school vouchers (1 Viewer)

[Maurile Tremblay]

I remember some old threads on this subject, but I couldn't find any in a search. Maybe they were on Old Yeller.

With Betsy DeVos recently named as the Secretary of Education, we should perhaps renew this discussion.

To start things off, here is Nathan Robinson's article in Current Affairs arguing that vouchers would be bad, and here is Scott Alexander's partial rejoinder and additional comments.

 

[saintfool]

short answer? it's helpful for wealthy families and private schools. 

 

[Foosball God]

Here is John Oliver's take

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Are we operating under the assumption that the voucher system would involve the same amount of education spending as our current system?

 

[NutterButter]

short answer? it's helpful for wealthy families and private schools. 

Sign me up for the 6k of my property taxes that go to public schools we don't use

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Are we operating under the assumption that the voucher system would involve the same amount of education spending as our current system?

I think that's a decent place to start, but not a strict requirement.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Are we operating under the assumption that the voucher system would involve the same amount of education spending as our current system?

I think that's a decent place to start, but not a strict requirement.

Actually, that seems like kind of a complicated issue because I believe school budgets (cost of schooling per student) vary from city to city. So I don't know how any kind of federal program (maybe block grants?) would affect things.

I'd like to view school vouchers as a way to (try to) improve quality rather than cut costs, so starting with current education spending as a floor seems sensible. But I wouldn't want to try to say, "Education costs would have risen by 20% per year under the old system, so we should make sure they increase by at least 20% per year under the new system as well." While trying to cut immediate costs may not seem right, trying to cut increases in the rate of future spending seems sensible to me.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Actually, that seems like kind of a complicated issue because I believe school budgets (cost of schooling per student) vary from city to city. So I don't know how any kind of federal program (maybe block grants?) would affect things.

I'd like to view school vouchers as a way to (try to) improve quality rather than cut costs, so starting with current education spending as a floor seems sensible. But I wouldn't want to try to say, "Education costs would have risen by 20% per year under the old system, so we should make sure they increase by at least 20% per year under the new system as well." While trying to cut immediate costs may not seem right, trying to cut increases in the rate of future spending seems sensible to me.

That's fine, I just know from past discussions like this, voucher proponents will put out some numbers and then we'll have this exchange:

ANTI-VOUCHER GUY:  Wait, now you're spending 50% more than we currently do on education!

PRO-VOUCHER GUY:  Maybe, but education will be way better than it is now.

ANTI-VOUCHER GUY:  Well, if we're gonna spend 50% more, we could have way better education under the current system.

I'm just trying to head this off at the pass.  For what it's worth, reading the blog posts in the OP, I think the pro-voucher guy definitely wins the argument.  But I think that's largely because the anti-voucher guy decided to focus on weaker arguments rather than stronger ones.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

For what it's worth, I have a pet theory that at least partially explains the "mystery" that pro-voucher blogger describes in the beginning of his post, namely why educational results have remained flat over the last 50 years while we are spending a lot more money.  It's feminism's fault.

 

[Black Box]

For what it's worth, I have a pet theory that at least partially explains the "mystery" that pro-voucher blogger describes in the beginning of his post, namely why educational results have remained flat over the last 50 years while we are spending a lot more money.  It's feminism's fault.

You'll have to unpack that one.

 

[Man in the yellow hat]

For what it's worth, I have a pet theory that at least partially explains the "mystery" that pro-voucher blogger describes in the beginning of his post, namely why educational results have remained flat over the last 50 years while we are spending a lot more money.  It's feminism's fault.

I'd like to hear more.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

You'll have to unpack that one.

OK, but I don't want to hijack Maurile's thread.

Anyway, this is my theory.  50 years ago, there were very few professions that were open to very smart, talented women.  One of those professions was teaching.  Because women had very few career options, the public could get a lot of high quality teachers at a cost that was much less than they would have commanded if we had to pay them what they were really worth.  Because of these exceptional teachers, we managed to get pretty decent educational results at a very cut-rate price.

Today, teacher salaries are roughly the same, when adjusted for inflation.  But opportunities for smart and talented women have changed dramatically.  So most of those superstar women don't go into teaching anymore.  They become lawyers and doctors and businesswomen instead.  The average person that goes into teaching today just isn't as skilled as the average person of yesterday.  So we have to compensate for these less skilled teachers by spending a lot more money in other areas, just to keep educational achievement constant.  For example, we spend more on technology, and para-educators, and specialist teachers that work one-on-one with certain kids, etc. 

I don't mean this as an indictment of all teachers today.  There are still a lot of good ones doing amazing work, sometimes under very challenging circumstances.  I'm just pointing out what I consider to be one larger societal trend that has had an impact.  I'd also say that there are other societal trends that have caused the costs of education to rise over time.  Stuff like the decline in two-parent homes and the greater attention to identifying kids with specific learning issues.  But I definitely think that increased opportunities for women is a factor.

Now please return to voucher talk.  This was all a distraction.

 

[Black Box]

That's a good observation and it makes sense. Thanks, fatguy.

 

[rodg12]

OK, but I don't want to hijack Maurile's thread.

Anyway, this is my theory.  50 years ago, there were very few professions that were open to very smart, talented women.  One of those professions was teaching.  Because women had very few career options, the public could get a lot of high quality teachers at a cost that was much less than they would have commanded if we had to pay them what they were really worth.  Because of these exceptional teachers, we managed to get pretty decent educational results at a very cut-rate price.

Today, teacher salaries are roughly the same, when adjusted for inflation.  But opportunities for smart and talented women have changed dramatically.  So most of those superstar women don't go into teaching anymore.  They become lawyers and doctors and businesswomen instead.  The average person that goes into teaching today just isn't as skilled as the average person of yesterday.  So we have to compensate for these less skilled teachers by spending a lot more money in other areas, just to keep educational achievement constant.  For example, we spend more on technology, and para-educators, and specialist teachers that work one-on-one with certain kids, etc. 

I don't mean this as an indictment of all teachers today.  There are still a lot of good ones doing amazing work, sometimes under very challenging circumstances.  I'm just pointing out what I consider to be one larger societal trend that has had an impact.  I'd also say that there are other societal trends that have caused the costs of education to rise over time.  Stuff like the decline in two-parent homes and the greater attention to identifying kids with specific learning issues.  But I definitely think that increased opportunities for women is a factor.

Now please return to voucher talk.  This was all a distraction.

This is a solid theory that I can get on board with.  I think it also pivots to having both parents working full-time jobs and the effect that has on children's education as well.

Now, back to vouchers...

Intrigued to see where this discussion leads.

Signed,

Son of two public school teachers, brother of a public school teacher, boyfriend of a public school teacher.

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

I have never seen any definitive evidence that charter schools or  voucher systems "work" (or do not work).   At best it is still really unclear.  

http://www.data-first.org/questions/how-do-charter-schools-compare-to-regular-public-schools-in-student-performance/

On average, nationally, students in 17 percent of charter schools performed significantly better than if they had attended their neighborhood traditional public school. 

On the flip side, students in 37 percent of charter schools performed significantly worse, and students in the remaining 46 percent of charter schools did not perform significantly better or worse than if they had attended their neighborhood traditional public school. However, research also shows that students in charter high schools score higher on college entrance exams (e.g., the SAT or ACT) and are more likely to graduate high school and attend college than similar students in traditional public schools.

 

[whoknew]

If this isn't the appropriate thread (I don't want to hijack), I understand but before we talk about whether school vouchers will fix public schools, can we discuss whether public schools need fixing? 

I was listening to Steele and Ungar the other day on SiriusXM and they had a guy on (I wish I remembered his name - Ali Something) who said that most of America's public schools are second to none in the world. But that inner city schools are on par with third world country schools. 

I don't know if that's true. Anyone else? 

If it is true, do we really need an overhaul of the entire public school system? Are vouchers really the answer for this problem?

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I was listening to Steele and Ungar the other day on SiriusXM and they had a guy on (I wish I remembered his name - Ali Something) who said that most of America's public schools are second to none in the world. But that inner city schools are on par with third world country schools.

Going by a documentary I saw in the nineties, the large disparity in the quality of public schooling in rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods results from at least two factors. (I can think of more, but here are the two mentioned by the documentary as I remember them.) First, school budgets vary from city to city, often funded by property taxes, so schools in rich neighborhoods will often have much bigger budgets than schools in poor neighborhoods. (Suburban areas are often in different cities from urban areas even if they are in the same county.) And second, most of the typical budget in fancy suburban schools is spent on stuff like teachers, textbooks, computers, etc. Meanwhile, a non-trivial portion of the budgets in urban schools are spent on security guards, in some cases metal detectors, cleaning up vandalism, etc.

 

[Nugget]

I've always looked at vouchers vs. public schools like ObamaCare vs. single payer.  

 

[ffldrew]

I think you need to carefully label public charter schools, private charter schools, private secular schools and private religious schools when it comes to what this administration wants to do regarding vouchers and how you "grade" the results past and present. This administration and many of the the representatives from the Deep South want this voucher system to encompass private religious schools as a choice on where you will be able to spend those tax dollars. If that money is taken away from the public schools in the south we are headed back to a segregated school system funded by your tax dollars with the public schools standing little chance to compete and teach poor and disadvantaged children. Generally this will be a windfall for parents down south who already send their kids to private religious schools.

 

[whoknew]

Going by a documentary I saw in the nineties, the large disparity in the quality of public schooling in rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods results from at least two factors. (I can think of more, but here are the two mentioned by the documentary as I remember them.) First, school budgets vary from city to city, often funded by property taxes, so schools in rich neighborhoods will often have much bigger budgets than schools in poor neighborhoods. (Suburban areas are often in different cities from urban areas even if they are in the same county.) And second, most of the budget in fancy suburban schools is spent on stuff like teachers, textbooks, computers, etc. Meanwhile, a non-trivial portion of the budgets in urban schools are spent on security guards, in some cases metal detectors, cleaning up vandalism, etc.

So vouchers and choice would help resolve issue 1 but not necessarily issue 2? Well, I guess that assumes -actually thinking about it, I don't know how a voucher/choice system would work. Right now, education is mostly funded through local property taxes, right? With some small measure of federal assistance? 

How does the federal gov't then plan to implement a voucher/choice system? If the voucher is only for the federal portion of public education, that would not really affect much. I suppose the feds could withhold other funding unless the state went to a voucher system. But how does that system work? Is a Detroit student's voucher worth the same as a Grosse Pointe (wealthy suburb) student's voucher? And if so, from where is that money coming?

Also what happens to a kid who has parents who just don't give a ####? Is that kid better/worse/the same as in the current system?

I know that's a lot of questions, but I'm trying to figure out how this works. 

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

Going by a documentary I saw in the nineties, the large disparity in the quality of public schooling in rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods results from at least two factors. (I can think of more, but here are the two mentioned by the documentary as I remember them.) First, school budgets vary from city to city, often funded by property taxes, so schools in rich neighborhoods will often have much bigger budgets than schools in poor neighborhoods. (Suburban areas are often in different cities from urban areas even if they are in the same county.) And second, most of the typical budget in fancy suburban schools is spent on stuff like teachers, textbooks, computers, etc. Meanwhile, a non-trivial portion of the budgets in urban schools are spent on security guards, in some cases metal detectors, cleaning up vandalism, etc.

What doc was that?

I can only comment on what I see around here:  

Most schools in poorer neighborhoods (Title I) actually receive more funding thanks to ESEA.  They also qualify for more various other grants.

Most schools is poorer neighborhoods actually pay their teachers a little better since it is a "tougher" job.

I have no idea if the last point is true or not.  

To be blunt it's pretty simple:  If you want to know why kids in certain schools perform better (higher test scores, higher graduation rates, less expulsions etc) just take a look at the community the school is located in.   And it has very little to do with funding.  You can throw millions of dollars at a low performing school/district and it is no guarantee you will see improvement.  

It's all about the families in the school community.  If the parents don't care, don't get involved, don't raise their kids to respect education...then the school is probably going to be low-performing.

 

[Black Box]

I've always viewed school as it is what you make of it. If the kid and parents just don't care, it doesn't matter where they go: public school, private school, whatever. I don't think we should write those kids off, but it is what it is.

Kids who have parents that care will tend to succeed, on average. These parents will send their kids to elite private schools ($$$$$), they will send their kids to private school ($$$$), they will move to a good school district ($$$), they will home school (wildcard), or they will just settle with whatever public school hand they are dealt ($). It is that last group who might stand to benefit the most with a voucher system if they are dealt a terrible hand. All the other kids will do fine no matter what system we have, as long as it is a decent system IMHO.

I'm not sure what to make of the situations where the parents don't care, but the kid does care. They'll probably do alright in the end, but the parents aren't going to make changes for the sake of education no matter the system.

I also wonder whether or how a voucher system might affect the care level of parents and kids, if it can at all.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

What doc was that?

This one. Part of the Free To Choose series by Milton Friedman. It was made in 1980, so it's quite dated now. I'm sure federal funding for primary and secondary education worked rather differently back then.

Still interesting to watch even now.

 

[jonessed]

Going by a documentary I saw in the nineties, the large disparity in the quality of public schooling in rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods results from at least two factors. (I can think of more, but here are the two mentioned by the documentary as I remember them.) First, school budgets vary from city to city, often funded by property taxes, so schools in rich neighborhoods will often have much bigger budgets than schools in poor neighborhoods. (Suburban areas are often in different cities from urban areas even if they are in the same county.) And second, most of the typical budget in fancy suburban schools is spent on stuff like teachers, textbooks, computers, etc. Meanwhile, a non-trivial portion of the budgets in urban schools are spent on security guards, in some cases metal detectors, cleaning up vandalism, etc.

California allots a substantial amount of money to schools based on the number of ESL and free lunch students to try and compensate for this (LAUSD gets an extra $5K/student).  It may improve poor schools (I don't believe there is definitive evidence one way or the other yet), but it certainly hasn't come close to closing the gap.

 

[RCon]

Going by a documentary I saw in the nineties, the large disparity in the quality of public schooling in rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods results from at least two factors. (I can think of more, but here are the two mentioned by the documentary as I remember them.) First, school budgets vary from city to city, often funded by property taxes, so schools in rich neighborhoods will often have much bigger budgets than schools in poor neighborhoods. (Suburban areas are often in different cities from urban areas even if they are in the same county.) And second, most of the typical budget in fancy suburban schools is spent on stuff like teachers, textbooks, computers, etc. Meanwhile, a non-trivial portion of the budgets in urban schools are spent on security guards, in some cases metal detectors, cleaning up vandalism, etc.

I suspect the quality of the actual instruction/education (between wealthy and poor neighborhoods) may actually be more similar than we think.  However, parents in wealthy neighborhoods are more able to supplement education via private tutors.  I think this may account for a non-trivial portion of the performance difference between such neighborhoods.  For example, I'm unimpressed with the quality of the math curriculum and instruction at my child's school, but I know that more than half of the students are getting some sort of extra instruction via private tutor, Kumon, etc.

 

[Rustoleum]

Anti-voucher. (full disclosure - parents, were public school teachers, sister is a teacher, I am the director of instructional technology for a public school district.

I have an issue with the argument that people "don't use" the public schools and therefore their  tax money shouldn't go there. You do benefit from the public school system and have every day of your life whether you went to one or not. It is your choice to send your kids where you want, but I feel it is your obligation to help fund a public education for everyone in your locale. Further defund the public schools and see what happens to the local economy, service industry, the quality of the workforce, crime rates, etc. 

Another concern I have with vouchers/charter schools is:  Although success rates vary widely,the public school system in my state has VERY specific regs on measuring accountability and what public funds can be spent on. My district has been improving, but we have been low-performing as we struggle with a very high transient student rate (in addition to being mostly low-income, we also seem  to end up with all the kids that get flushed out of the Catholic schools because they have discipline issues.) I worry that charter schools and private religious and non-religious schools lack that level of oversight and could lead to major problems both financially and academically. I just don't see this as leading to a more successful education system, but more so to creating a more permanent impoverished class than what we have now.

Anyway, it's Friday, I'm tired, and that wasn't the most eloquent anti-voucher stance possible, but there are my concerns.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I suspect the quality of the actual instruction/education (between wealthy and poor neighborhoods) may actually be more similar than we think.

My impression is that the instruction is not similar at all.  Most of my info comes from my wife, who works in education in D.C.

 

[mr. furley]

i, for one, am in favor of taking away funding from public schools. that's where people who can't afford education go. we shouldn't be helping poor people get educated. we should only cater to the well to do.

i don't want my taxes paying for dumb kids who won't make it anyways. 

let's widen this advantage as much as we can and then start our own country.

 

[jonessed]

What doc was that?

I can only comment on what I see around here:  

Most schools in poorer neighborhoods (Title I) actually receive more funding thanks to ESEA.  They also qualify for more various other grants.

Most schools is poorer neighborhoods actually pay their teachers a little better since it is a "tougher" job.

I have no idea if the last point is true or not.  

To be blunt it's pretty simple:  If you want to know why kids in certain schools perform better (higher test scores, higher graduation rates, less expulsions etc) just take a look at the community the school is located in.   And it has very little to do with funding.  You can throw millions of dollars at a low performing school/district and it is no guarantee you will see improvement.  

It's all about the families in the school community.  If the parents don't care, don't get involved, don't raise their kids to respect education...then the school is probably going to be low-performing.

I don't entirely agree with this.  I've experienced this from both ends.  My kids went to a moderately ranked school in a pretty mixed neighborhood (economically and racially).  They not only had lots of additional state funding, but also federal grants for things like computers and audio/visual equipment.  That extra money definitely helped.  How much it helped and who it helped was hard to gauge.  A lot of the money went to teacher's salaries which helped keep good teachers, but the crappy teachers took the same money.  The most involved parents still made sure their kids got the best teachers and the rest got what they got. What was the biggest factor in parental involvement?  Yup... income.  Or at least the nicer houses, cars, etc.  If the school tried to blunt teacher selections the most active families and the best students would have moved or sent their kids to the local charter school, the school rating would fall, and that neighborhood would shift from diverse to not diverse.

We ended up moving to a different city eventually for career reasons.  The elementary school gets significantly less money, but the parents can make up much of the difference through bonds and direct donations.  There are still good and bad teachers.  I would actually say the makeup of teacher quality is about the same.  The primary difference with the bad teachers is the parental involvement.  They can pretty much muscle through a bad teacher with volunteering in classrooms, extracurricular education, summer school, diligence at home, etc.

It's complex and money can only do so much.  More money helps, but I think it's muted a lot by the difficulty in actually getting the money to push through change in an entrenched system.  In a system like the LAUSD?  No way.  That system is so big, so beaurocratic, and so entrenched it would take a monumental amount of money to get meaningful change.

By far the most important factor is going to be parental involvement.

 

[GroveDiesel]

The idea that school funding has a strong causal effect on educational results has been pretty well discredited. One just has to look at districts like Camden, NJ and Washington DC that are low performing and yet receive extremely high dollar per student funding to start questioning that correlation/causation.

I think Maurice's point about WHAT the money is being spent on is probably on the right track. I know a Camden, NJ public school teacher and I can assure you it's not being spent on teacher salary or books for the kids. 

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Example of bias in the New York Times.

 

[saintfool]

Example of bias in the New York Times.

Getting it wrong is not 'bias' but whatever. 

 

[saintfool]

My impression is that the instruction is not similar at all.  Most of my info comes from my wife, who works in education in D.C.

this is pretty true. it's not really the same because the kids enter the classroom at often very different levels. kids in better schools tend to start school at grade level. they do this because they are often enrolled in quality PreK programs. this is not an option for many families, but especially so with the working poor. HEADStart is a federal program but it's wildly uneven in how it is implemented city to city, community to community. kids playing catch up, for the most fundamental developmental skills, are playing catch up for the rest of their lives pretty much. while curriculum and instruction can be largely uniform - state standards, Common Core, education publishers, whatever - when teachers are forced to teach remedial learning at every grade level.  

what would help maybe actually turn the needle would be giving vouchers to families that allow them to enroll their kids in an adequate PreK program. childcare costs are ridiculous but childcare is not the same as a quality PreK education and experience.