On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 09:24:33AM -0400, Vitaliy wrote:
> Byron Jeff wrote:
> > 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 DINKs do not care whether the money is spent at a private or a public
> school.

Missed the point. DINKs have no kids. Why should they have to pay taxes for
education at all?

> 
> > 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.
> 
> Sorry, but the argument is absurd. You are saying that if I decide to
> transfer my child to a private school, I deprive the society of the benefit.

No. If you transfer your funds to a private school that does not have equal
access then you deprive society of that benefit.

You're arguing this issue from the specific stance of your single child and
the public funds that are allocated for your single child. That system
doesn't work because everyone does not value their children's education
equally. That's why vouchers don't work.

Public education is inefficient. We agree on that. However the best
solution is the one that works for all (or virtually all) children, not
just for the specific few.

Vouchers do exactly the opposite. Instead of pooling resources together to
the benfit of all, it divides the benefit so that only the priviledge few
get a huge gain, while everyone else is left behind.

We need to work to find a solution that benefits the greatest number of
children.

Vouchers are not it.

> 
> > [...] Private schools cherry pick students. That's why they are
> > exclusive and successful.
> 
> I don't know where you get the idea that private schools "cherry pick" their
> students.

Because they do. The process starts with the fact that if you don't have
sufficient funds to send you student, they can't get in. Or for even more
exclusive institutions even if you have sufficient funds, you still cannot
get your child in unless you offer something special over and above the
money. Or they offer "scholarships" to students who cannot afford to pay.
But by definition, to get a scholarship you have to show superior talent in
some way. That my friend is the definition of cherry picking.

> I believe private schools are successful because they have a
> strong incentive to be successful. And AFAIK, their entrance exams aren't as
> "exclusive" as you make it sound, it certainly doesn't take a genius to pass
> them.

Public schools only entrance exam is that you live in the school district.
So even having an entrance exam, which of course helps selects students,
again by definition means that students are cherry picked.

You really believe that private schools would be inherently better if
anyone could attend for no cost?

> > 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.
> 
> There are actually two ways to achive a level playing field:
> 
> 1. Put the same burdens that are born by public schools, on private schools.
> 2. Remove the burdens.

#2 isn't achievable. The reason is that the law of the land is that
everyone under a certain age must be in school. For those who are not lucky
enough to get into a private school, that means public school. So if you
remove the burden that public schools must educate everyone, then where
exactly do you put those students who the public school puts out for poor
academic performance? Home school? Jail?

That's why my restrictions point exactly to #1 above. Everyone has the same
restrictions. Let every type of system duke it out on an equal plane and
let the best system win.

> I am saying, get rid of the restrictions.

You can't do it. Everyone must be educated. Everyone must be in school. So
therefore there must be a school of last resort. Right now that's the
public school system. If you remove the restriction, then you'll have
a percentage of students that will have nowhere to go to be educated.

Let me go ask my wife what percentage of students she would put out of the
system if she had the opportunity... She says 5%. So what would you do with
those students?


> > Then you'll have a truly free educational
> > economy.
> 
> Not with the restrictions you won't.

Yes you will. Because then the best system for educating all students will
rise to the top and poor inefficient systems will be eliminated, or at
least marginalized. But that can't happen if you have a multi tiered
educational society.

You keep saying that parents will do what's best for their children. We
disagree on that. However, given all things being equal parents generally
will choose what they perceive to be a better situation. If the playing
field is level, then the tilt will occur to the best system, not the best
stock.

Let me give you an example where I live in the suburbs of Atlanta. Because
of No Child Left Behind, schools are ranked by test scores. Three basic
categories:

1) Passing schools
2) Marginal schools
3) Failing schools

Now of course when schools are failing, blame falls on the teachers and the
administration, which often get shuffled in the process. One result of this
is that when a school has failed for 2 consecutive years, then students
from that failing school can transfer to a passing school.

Now you'd think that the passing school has a better system, so when these
students move to the passing school, they do better.

Nope. It's exactly the opposite. The student fail in the passing school and
the test scores for the passing school drop once they start accepting these
students.

Exactly the same thing will happen with vouchers. These private schools
will get worse, not better, with the influx of marginal and failing
students. That is if these private school function on the same playing
field as everyone else.

> [snip]
> > 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.
> 
> Under a voucher system without the restrictions, great schools will
> naturally attract more vouchers, and will rise to the top. Mediocre schools
> will quickly sink.

Without the restrictions, schools will put out any student that doesn't
help their bottom line, i.e. test scores. If you're an institution that's
accepting public money, then you can't cherry pick anymore. You have to
educate anyone that shows up to your door with a voucher in hand, just like
the public schools have to do now. Then the best schools will rise to the
top.

Let me explain my wife's 5% putout rate. That 5% of kids are the ones that
discourage and disrupt the educational process for everyone else. A smart
school will do everything in their power to get these kids gone. But if
like the public schools you have to keep them, then the school that finds
the best way to manage them is the one that rises. But with the easy
solution of expulsion, you'll never find out which system manages them the
best.

> 
> [snip]
> > 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.
> 
> There seems to be a misunderstanding. I don't think you understand what I am
> proposing. :)

OK. Try me again.

> I am proposing that ALL schools, irregardless of whether they're public or
> private, should switch to the voucher system. If you think I'm advocating
> privatizing the public school system, you won't be too wrong. ;)

I understand that. However, any school that accepts vouchers and has other
monetary requirements, i.e. tuition, will have a built in advantage over
schools who have no other monetary requirements, i.e. public schools.

> Just like in any other normal industry, there will be a continuum: from
> "Cadillac" schools to "Volkswagen" schools. My theory postulates that the
> "Volkswagen" schools will make far better use of the money than the public
> schools.

But to pound my issue again, that any school what can put out (or not
accept) students they don't like will have an advantage over schools that
can't. And since education is a requirement for all students, then you'll
have an underclass of the population that no school will want to educate.
And whatever school can keep that group out of their doors will have a
inherent advantage over the others.

So be it by self selection, lottery, or equal division, there must be an
equitable way for each school to get a slice of these problem students and
have to figure out how to educate them.

> 
> > [...] Schools will cherry pick who they want then dump the
> > rest back into the public schools.
> 
> I have a hard time believing that any private enterprise would turn away a
> $9000/year customer.

Absolutely. When that $9000 a year customer is disrupting 20 other
customers worth $180,000/yr and makes it difficult to attract the next 30
customers worth $270,000/yr you'd best believe a school would get rid of
that $9000/yr customer in a heartbeat.

There's a rule of thumb in the landlord business: "It's better to have a
property vacant than to have a bad tenant." Simply put it's better to lose
money in the short term than to have long term headaches.

That's the whole point of cherry picking. And it's a practice you'll have
to disallow if you ever truely want to figure out what's the best
educational system for a broad range of students.

> How many businesses do you know of that are picky about
> their customers?

Most. Most business books tout a strategy of attracting the best customers
and enticing them to come back.

If you ran a restaurant and you had a customer come in every night and
complain about how bad the food is loud and all night long, how long would
it be before you'd start turning the guy away?

> I can only think of a couple off the top of my head (e.g.,
> some insurance companies, maybe some clubs). If an insurance company turns
> me down, I know there are plenty of others who are eager to take my money.

At a higher premium I'd bet.

> >> 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.
> 
> Nine. Thousand. Dollars. :)

Not a lot of money in the long run. If you can dump one student and attract
5 or 10 because of it, they'll be gone in a heartbeat. And that's exactly
why expulsion on academics is so dangerous in a market economy.

> That is a lot of reasons for the school to make sure it has done everything
> in its power to retain the student. And if he is expelled, there are plenty
> of other schools competing for the vouchers.

Nope. They'll continue to expell the problem student until they end up
right back where they are now, the public school which cannot expell them.

So again to keep it fair, if you accept public vouchers, then you cannot
expell for academics. Now let's see who'll figure out the best way to get
those kids to improve.

> Even today there exist companies that specialize in helping kids do better
> in school. Under the voucher system, there would be plenty more such
> companies to make sure that no child is ever left behind.

Now that may be true. But will Kaplan and Sylvan be willing to do the job
for just the voucher?

> > 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.
> 
> What I said was, "it provides an additional incentive".

There is no additional incentive for the primary stakeholder, the student.

> >> 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.
> 
> Since none of us has the hard data, we'll have to agree to disagree on this
> one.

I believe I can get my hands on the data of schools in my area's test
scores before and after accepting second choice students. If I can I'll
post them.

> > 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.
> 
> Oh yeah?

YEAH! ;-)

> 
> - Why does it take twice as much money to educate a "dumb" public school
> pupil, than a brilliant private school one?

Because the dumb public school has to deal the the dumb public school
student. Public schools have the entire bell curve, not just the highly
motivated, well moneyed students at the upper end of the bell curve.

> - Do private schools employ incompetent, lazy, or indifferent teachers?

Actually a lot of them employ uncertified teachers. They are in private
school because they don't have the education to work in a public school.

> - How long do you think it would take a private school to fire a pedophile?

Now that's a straw man. So I'll leave it alone.

> >> 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.
> 
> Low test scores and high dropout rates indicate a problem with the system,
> they don't mean that parents don't want the best for their children.

Yes it does. Because any parent that wants the best for their children will
do whatever it takes to make sure that they have high test scores and don't
drop out.

And once again I'll call you out on the fact that until you have private
school systems that function on the same playing field as the public ones,
you cannot definitively fault the system for the cause of the problem.

> I remember a story told on PBS by a now famous black physicist (name,
> anyone?). His mother, after learning that him and his brother were doing
> poorly in school, removed the TV from their bedroom, and made them write
> book reports. It was only years later that they discovered that she could
> barely read the reports.
> 
> > 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. [snip]
> 
> And that proves that parents don't want the best for their children?

It shows that parents don't always know what's best for their children.
Many parents simply don't have the skillset to make the best decisions.

> > 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 vouchers will give the poor, uneducated folks a choice, an opportunity
> to provide a better future for their kids.

But not if there are additional barriers to entry for their use. The whole
point is that the public school system has no barrier to entry. It's free
to its users, requires no additional funds to attend, and you can't be
rejected. Private school is 0 for 3 in those categories.

So makes you think that priave schools are going to all of a sudden thrust
open their doors?

And I've already been on the $9,000/yr-student merry-go-round. No need to
spin it again.

> What you described above is a
> pattern of children from broken families attending broken schools and
> creating more broken families.

Absolutely. And while they may not in fact make any better choices given a
free market, that having a truly unencumber choice gives an opportunity for
a level playing field.

> I was forced to transfer to an inferior school just because our family moved
> to a different neighborhood, despite my protests. The kids you talk about
> are forced by the public school system to attend the schools in the same
> ghettos where they live, depriving them of the opportunity to break the
> vicious cycle.

I'd love to break the cycle. But it won't be broken if schools accepting
vouchers have unequal access.

You can't have it both ways: public money and unequal access. You either
have to have both public money and equal access or allow for neither.

> [snip]
> > 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.
> 
> You're the expert, but I'll give it a shot. :)
> 
> Both types of children (distruptive, learning disability) would benefit from
> a more flexible system that the vouchers will create.

That's what my wife says.

> Instead of ignoring the problem, the disriptive kid can be counseled by a
> psychiatrist, given proper diagnosis/medication. The child with the learning
> disability can benefit from one-on-one tutoring, or maybe just a different
> teacher who can "get through" to him.

But you have to have equal access to voucher accepting schools so that
these student will get those opportunities. The easiest solution for a
school is to simply get rid of the problem, to deny them that access.

That's why I'm pounding the table for equal access. Without it, the system
will stratify so much faster it won't be funny.

Truthfully the public school system already functions this way. People tend
to self segregate as it is. You gave an example above of the inferior
school because you moved. 

I have 3 girls at home. None of them are in their district schools at each
of three levels: elementary, middle, or high school. Why? Because none of
the district schools have an environment conducive to superior education.

The best system will only come out of equal access.

> ==>Once my girl brought home a frownie because she couldn't grasp the
> concepts of "more" or "less". She was so happy when she finally "got it" --
> I used different words (bigger/smaller) to explain, something her teacher
> wasn't able to.
> 
> Finally, it is OK for some students to drop out of the system. I mean, it
> would be cruel to keep a retarded boy in the same classroom with normal
> kids. The vouchers can still be used to satisfy his special ed needs.

Current public school systems are mainstreaming kids at an alarming rate.
It's another aspect of the problem. The problem is that if you use 504 IEPs
to keep kids out, then they'll end up right back at the bottom of the
bucket.

> > Trust me teachers do not come into the system indifferent or incompetent.
> > It is beat into them on a daily basis.
> 
> I hear you. :(
> 
> > Of course. Part of that problem is that the pay isn't sufficient to
> > attract
> > highly competent and motivated teachers.
> 
> Byron, do you know this for sure, or are you repeating the myth that the
> teacher's union is continuing to perpetuate?

I know for sure. I'm a public educator that's making a lot less money than
if I were in a private school or in industry. It's my personal decision to
balance money with other aspects of my life. However, with most folks it's
all about the almighty dollar. And education doesn't pay as well as
competing industries.

> I personally know a teacher who told me he is making $50k a year, plus full
> benefits. And let me remind you that teachers work only nine months out of
> the year.

I know some that are making a lot more. However the question is both the
education level of the teacher and the tenure of service.

> > 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.
> 
> I don't see the voucher system in the same light. I see them as giving every
> student a choice, and rewarding the schools that make the best use of tax
> dollars.

I would agree with the last point if there were equal access across the
board. However if it's going to be an unequal system, then I fear it will
fail and fail badly.

> I'm not sure whether you noticed, but we agree on more things than we
> disagree. It only looks the other way because I snipped all the parts we
> agree on. :)

I understand. We both agree on the fact that the current system is flawed
and needs to be fixed. Just how to go about doing it is the question.

> I honestly appreciate your feedback, it definitely helps to see the picture
> from a different POV.

Same here.

BAJ
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