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Do you support school choice?

Do you support school choice?

  • Total voters
    88
scatt said:
Yeah, stupid people support forced taxation. Fixing the problem of no demand is not fixed by forced anything.

Charity.
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yes, voluntary tax compliance
how novel
wonder why no one thought of that before, scat
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DaveFagan said:
The Gov't brags about its' spending on Education, and a lot of money is spent. It is spent on buildings, sports complexes, etc., but not on merit based teacher pay increases. Therefore, communities get some really nice buildings that look good and that is IMAGERY, not substance, when you are discussing education. US students have regressed on a world wide scale due to Federal teaching guidelines of sound good, accomplish nothing platitudes and programs with no substance. In New York State, the schools don't like home schoolers because the Local School Districts get about $88/day for each student from State aid and they don't get that for the home schooled. That just gets lost. The Local School Districts don't want to acknowledge when home schooled are ready for college long before their institutionalized counterparts and fight to prevent issuing the paperwork necessary to enroll these students in College. If the home schooled are ready for College long before the Local School students, it makes the local School Districts look bad. Actually, it just puts a microscopic view on the fact that our educational system has some flaws and no one wants to fix them because they will lose their monetary windfalls. Online education is the future and it only requires that the online student be properly motivated and acknowledges it is the student's responsibility to do the schoolwork. It is not a teacher's responsibility to beat knowledge in to the student's head. Many parents think that is how school works and that schools are just convenient babysitters. There is never a "one size fits all," but in the USA personal responsibility for one's educational motivation is a lost agenda.
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Agreed, more money for teaching how to use paragraphs and less for sports complexes.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I mean in what nation, what state, what society does this fantasy scenario where one gets to pick and choose which taxes they want to pay actually occur in? I can't think of anywhere on earth where this is the case.
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None of course, consent does not exist within a state.
 
scatt said:
Yeah, support requires proof. If you support it, you would pay.
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and you obviously support it, scat
otherwise, you would have relocated to a place where such taxes were not compelled
 
Bob Blaylock said:
Well, nobody except for every parent who sends their child to a private school, and has to pay tuition to that school as well as having to pay taxes to support the failing public schools that they aren't using.
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there is NOT ONE parent who is required to send their child to a private school instead of a public one
the parent chooses to pay twice
 
justabubba said:
there is NOT ONE parent who is required to send their child to a private school instead of a public one
the parent chooses to pay twice
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They choose to pay once, they are forced to pay twice.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I would agree that schools should do a better job preparing some kids for skilled vocations. However, private schools are certainly no better in that regard and are in most cases much worse. How many private schools out there have an AG program, or Shop? I can't think of a one. The vast majority of private schools are either college prep, or fundamentalist.
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Because there is currently very little demand for private K-12 schools does not mean, that if vouchers were a reality, that an expanded private market would not quickly develop offering all sorts of educational options. The current standardized tests measure mainly two subjects, math and English, yet employers want (and students need) many other skills.

One option, that I don't see discussed much, would be a "standard" K-6 school and then a 1/2 day Jr./Sr. HS program teaching only math and English allowing for a 1/2 day of either taking additional college prep, arts, science, computer, agricultural, sports or trade classes at another facility (public or private). It does not take college to be a very successful tradesman, retailer, cook or even a computer programmer but it does take specialized training, possibly even including some sort of cooperative partnership with an employer.
 
scatt said:
They choose to pay once, they are forced to pay twice.
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nope
with their taxes, they have paid for their child's enrollment in public school
should they CHOOSE to pass on exercising that option then they have CHOSEN to pay twice
 
Federalist said:
Yes, I am absolutely in favor of school choice. Choice is good.
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Fifteen years ago, the people behind the charter school movement had one message that they put forth to parents and the community: our school do a better job at educating students. Then several years went by and their kids took the test and guess what we found out over and over and over again? Not so much if at all do they do a better job than the public schools. Sure, you can cherry pick a few schools or students and paint that picture if you are intellectually dishonest. But pretty much over all the results were no different than public schools. In fact, some of the fast buck shysters that went into the charter business actually underperformed compared to public schools.

I distinctly remember in the Fall of 2010 going to a south eastern Michigan meeting for charter schools for newly elected members of the Michigan legislature or - like me - their chief of staff. Having been away from education for six years I was struck by all the literature and speakers for charter schools having had changed their message in the intervening years. It was no longer - we can do it better, Now they had a new message:


CHOICE IS GOOD.

So ask yourself, why were we promised one bill of goods and then the charter industry engaged in a blatant bait and switch and went to a different bill of goods?

Answer that honestly and it tells you a great deal about the political motivations behind the charter industry.
 
scatt said:
None of course, consent does not exist within a state.
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Then what is your point? It seems to me that you don't like reality, so you throw some fantasy world out there and try to get people to debate you on it.
 
haymarket said:
Fifteen years ago, the people behind the charter school movement had one message that they put forth to parents and the community: our school do a better job at educating students. Then several years went by and their kids took the test and guess what we found out over and over and over again? Not so much if at all do they do a better job than the public schools. Sure, you can cherry pick a few schools or students and paint that picture if you are intellectually dishonest. But pretty much over all the results were no different than public schools. In fact, some of the fast buck shysters that went into the charter business actually underperformed compared to public schools.

I distinctly remember in the Fall of 2010 going to a south eastern Michigan meeting for charter schools for newly elected members of the Michigan legislature or - like me - their chief of staff. Having been away from education for six years I was struck by all the literature and speakers for charter schools having had changed their message in the intervening years. It was no longer - we can do it better, Now they had a new message:

CHOICE IS GOOD.

So ask yourself, why were we promised one bill of goods and then the charter industry engaged in a blatant bait and switch and went to a different bill of goods?

Answer that honestly and it tells you a great deal about the political motivations behind the charter industry.
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I'm not sure of your message here.

You seem to be objecting to the idea that choice is good and instead saying that lack of choice is good, which seems an absurd position to take.

My stance, and the stance taken by nearly all economists, is that when firms are required to compete with other firms for customers, quality rises and prices fall. I am in favor of affordable, quality education, so I want to see schools working hard to provide better education for a lower price.
 
Federalist said:
I'm not sure of your message here.

You seem to be objecting to the idea that choice is good and instead saying that lack of choice is good, which seems an absurd position to take.

My stance, and the stance taken by nearly all economists, is that when firms are required to compete with other firms for customers, quality rises and prices fall. I am in favor of affordable, quality education, so I want to see schools working hard to provide better education for a lower price.
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Schools already do that. Communities compete against each other for residents based on the quality of their public school system.
 
joko104 said:
I suppose all but vouchers to religious church rule schools. That should not be paid by tax dollars nor a basis for tax deference or avoidance.
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I disagree. The military and even Congress have chaplains. The GI Bill and Pell grant are used for faith based education at the discretion of the student. Universities like Baylor, Southern Methodist, Notre Dame, etc. have students right now who finance their education with assistance from Uncle Sam. Even Harvard is technical a Faith Based institution. In these cases, the STUDENTS are technically the recipients of the government funding, not the schools, which is how School Choice works.

If, however for some odd and ill advised reason schools and not students become the direct recipient of government funding for school choice education, there are ways that it can be done that will comply with the law based on the Faith Based Initiative model where churches get government funding for all sorts of things from after school care, tutoring, anti-poverty programs, 12 step programs, etc. provided they follow some simple guidelines.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Schools already do that. Communities compete against each other for residents based on the quality of their public school system.
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Yes they do, which is a result of socialized schools. I would prefer a system that allowed multiple competing firms within the same community, rather than a single socialized firm.

I can't help but see public schools in the same way that I would look at public shoe dispensaries, public automobile dispensaries, and public grocery dispensaries.
 
Federalist said:
Yes they do, which is a result of socialized schools. I would prefer a system that allowed multiple competing firms within the same community, rather than a single socialized firm.

I can't help but see public schools in the same way that I would look at public shoe dispensaries, public automobile dispensaries, and public grocery dispensaries.
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Its not the same thing at all. Education is more or less an infrastructure investment. Cars, shoes, and autos are consumer products. As I stated earlier in the thread, Everyone has the choice to send their kids to private school if they choose to do so, or to home school if they want. However, education funding is finite, thus it should be judiciously allocated. So why should a parent get a voucher to send their kid to a religious private school instead of public school if they are in a district that has exemplary performance and the only reason that parent wants their kid to go to a religious private school is that parent does not like the fact that creationism is not taught in science class.

In failing inner city schools I think vouchers can have a role as well as Charter and Magnet Schools. However, there is no reason to pull money from a successful public school district just to subsidize the religious education of some fundies kids. For example, here are the stats for the public school district our kids attend:

Average ACT Scores: 25.2
Average SAT Composite: 1,789

Proficient in Reading: 96%
Proficient in Math: 96%

In comparison, the average ACT Scores for Home Schooled kids is 22.6. The average SAT composite for home schooled kids is 1083. The point being that there are lots of public school districts with exemplary performance, so why should parents in those school districts get a taxpayer funded voucher to send their kids to a private school that doesn't even perform as well as the public school does?
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Schools already do that. Communities compete against each other for residents based on the quality of their public school system.
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Sure they do - everyone knows that is why folks move to the ghetto. ;)

To vote with your feet is not free, it requires the income necessary to move to (or get transportation to) where these "best" schools are, otherwise you get to "choose" only what the public school bus drops you in front of.
 
Federalist said:
I'm not sure of your message here.

You seem to be objecting to the idea that choice is good and instead saying that lack of choice is good, which seems an absurd position to take.

My stance, and the stance taken by nearly all economists, is that when firms are required to compete with other firms for customers, quality rises and prices fall. I am in favor of affordable, quality education, so I want to see schools working hard to provide better education for a lower price.
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Choice is not inherently good or bad. It is simply choice.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Its not the same thing at all. Education is more or less an infrastructure investment. Cars, shoes, and autos are consumer products.
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In order for me to agree with you, I'd need to know by what criteria you categorize a particular good as infrastructure.

I can't see any good reason to establish a monopoly socialized firm as opposed to multiple competing private firms competing against each other to offer the best quality and price.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Sure they do - everyone knows that is why folks move to the ghetto. ;)

To vote with your feet is not free, it requires the income necessary to move to (or get transportation to) where these "best" schools are, otherwise you get to "choose" only what the public school bus drops you in front of.
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I agree, that is why I do think there is a role for vouchers in a failing inner city school district. However, I do not believe that we should be paying for the religious education of some fundamentalists kids simply because they don't want to send their kids to public school. If you are in a successful public school district and you want to send your kids to a private school or home school, then you should be able to do so, but do it on your own dime. For example, its perfectly appropriate for taxpayers to pay for airports. However it is not a good use of taxpayer money to pay for some guys private airstrip because he doesn't like waiting in line at the local airport.
 
Most definitely YES!!!!!! It is the ONLY way to get children out of their failing schools and for them to get an good education. It would also FORCE the teachers unions to stop siding against the community the teachers serve (the operating word there is "serve") as they are responsible to give a reasonable return on the communities investment. They side against ensuring their teachers are providing for the education of the children. Where tenure is used to ensure a teachers job, even if they don't do anything to provide for a proper learning atmosphere for the children to learn. They even protect pedophiles in some cases. This would all change if there was school choice and student left to go to better schools with the tax dollars following them to those schools. Competition is everything!
 
haymarket said:
Choice is not inherently good or bad. It is simply choice.
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Perhaps, but I prefer a system that provides people with the ability to make their own choices about how to use their limited means, not one in which these choices are made for them by others.

By not taking away people's ability to choose, schools are required to compete with other schools for customers. When firms have to compete against other firms for customers, quality rises and prices fall.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I agree, that is why I do think there is a role for vouchers in a failing inner city school district. However, I do not believe that we should be paying for the religious education of some fundamentalists kids simply because they don't want to send their kids to public school. If you are in a successful public school district and you want to send your kids to a private school or home school, then you should be able to do so, but do it on your own dime. For example, its perfectly appropriate for taxpayers to pay for airports. However it is not a good use of taxpayer money to pay for some guys private airstrip because he doesn't like waiting in line at the local airport.
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That is why vouchers must be structured to be a win-win. An easy way to help ensure that vouchers work that way is to limit them to 80% of the current public, per pupil educational costs. For each student, that opts for a voucher, the public school, that would have had to fund their education, gains (keeps) 20% of that funding but now must spend nothing on that vouchered student's education.
 
Tetelestai said:
Most definitely YES!!!!!! It is the ONLY way to get children out of their failing schools and for them to get an good education. It would also FORCE the teachers unions to stop siding against the community the teachers serve (the operating word there is "serve") as they are responsible to give a reasonable return on the communities investment. They side against ensuring their teachers are providing for the education of the children. Where tenure is used to ensure a teachers job, even if they don't do anything to provide for a proper learning atmosphere for the children to learn. They even protect pedophiles in some cases. This would all change if there was school choice and student left to go to better schools with the tax dollars following them to those schools. Competition is everything!
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I have a question. Clarification on your opinion, actually.

What happens to the kids whose parents can't afford to move out of a failing school? - parents with restrictive jobs, rural schools, widowed/divorced parent homes, etc. Say a school of 500 students loses half of its funding and most of its teachers because 300 kids leave; and then the school gets even worse. What do the remaining 200 kids that can't move do? Suck it up, or something?
 
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