Let's discuss vouchers!

I'm not for it. If you don't like the education system in your own town, then perhaps one solution, you might like to try, is to move to a town with a better education system.

The government provides public education. If a person does not care for the way that the system operates he/she is free to send his child to a private or parochial school. He should not expect the taxpayers to pay for that choice. In the case of a parochial school especially, the taxpayers should not have to pay for the child to learn about the parent's religion. That is the responsibility of the parents.

As New Haven said, if a person does not like the education system, they are free to move to a better school system. What about the people who can't afford it? If the schools that a person's child attends is important to them, they can stint on something else to provide the child the education that the parent wants to give the child.

I can't afford a lot of things, but I don't demand that the government provide it for me!

Pheonix - The government does not pay for our children's education, we do. Voucher programs do not hurt government schools, they help them. Perhaps you have not educated yourself on real-world, working programs and the successes they have had, primarily in raising the level of performance in underperforming schools. Voucher programs don't just say, "Here, everybody take a check and go where you want to go." First, a school is identified as underperforming. Second, efforts are made to improve the school. Third, if those efforts fail, parents THEN get a choice to move their child within the government system or outside of it.

In the first year of vouchers in FL, 78 schools were identified as underperforming. At the end of year two, 76 of those had been brought up to required levels, and only a handful of parents at the remaining two "bad" schools opted to take vouchers and move their kids.

Of course, the vouchers represent about 1/2 of the money the school system gets for a student, so, if the parents then put their kid in private school, the government school system actually ends up with more money per student to educate the remaining children. (Of course, if they move the child to another public school, all the money stays in the system.)

Consider this real-world example. Schools weren't "decimated", they were actually improved for everyone, and parents stopped being told, "Hey, we know the school sucks, but that's where your kid has to go.

In my opinion it is not the schools that are under performing it is parents. School vouchers will end up taking the brightest and most parentally involved out of the public school system and leaving them worse than they are now. As for vouchers they very much part of Bush's religious agenda and the blurring the line between church and state. Of course the conservative, religiously driven USSC does not see it that way.

Favor vouchers. Take your kids out of the public school system, and you still pay for the public school system through your taxes, primarily property tax in most states. Why should you not get at least a partial rebate in the form of taxes. Otherwise, you pay twice, your kids get educated once - maybe.

What if you're putting your kids through private school and still paying property taxes. Shouldn't you get a rebate?

au - Can you show me an example of a voucher program where your apocalyptic prediction is coming true? I have offered an example of a success story, yet you seem to ignore it in your arguments.

I find this is usually the case. Those who are opposed to vouchers are opposed in the abstract, and often based on a flawed concept of what voucher programs are. Strangely, when you present them with real-world examples of programs that exist, these same people often treat the real example as an abberation and discount its value in considering the issue far below that which they give their hypothetical, baseless concept of a voucher program.

It's as if you were debating the value of fire and came to the table with information about what fire has done in the world, and were met with "Oh, I don't think fire is like that at all...".

Hoo boy.

I am facing a busy day and will have to get back to this. I have about 15 windows open right now with various articles showing the problems with vouchers. I'm trying to find only the most definitive, and then trying to take only the most pertinent parts out of those. That will take a while.

I'll start with this, though:

"What Some Much-Noted Data Really Showed About Vouchers" by Michael Winerip

Before I express my opinion, I'd like to post a link to the thread where this topic came up. There are some pretty good posts there, and I think they make for interesting background reading if you're interested.

I believe vouchers are a good idea, for two reasons. First of all, I think schooling should be government-funded in order to give all kids a reasonably equal start. Unlike some extreme libertarians, I don't want a completely privatized system. Second, while I prefer it that schooling continue to be funded by the whole of society, I have no reason to believe that government is any more competent at running schools than it is at running Amtrak or the Postal Service. As far as I know, government has earned a well-deserved bad reputation in running those.

Therefore, if I was king of the USA and could freely choose America's system of education, I would give parents a voucher that covers the complete cost of educating their child -- $10000 per child and year, say. Parents could then decide for themselves which kind of school delivers the best value for their money. If liberals are right, most of the schooling will be provided by government schools. If conservatives are right, the bulk of all schooling would end up being provided by private schools.

The important point is, the issue would be decided by consumer choice, not by government decree. I very much prefer that.

-- Thomas

Glad you showed up, Thomas. Was going to invite you if you didn't find it on your own.

I really do have to go, but have found a great source here:

Frontline: Case Against Vouchers

A quote:



The separation of church and state issue, the fact that many of the alternatives are religion-based, as I said in the previous thread, bothers me a great deal.

Frontline: Case Against Vouchers

sozobe - Interesting article, though I don't see that it adds anything to the discussion. If a child is doing poorly because of a lack of parental involvement, moving the child to a different school is unlikely to have a measurable impact on that child's performance. Also, there is nothing in any program of which I am aware that limits the parents choice of subsequent schools to those with higher standards and better track records. This means a given parent might choose poorly. That is their right.

The issue to me is whether the government has the right to confiscate my money under the premise of providing a quality education for my child and then keep it and shrug its shoulders while failing to do so.

I consider voucher programs as a way of forcing government schools to deal with some of the market forces that drive other schools to compete for students by offering the best possible programs for children. And if those schools can't compete, we should replace them with ones that can.

scrat, did you read Winerip's article? The point was that data was manipulated to show that school vouchers showed gains, and then that manipulated data was cited widely as proof that vouchers worked. I think that is rather pertinent to the discussion.

Thomas - Good comments. I don't think you'll find an actual proposal or program such as you describe, but it's not a bad idea. Of course, as Duke of America, I would humbly suggest to my king that such a program should be selected, funded and run by the states (or not) as each state sees fit.

The so-called real-world experiences often have biases that influence the out-come -- but that are not truly attributable to vouchers -- or the effect voucher philosophy has on the community.

Let me give an example from outside the issue to see if I can explain what I mean:

We often hear the argument that religious run programs for the treatment of drug and alcohol abusers -- outperform programs run by governmental agencies -- or under governmental auspicies. Frequently, proponents of religious initiatives suggest that having a GOD involved makes the difference.

But the programs run by religious organizations -- just as programs such as the Betty Ford Clinic -- have long waiting lists of people anxious to get in. The people who are entering these programs are the lucky ones selected after waiting a turn -- most often people determined to kick their habits.

Naturally the success ratios for people like these are going to be better than for people who end up SENT to a program by a judge as part of a sentence -- as a punishment.

These kinds of people have no intention of kicking their habits -- and often sit in the programs waiting for the day they will be released so they can go back to their drugs of choice.

To compare the two -- or to suggest that one is better than the other -- is disingenuous.

In that same manner, to suggest that the changes noted in the Florida system are due to vouchers is disingenuous.

Many of the private and religious schools that do so well -- and supposedly show the benefits of vouchers -- are able to pick and choose whom they will accept -- and whom they will retain.

Public schools truly cannot do that -- or at very least, are more constrained in what they can do.

Perhaps that is what is needed.

Perhaps we have to eliminate some of the constraints on who may be eliminated from public schools also. Perhaps we should decide that we will only educate kids who show aptitude for learning. But, if taken to an extreme, I think that would be a step in the wrong direction.

My opinion: We have to work within the confines of the public schools -- with parents who feel their schools are substandard being given the choice of moving to areas where the schools are better -- or sending their kids to schools that get better performance. That coupled with SOME allowances for getting non-performing kids out of the schools would be a better way to go than the voucher thing.

Vouchers have become the darling of people who look for simple -- perhaps simplistic would be a better word -- solutions for very complex problems.

But I can take government loans and grants and use them to attend a private, religious university. Do you have the same church and state concerns there? If not, why not?

I just don't buy the "church and state" concern here. Government isn't trying to force anyone to go to a religious school, they are giving parents the FREEDOM to choose a religious education for their children. Surely that is fully compatible with the spirit (and letter) of the religious freedom the Constitution guarantees us.

Sozobe, I hope you'll find more definite studies to pitch us, because this one doesn't prove much. Even if the accusations by Mathematica are true -- a topic I'll spare you for now -- it only proves that one particular voucher study has contained serious errors. The assertion at the end of your story, that this is the only study that demonstrated significant benefits of vouchers, just isn't true, and I am half inclined to calling it a lie. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby alone has carried out several well-researched studies that have unequivocally come out in favor of vouchers. None of them have turned up evidence against them.

Next pitch, please

-- Thomas

It would be if the people who select that option pay for it with their own money -- and not be reimbursed by the government.

I agree with you, Frank.

Scrat
At this point since the participation in the program is very limited there is no antidotal evidence of either position. However, consider who will participate in the program.
1] Those who are now in private and parochial schools and paying for that privilege would be given a tax supported bonus.
2] Children of parents who give a damn.

With that in mind who would remain in the public schools of this nation? It would seem to me that the voucher system condemns the public school system to failure. Shall we just than write off the system as a failed experiment and those students that remain in it to failure?