on a
> scholarship.

But it relevant. Private schools cherry pick students. That's why they are
exclusive and successful. I'm arguing that they would not have nearly the
same success or environment if they had to function under the same
restrictions as the public school environment.

My whole point is that if you want to transfer public funds to private
institutions, then those private institutions have to play by the same
rules as the public ones. Then you'll have a truly free educational
economy. Then the schools with systems that work despite the student mix
(both academically and economically) will rise to the top.

But it's patently unfair for private institutions to be able to pick the
best and the brightest from the public school system, take their talent and
their funds, without having to deal with the same issues that the public
school system has to deal with on a daily basis.

> > If I were doing vouchers, I'd make it a truly free market by adding the
> > following:
> >
> > 1) If your school accepts vouchers then the voucher is the only
> > renumeration that you can receive for a student.
> >
> > 2) If your school accepts vouchers then you must accept any student with a
> > voucher regardless of their educational profile.
> >
> > 3) If your school accepts vouchers then there must be strict guidelines
> > for
> > expulsion, none of which can be academically based. You can retain
> > students, you can remediate them, but you can't put them out for
> > acadmeics.
> >
> > 4) If your school accepts vouchers then you must publish your school's
> > test
> > results.
> 
> The restrictions you're proposing hardly help make it "free market".

See above. If it's going to be a free market, then it must be a level
playing field for all participants. If you give private school A the best
students, additional funds (tuition from the parents), and the ability to
put out any student that doesn't meet muster, while public school B must
function only with the funds available, must keep all their students, and
are depleted of the best students (see school A above), then who do you
think is going to produce the best product? That's a no brainer.

If a school accepts public funds, then they must accept all the public
school issues in order to level the playing field. Then the best school
system given the same resources will rise to the top.

> > Yes it's brutal. But the above four requirements are the restrictions
> > under
> > which public schools function. Then those who think they can do a better
> > job will see that the solution isn't as easy as they think.
> 
> Of course they can do a better job. Nobody argues that the quality of
> education is better in private schools, and tuition cost is generally half
> or less of what the public system spends, per student[2].

But the tuition is the separator between the public and private schools.
When you have a parent that's willing to pay for their child's education,
you already have a built in motivator to produce a better student. Private
schools are not better systems. Private schools simple start with better
stock. You give a private school the same circumstances that public schools
deal with on a daily basis, you'll not get anything close to the same
result. And that's the point of my restrictions above.

The upshot is that you'll create a further class division between the haves
(who can afford the private school tuition) and the have nots (who can't).
But now you're funding this division with public funds. And that's the
atrocity of vouchers.

Now I'll be the first one to admit that public schools systems don't work.
But allowing motivated parents to fund private schools with public funds
isn't the solution to the problem. The solution is to give different types
of school systems the opportunity to prove that they can educate the same
group of students better than the other guys given the same resources. But
the key is that you can't be exclusionary for that system to work. If your
system is truly better, then when weak students with unmotivated parents
come into your system, you still produce better product than the other
guys.



> The public schools are hugely inefficient. What's worse, they have little
> incentive to do better. On at least two prior occasions, I posted a link to
> a flow chart that shows how impossible it is to fire a teacher in the United
> States, even if they were charged with selling cocaine or committed a "crime
> involving physical or sexual abuse of a minor or student"[3].

Agreed. Public school systems don't work. I've put 4 kids through that
system and my wife works in it. I'm well aware of the issues.

> In a true free market system, instead of giving the tax dollars to the
> public school system, the government would give them to the parents, in the
> form of vouchers. The public schools would compete for the vouchers, along
> with other schools. In that case,

Agreed again. But the other schools cannot be given any additional
advantage over the public schools. Any such advantage will inherently make
those private schools look better than the public schools be default.

> 1. Whether vouchers is "the only renumeration" would be largely irrelevant,
> since private schools generally spend far less than public schools.

Good start.

> 2. If a school decides to turn down a student based on her IQ, there will
> always be other schools competing for the vouchers.

Nope. Doesn't work. Schools will cherry pick who they want then dump the
rest back into the public schools. They'll have huge demand for the best
students while making the public schools look terrible. Inherent advantage.
If they take vouchers then they must take any student with a voucher. Prove
that their system is better with any student.

> 3. Expulsion on academic basis actually sounds like a great idea, as it
> provides an additional incentive for the students to perform. Schools would
> exercise this option as a last resort anyway, because expelling a student
> means losing their voucher money.

I'm trying real hard to keep from chuckling. Getting rid of bad students
improves your test scores. Improved test scores increases enrollments.
Increased enrollments means more vouchers.

Schools will ditch poor students so fast it'll make your head spin.

And if you think that fear of expulsion will get students to perform then
you really don't understand the problems that public school systems have.

> 4. I don't see why publishing test data would be a problem for private
> schools, since they outpeform public schools.

Not if you level the playing field. You'll watch those scores drop like
dead ducks.

Private schools are only better because they have better students and
better parents. You remove that and you'll find that they are absolutely no
better than public schools.

What schools are better? I don't know? There's never been a level playing
field to test upon because public schools systems are dumb and rigid and
private schools are elite and cherry pick students and parents.

And that's the whole point of my system. It creates a publicly funded free
market lab where everyone has the same types of students, and the same
problems, and the same resources. Then better systems should emerge from
the process.

> > The bottom line is that the vast majority of students are not interested
> > in
> > school. And at least in the US, the contingent of parents who are only
> > interested in using public school as a sitting service is huge. It's a
> > terrible combination which frankly education officials are having a tough
> > time dealing with.
> 
> I strongly resent that. My five year old is _very_ interested in learning,
> and as a father I want the best for her.

That's your five year old. And that's probably because of you! Highly
motivated parents create highly motivated students. But you and I and
everyone else on this list (and the vast majority of their children) are
way up on the bell curve. Public schools have to deal with the whole curve.
And the vast majority of that curve has unmotivated students and
disinterested parents.

> The vast majority of parents want the best for their children.
> Unfortunately, under the current system, they don't have a choice.

Your perception isn't grounded in reality. You can look at the test scores
and dropout rates to see that's the case.

Here in the Atlanta area we have pockets where the average generation gap
is 13 years apart. You have 26 year old grandparents and 40 year old great
grandparents. None finish school. Many don't work or have marketable
skills. Most are simply trying to survive. I'm currently reading "Growing
up Literate: Learning from Inner-City Families" by Denny Taylor and
Catherine Dorsey-Gaines. It's a bit dated (1988) but it outlines the
struggles of teaching children to read and write in improvrished
environments.

The point is that while vouchers as you propose them can certainly help
highly educated, highly motivated families, it will do little for poor,
uneducated folks that the public school systems struggle to educate.

The right educational system uplifts everyone, not just the select few that
were born into families with all the built in advantages.


> There are many reasons some students are not interested in school, you
> listed one in point 3 above -- they know the school will graduate them even
> if they can't read. The second major reason is the indifference and/or the
> incompetence of teachers.

You are absolutely correct. But simply allowing those who know better to
withdraw their children and their associated funds isn't going to improve
the overall system.

You've left out the indifference and incompetence of school and system
administrators too. They often will not pull disruptive kids out of the
classroom environment. Kids who make things intolerable for everyone else.

But what do you do with all of these elements? What do you do with an 8
year old who can't read, add or subtract and is in the 1st grade for the
3rd time? What do you do with constantly unruly or disruptive kids. Private
schools have it easy. Put them out. Simple. But where they go then? Right
to the public school, who can't put them out. Or more accurately when they
finally do put them out of one system, the parents simply move (or borrow
an address) to another district and the cycle starts all over again.

Trust me teachers do not come into the system indifferent or incompetent.
It is beat into them on a daily basis. 

> 
> > I'll follow up with some more later. I have to run and teach some students
> > who almost want to be there.
> 
> I attended high school in the US, and I remember many of my teachers with
> gratitude. Unfortunately, I have also met teachers who were less than
> competent, and couldn't have cared less about their students.

Of course. Part of that problem is that the pay isn't sufficient to attract
highly competent and motivated teachers.

But the point is that the system is flawed in a multifaceted way. But
withdrawing the best students and their funds isn't the way to fix it.

BAJ
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