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Do you support school choice?

Do you support school choice?

  • Total voters
    88
justabubba said:
i have a problem with my tax dollars being used to fund indoctrination in the form of an education. public dollars should not be used to teach students that evolution is an invalid theory, that the earth is only 6000 years old, that the Bible is the infallible word of G_d. tax money should not be used to underwrite the teachings of fundamentalists, including those within the American taliban, who believe the races - and sexes - should be segregated. let them spew their crap as they have a right to do ... only not using our tax dollars to do so
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It seems to me that there ought to be a corollary to Godwin's Law, that treats gratuitous comparisons to the Taliban, Al Quaeda, and Islamist terrorist in general, in the same manner as gratuitous comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis.

It is certainly becoming increasingly common to see Taliban/Al Quaeda/Islamist comparisons being used in exactly the same manner that Hitler/Nazi comparisons have long been used, and in exactly the same manner that Godwin's Law was intended to address regarding Hitler/Nazi comparisons.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
Related to “Poe's Law”, which holds that an extreme but sincere expression of a particular ideology can be indistinguishable from a mocking parody of that same general ideology. In general, a “Poe” is someone who tries to make fun of an ideology that he opposes, by acting out an extreme caricature of that ideology. You seem to be acting out an extreme caricature of the way that liberals like to falsely paint conservatives, leading me to suspect that you may be a liberal that is trying to put forth an unflattering mockery of conservatism.

As much as liberals try to paint conservatism that way, very few genuine conservatives are as bigoted and elitist as you appear to be. To see someone identifying as “Very Conservative” so openly expressing this kind of elitism and bigotry certainly suggests to be a greater likelihood of a Poe than of a genuine conservative.




Underlying all of what is quoted hereafter, is the assumption that children from poor families, living in poor neighborhoods, will only cause trouble, and that you do not want them sharing the same school with your children, and that you do not want your children to associate with them. You think that coming from a poor family, and living in a poor neighborhood, makes those children inferior to your own,and unworthy of the company of your children.

Also, there is the assumption that since you live in a nice neighborhood, and pay high property taxes, that children from poorer families do not deserve the same opportunity for a decent education to which you insist that your own children are entitled. There is no spin that you can put on this, to hide the underlying bigotry and elitism on which it is based.

You even argue that allowing these children from poor neighborhoods to go to school with your children will hurt “property values” in your neighborhood. I seem to remember, from when I was very young, hearing such arguments being made against allowing black people to move into “white” neighborhoods.

Indeed, for these poor and disadvantaged children, a decent education is the one most important key to enabling them to escape the poverty from which they came, and to have a shot at producing a next generation that isn't saddled with those same disadvantages.







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So basically, you're calling me a bigot, a snob, a racist, and a fake all in one post. OK Blaylock, that's your prerogative.

You're free to believe whatever you want about me, I don't really care. I'll tell you what I think about the issue at hand though.... and next time, don't put words in my mouth.

No one person is superior or inferior to anyone else. We're all God's children, and, as such, we all have an equal inherent value. I very much think that we have an obligation, those of us who are more fortunate, to assist those who are less fortunate for that very reason.

Let's not confuse that with being naive, though. It is statistically proven - the data are out there for anyone to see - that children from single parent families are more likely to fail out of school and are more likely to get in to legal trouble. It has also been shown - again this is not a matter of opinion but a matter of statistical fact - that kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be arrested and are less likely to graduate.

It goes on and on.

Now I get that we want to be nice to everyone, but let me ask you this - what is the job of a parent? More specifically, what is the job of a father?

To protect and provide for your kids. YOUR kids, not everyone else's. So as much as I do feel for those kids who are legitimately good kids that are stuck in a bad situation, my first responsibility is to my own children... that's my job as a father.

I want to ensure that I can send them to a school where I am reasonably sure they will be safe and will receive a good education. So what you call being a bigot, I call being a good and protective parent.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
It seems to me that there ought to be a corollary to Godwin's Law, that treats gratuitous comparisons to the Taliban, Al Quaeda, and Islamist terrorist in general, in the same manner as gratuitous comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis.

It is certainly becoming increasingly common to see Taliban/Al Quaeda/Islamist comparisons being used in exactly the same manner that Hitler/Nazi comparisons have long been used, and in exactly the same manner that Godwin's Law was intended to address regarding Hitler/Nazi comparisons.
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quit whining
American taliban is an excellent description of those who would inflict their religiously based moral opinions on the rest of us who do not share their same (in my view perverted) belief system, as exemplified by those who would teach our kids that evolution is not good science, while creationism/intelligent design is fact
 
vesper said:
Hard Truth, here is some hard truth for you.
In some school districts especially in inner cities, the amount of money we taxpayers put into security just trying to make sure there will be no knife/gun fights or selling of drugs is very expensive. We have gone that route of building new schools in these areas only to see them turned into slums within a year or two. Tables/chairs broken, bathrooms destroyed, graffetti marking up the walls. Destruction of books and computers. All for not! Some areas are just not worth investing another dime if possible. But within those areas there are those who really do want to learn but are losing out because the heathens populating the school take just about every spare minute a teacher has just trying to keep order taking away precious time to present the lesson. The kids who are wanting to learn are at a disadvantage and will remain so unless they have a way out of the Hell hole they are living. The behavioral problems for the most part can be linked to those who do not have a stable home life. Many are from single mother homes and truth be known if you asked them "who's your daddy?" they wouldn't be able to answer. Others live in homes where daddy may be a junkie or mama a ho. We all know these life choices result in a life of poverty and for the most part children are not well supervised. The parents do not show a responsible example to their children. Teachers can only do so much God love them. So until you can come up with a way to make women stop having babies out of wedlock and parents engaging in things like drug abuse which all leads to a life of poverty for their children, then the best thing we can do for the children that are trapped in that situation who truly want to learn is to provide them with vouchers so that they can see for themselves and experience an atmosphere where learning is respected.
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I don't consider it acceptable to give up on the difficult children. If we can educate autistic kids we can educate the others with behavioral problems. It may require starting with teaching acceptable behavior before getting into academics deeply, psych services, more pre-school, longer school days, extra aides for instructors and other costly measures, but it will be cheaper than paying for these kid's welfare, prison and mental health care costs when they become adults.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
It's not but I'm still waiting for your proof. Also, feel free to dispute any of the research done rather than attacking the source which is pretty common when one doesn't have a leg to stand on.
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Is somebody passing out that line for some of you guys to post? I believe I did provide sufficient evidence to challenge the research you linked, and what did you do? You attacked the source. You see, without going into unnecessary detail here, I have witnessed first hand how studies and research are done and how they can so easily be manipulated to produce pretty much whatever sort of results you want to produce. I am not at all saying that there is no valid research or that it is all bogus. It isn't. The study you cited might be perfectly valid for what it is. But when I can pull up case study after case study of success stories in which school choice benefitted the kids enormously and saved money to boot, a rational person would not cite your study as the way things absolutely are. But the NEA absolutely would.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Is somebody passing out that line for some of you guys to post? I believe I did provide sufficient evidence to challenge the research you linked, and what did you do? You attacked the source.
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No, Ad Hominim is one of the most commonly used logical fallacies. Where is your research? How could I attack a source you never gave to me? I'm still waiting.
 
justabubba said:
using the same health industry comparison, those 'dreg' students will be relegated to accept an educational equivalent to emergency room care ... expensive, inadequate, and inappropriate for their actual needs. the beast will have been so starved after paying out all the vouchers, there will be little money available to incur public education expense for those students who are without a private school willing to accept them and their voucher ... because the private schools will not have been built with them in mind as the voucher would not nearly accommodate the cost of educating those with mental, and/or emotional, and/or behavioral, and/or physical handicaps
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Are you dense? Private schools have to follow the same ADA guidelines as every other business so the physical handicaps are certainly handled. Additionally many private schools deal with, either specifically or as part of the overall student body, children with all kinds of emotional and mental needs. Some of the schools were created to handle those very problems. Additionally private schools typically operate at a lower expense per student than public schools.

AlbqOwl said:
All I am saying is that vouchers can help enable a parent to put the child into a good school.
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Not just that, but a school that's good for the individual student. My kid might not be doing well in School A, and yours is having a rough time over at School B. But it could well turn out that School B has what my kid needs to succeed and School A provides what's needed for your child. For that matter two different kids close in age in the same family might not go to the same school simply because of this ability to choose a school that can fit the child best.


What gets me in all this is that I so often hear the left cite what happens in Europe as to what we should do here. Ironically many European countries have school systems where the money for the student follows the student. If the student changes schools, then the old school looses that amount and the new school gains it. And it's working pretty well over there.
 
justabubba said:
quit whining
American taliban is an excellent description of those who would inflict their religiously based moral opinions on the rest of us who do not share their same (in my view perverted) belief system, as exemplified by those who would teach our kids that evolution is not good science, while creationism/intelligent design is fact
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Since it would be school choice then it would not be inflicted upon anyone.
 
Hard Truth said:
I don't consider it acceptable to give up on the difficult children. If we can educate autistic kids we can educate the others with behavioral problems. It may require starting with teaching acceptable behavior before getting into academics deeply, psych services, more pre-school, longer school days, extra aides for instructors and other costly measures, but it will be cheaper than paying for these kid's welfare, prison and mental health care costs when they become adults.
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That sounds really honorable but the "hard truth" is autistic kids most often have reinforcement at home. It takes teachers/parents and students who are willing to work together. I have several friends who are teachers. What I am getting from them is the lack of parental involvement in their student's life. They tell me they send out parent teacher conferences only to sit there all evening and have but a couple of parents show up for their meeting. Then they call the no shows personally and ask for another chance to speak with them about their child's progress and relay issues that the parents need to address with their children and it goes nowhere. Often the only time they hear from these parents is after the problem has gotten out of control and the child either ends up in detention or suspended. Then the parents manage to drag their arses into the school to bitch about the kid getting suspended. Your way of providing all these special services because the kids have jerks for parents, many are already in place and leaving those who actually still pay taxes a heavier burden to carry to pay for them. There is no way to rescue every child but those that you can by offering them another choice in school that they attend, should be paramount.
 
maquiscat said:
Are you dense? Private schools have to follow the same ADA guidelines as every other business so the physical handicaps are certainly handled. Additionally many private schools deal with, either specifically or as part of the overall student body, children with all kinds of emotional and mental needs. Some of the schools were created to handle those very problems. Additionally private schools typically operate at a lower expense per student than public schools.
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No, you are incorrect.

A religious entity is a religious organization or an entity controlled by a religious organization, including a place of worship and parochial schools.

Section 307 of the ADA provides that religious organizations and entities controlled by religious organizations are not subject to the requirements for public accommodations or commercial facilities under Title III of the Act. Religious organizations, such as Synagogues and religious-controlled schools may, however, accommodate individuals with disabilities at their own discretion, and do not waive their exemption from the requirements of Title III by doing so.
The Americans with Disabilities Act _ADA_ and Religion

Furthermore, many private schools whether religious are not, do not have to follow IDEA which is the law that protects the education of a person with a disability. Public schools are mandated to protect those rights.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Caring has very little to do with it. Kids who live in the inner city might have parents who care about them but aren't around very often. A single mother working two jobs to make ends meet is not going to be able to give her kid the attention he needs even though she might care about him very much.

Parental guidance, more so than caring, is often what separates well-behaved children who succeed from ill behaved children who fail in school.
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Ah, I see. Caring parents is not the problem then. So, this caring, but absent, parent, who is trying to get their kid into a better school, is not likely to be involved in the childs academic life?
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
No, you are incorrect.

A religious entity is a religious organization or an entity controlled by a religious organization, including a place of worship and parochial schools.

Section 307 of the ADA provides that religious organizations and entities controlled by religious organizations are not subject to the requirements for public accommodations or commercial facilities under Title III of the Act. Religious organizations, such as Synagogues and religious-controlled schools may, however, accommodate individuals with disabilities at their own discretion, and do not waive their exemption from the requirements of Title III by doing so.
The Americans with Disabilities Act _ADA_ and Religion

Furthermore, many private schools whether religious are not, do not have to follow IDEA which is the law that protects the education of a person with a disability. Public schools are mandated to protect those rights.
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I did note private schools over parochial schools for ADA. That said, can you provide a study that shows how parochial schools today are being built? While I am sure many of the older buildings are not ADA compliant, I'm willing to bet that all the newer ones are. Many religious organizations are building to accommodate people with disabilities. My dad's church just expanded and incurred a major expense to up grade the older sections to be handicap accessible. I am going to have to look up more on IDEA as the idea.ed.gov website doesn't seem to be responding well tonight.

All that aside, unless you can show studies that there are not private schools that deal with children with various handicap I am not incorrect. I do not assert that ALL private schools do so, but such schools exist. Camphill is one such school.

Your whole argument here seems to be that private and parochial schools won't do these things. Well they do. They may not have to but they do. And if a school doesn't exist in an area, a voucher system could well be the incentive needed to start one.
 
mac said:
Oh? Which ones?
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Arizona does not have to participate in state testing. Florida and Georgia do not have to administer state testing to children in private voucher programs. Parents can elect if they wish to have their child participate unlike public schools where all children are forced to participate without choice. The state of Utah has the freedom to choose what test the child will take. Same with Oklahoma. So, while public schools are being closed down due to NCLB testing scores, these programs don't need to worry about this kind of high stakes accountability.

http://www.ncsl.org/documents/educ/StateByStateVoucherComparison.pdf

Also: Private schools do not necessarily have to accept special needs students and for some that do----In the meantime, private schools do not have to employ certified special education teachers, and they are not subject to the same mandates as public schools under the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. New voucher plan for special-needs students revives dispute
 
maquiscat said:
I did note private schools over parochial schools for ADA. That said, can you provide a study that shows how parochial schools today are being built? While I am sure many of the older buildings are not ADA compliant, I'm willing to bet that all the newer ones are. Many religious organizations are building to accommodate people with disabilities. My dad's church just expanded and incurred a major expense to up grade the older sections to be handicap accessible. I am going to have to look up more on IDEA as the idea.ed.gov website doesn't seem to be responding well tonight.

All that aside, unless you can show studies that there are not private schools that deal with children with various handicap I am not incorrect. I do not assert that ALL private schools do so, but such schools exist. Camphill is one such school.

Your whole argument here seems to be that private and parochial schools won't do these things. Well they do. They may not have to but they do. And if a school doesn't exist in an area, a voucher system could well be the incentive needed to start one.
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Here is what you said to another poster, "Are you dense? Private schools have to follow the same ADA guidelines as every other business so the physical handicaps are certainly handled." They are not necessarily required. I never stated they never do but they have a choice unlike public schools that are mandated by law. IDEA is not mandated in many private schools, so that compromises a child's right to the same kind of education that public schools MUST provide under IDEA law.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
Arizona does not have to participate in state testing. Florida and Georgia do not have to administer state testing to children in private voucher programs. Parents can elect if they wish to have their child participate unlike public schools where all children are forced to participate without choice. The state of Utah has the freedom to choose what test the child will take. Same with Oklahoma. So, while public schools are being closed down due to NCLB testing scores, these programs don't need to worry about this kind of high stakes accountability.

http://www.ncsl.org/documents/educ/StateByStateVoucherComparison.pdf
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You're talking about testing requirements, not curricula requirements.

Also: Private schools do not necessarily have to accept special needs students and for some that do----In the meantime, private schools do not have to employ certified special education teachers, and they are not subject to the same mandates as public schools under the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. New voucher plan for special-needs students revives dispute
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Vouchers won't only be used at private schools.
 
mac said:
Show the evidence. There's nothing keeping the well performing schools under a voucher system from rejecting a student that doesn't meet minimum standards so long is there is a school available required to accept the student. That school should have much lower standards of success and it would leave the truly "bad apple" students concentrated in controllable locations, allowing the not so bad apple students freedom from their influence. If it's just for academic reasons, I think a voucher school (public) should be required to accept an under performing student for a minimum period at least in order to see if the student is capable of catching up in a better environment.
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That's what happens now and most of what this argument is about. Inner-city schools, as MaggieD's earlier post hinted at, tend to push under-performing and problem students into different schools than the better performing ones. I know our inner-city school system does it as does the one in St Louis and I'd be willing to bet most of them do.


If you just take the performance/cost of public suburban schools (instead of including inner-city schools) then your performance/cost argument for a voucher system becomes untenable.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I'm a little suspicious of this organization (the NCSPE) as it gives no information on who founded it, who it is affiliated with, and/or where it gets its funding.
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Really?

NCSPE: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
The NCSPE receives generous funding from the Ford Foundation, the Educational Testing Service, Kaplan, Inc., and NIEER at Rutgers University . The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Acheles and Bodman Foundations also generously provided support to the Center. The Center also receives generous funding for an Iscol Research Fellow for Educational Equity and Policy.
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NCSPE: Funding

We are most grateful for the leadership support given to the NCSPE by the late Frank Newman, extraordinary founding Advisory Board Chair.
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NCSPE: Advisory Board
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Newman_(educator)


Henry M Levin, Director
Professor Levin is the William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the David Jacks Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Economics at Stanford University. He has published over 300 articles on the Economics of Education; his most recent book is Cost-Effectiveness for Education Policy co-authored with PJ McEwan (AEFA, 2002).
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NCSPE: Team





AlbqOwl said:
I suspect it is a tool of the NEA or other such organization who is trying to preserve the status quo in public education any way that it can.
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I suspect you don't like it's message, which makes you blind and/or prejudice - but you're more than welcome to attempt to prove your unfounded claim.
 
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Bob Blaylock said:
No, I do not agree with this. Not when the true cost of the private school honestly includes the taxes that the parents of the private school students are still having to payto support the public schools that they are not using, on top of the tuition that they are paying to the private school.
[snip]
A parent with a child in a private school has to pay for two schools, while only getting the benefit of one.
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I'm not a parent and I have to pay for one school as does every other land owner in the district, whether they have children or not. This is a common tax-payer burden that applies to everyone. The cost of the private school doesn't include a person's normal tax burden, so whining about parents having to pay for two schools is simply dishonest.


Saying it more than once isn't going to make it any less of a lie.
 
MoSurveyor said:
I'm not a parent and I have to pay for one school as does every other land owner in the district, whether they have children or not. This is a common tax-payer burden that applies to everyone. The cost of the private school doesn't include a person's normal tax burden, so whining about parents having to pay for two schools is simply dishonest.
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Actually you have to pay for every school. The money goes into a big pool on the various levels and then gets spread out. So a district that has more people in it than it's neighbor might not get more money, nor will one school with more students necessarily get more money (in comparable economic areas).
 
MoSurveyor said:
I'm not a parent and I have to pay for one school as does every other land owner in the district, whether they have children or not. This is a common tax-payer burden that applies to everyone. The cost of the private school doesn't include a person's normal tax burden, so whining about parents having to pay for two schools is simply dishonest.


Saying it more than once isn't going to make it any less of a lie.
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Yes whether we have children or not, it is the duty of all to pay taxes to provide an education for the children because we as a society are the beneficiaries. However, after paying those taxes and your child is not receiving an adequate education, what is a parent's recourse? After the State takes your tax dollars, if it can not provide for your child a school where he/she can grow and thrive, then they owe it to the child to provide one that will. Here in Ohio we have 5 state funded scholarship programs that help families who are eligible to send their children to a participating private or public school of their choice. There are all types of schools enrolled in the program to best meet each student's needs. Whether the problem for your child be a safety issue, a learning disability, or poor performing public school, the parent has school choice in Ohio.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
Not all those states have accountability for curricula either.
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At the very least, the great majority of states do. Those that don't, if any, would be rare exceptions.
 
MoSurveyor said:
That's what happens now and most of what this argument is about. Inner-city schools, as MaggieD's earlier post hinted at, tend to push under-performing and problem students into different schools than the better performing ones. I know our inner-city school system does it as does the one in St Louis and I'd be willing to bet most of them do.


If you just take the performance/cost of public suburban schools (instead of including inner-city schools) then your performance/cost argument for a voucher system becomes untenable.
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My argument was based on suburban schools. With the exception of "elite" private schools, most private schools operate at 75% of the cost public schools pay per student. In my predominantly white, middle to upper class, county, the average tuition is $8000 while the average public school expense per student is $13,000.
 
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