Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/grammar)

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

!*WARNING*! Massive wall of text! !*WARNING*!

Dezaad said:

Yes, they would have to accept any student the public schools are required to accept.

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As I see it, having schools which cater to a specific type of student has both positives and negatives to it.

• A positive is that a more specific and tailored teaching environment has the potential to, in the end, produce a better educated graduate.
  
• A negative is that students in such a tailored , specific teaching environment would have little to no contact with other types of students...something essential in my mind to producing a well-educated graduate.

Perhaps if there were specific, tailored schools which taught the students which fit that category certain subjects, but once or twice a week the students would attend a class with all other types of students? I can imagine students dividing into groups, calling those from other groups various names...

Perhaps students could be taught in tailored teaching environments up to a certain point and then tossed into the sea which is middle/junior high/high school or whatever.

^ Me thinking while typing. ^

Dezaad said:

What about them? Let them teach using whatever philosophy they wish, Let them teach whatever emphasis they wish. As for gender specific, I have no objection, just make them accept people from the gender on a first come first serve basis.

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This is reasonable, perhaps. But what if the teaching style they use does not fit the student they are required to accept? I doubt that any student learns the same way as another. The ideal, of course, would be to have each student have 1 teacher. That is the role parents are supposed to take when their child is dealing with homework.

Dezaad said:

The only effect is that they would have to deal with the difficult students. If the school is going to be publicly funded, then it must address the issue of educating difficult students.

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Reasonable. But what limits will be placed on how they deal with said student? And my previous response also has some bearing.

Dezaad said:

No, I do not think that private schools should have to deal with a Union if their school has not been unionized. However, I think I might require a private school to only hire teachers with teaching credentials... that is, if they want to accept vouchers.

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What are the requirements for teaching credentials? Are they reasonable to the level of teaching? Who sets the requirements? Are teaching unions involved in any way in setting the requirements for teaching credentials? If so, would this not give them leverage on private schools who did not have unionized teachers?

Dezaad said:

There is room for that in the system I have described.

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Good.

Dezaad said:

The schools that are not teaching well aren't failing at this task due to not being specialized enough. It is mostly due to the fact that they have to deal with problems epidemic in our broader society. Requiring private schools to have to address those problems too would help prevent society from shoving those broader problems under our collective rug.

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I personally think that better education is a key if not THE key to solving most if not all of those "problems epidemic in our broader society".

Dezaad said:

The day we forget completely that we are all in this together will be the day just prior to our complete failure as a society, and deservedly so, in my view.

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I think I agree with this statement.

Dezaad said:

Perhaps. But, my recommendation would help that situation in any event.

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I think standards for various areas of study are needed. But the danger is that teachers may "teach by the test", or something. This, I have read, is a problem in some areas of the world. Not to mention some areas of the USA.

Dezaad said:

Nope, that's not what I said at all. I am, however, preventing public money from going to schools that would refuse to do their part in meeting society's goal of educating ALL of the populace.

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I don't see how tailoring their education program to a certain type of student prevents them from "doing their part in meeting society's goal of educating ALL of the populace." Yes, they aren't teaching all types of students, but that in and of itself might be one of the reasons they could possibly do better at teaching the ones they DO teach.

Dezaad said:

Yes, I want to continue the 'confiscation of tax' for all sorts of things, like national defense, the FDA, student grant/loan programs, etc. etc. If YOU don't want to live in a society, then go someplace where there isn't one, like... Somalia. I am fairly certain you could completely avoid paying taxes there... however, your next door neighbor might take your stuff from you. But, hey, at least you wouldn't have the guv'ment pushing you around and taking your money.

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In my mind, there are certain things which should be supported by taxes. National Defense, of course, as that is THE main reason for a government to exist.
Everything else, IMO, is debatable. This is not to say that any of them are not necessary, as many of them are. I just am using this general answer to avoid going through all of them. :mrgreen:

Dezaad said:

An unregulated voucher system would not be a compromise.

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I don't think anyone, after at least SOME thought on the question, would support an unregulated voucher system...:shock: The horror that could occur.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

To my mind, if we don't teach the students who come from poor upbringings, if we don't teach the students who are born with learning or behavioral disabilities...

then

... we will condemn a large minority of people to a cycle of poverty and ignorance, and we will all pay the price for that, as we should. Education is the foundation of opportunity. If we do it no where else in our system of prosperity, we should attempt to elevate everyone to a more equal level here.

Any system of education must account for this requirement. The biggest problem with voucher systems is that they utterly fail to account for it. If they cannot account for this problem, they should be rejected.

There are certain things free markets do not efficiently address, and a broadly educated society is one of them.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

OKgrannie said:

NO. 1. There is no evidence that private schools perform better than public schools.

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Unless you live in the ghetto.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Dezaad said:

To my mind, if we don't teach the students who come from poor upbringings, if we don't teach the students who are born with learning or behavioral disabilities...

then

... we will condemn a large minority of people to a cycle of poverty and ignorance, and we will all pay the price for that, as we should. Education is the foundation of opportunity. If we do it no where else in our system of prosperity, we should attempt to elevate everyone to a more equal level here.

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I agree with you on this. Education is the key to any betterment of oneself.

Dezaad said:

Any system of education must account for this requirement. The biggest problem with voucher systems is that they utterly fail to account for it. If they cannot account for this problem, they should be rejected.

There are certain things free markets do not efficiently address, and a broadly educated society is one of them.

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I do not know enough about the current voucher proposals out there, to agree or disagree wity you, but I think it possible that some form of a voucher system could address your issues.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

galenrox said:

We are already doing that. We just put kids with behavioral problems in the same classes as everyone else, with teachers not specially trained to deal with them, turning our teachers into babysitters, depriving all of their students, learning disabled or otherwise, of a quality education.

An example, my best friend has some pretty severe learning abilities. He's got a genius level IQ, but he's got something that's similar to dyslexia. He went to public school for kindergarten and first grade (mind you, in a very liberal city with extraordinary funding for our schools), and his mom pulled him out because his teachers were abusing him due to his disability. He transferred to a private school nearby where they spend significantly less per student and he never had another problem with finding accommodation for his learning disability again.
Public schools are preposterously inefficient in how they spend their money, they don't have structural incentives that require quality of performance. So they get poor performance, and all they can do is throw money at the problems and hope that it will solve the problem. One of the first things that are subject to budget cuts is special ed programs.

If there were school vouchers there is no way kids with special needs would get stuck in a school that does not cater to their needs. The kids have vouchers, either you provide them with what they need or someone else will. You're giving special ed kids the ability to get out of schools that don't provide them with sufficient care, an option they do not have in the current system. How exactly do you suggest that allowing them this option would hurt these kids?

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Your friend's experience was not typical. Private schools select their students, so why would they select students that are more expensive to educate? Special ed kids and those with other handicaps will most likely be left in public schools that will have lost a good deal of their funding.

As far as vouchers helping poor students get out of public schools, the voucher may cover the cost of tuition and perhaps even books, but students are left to cover many other expenses themselves, such as uniforms, fees, transportation, school supplies, etc., these extra expenses may mean the poorer students still cannot afford private schools.

Special Voucher Report -- Vouchers: Special Ed Students Need Not Apply -- Rethinking Schools Online

Milwaukee's voucher program, the country's oldest, has long been seen as a prototype for what, in essence, is a conservative strategy to privatize education under the guise of "choice." With the U.S. Congress poised to start the first federally funded voucher program next fall in the Washington, D.C., schools, vouchers have once again jumped to the fore of educational debate.

Although Milwaukee's voucher schools receive tax dollars, they operate as private schools and thus can ignore almost all of the requirements and accountability measures that public schools must follow. They do not, for example, have to hire certified teachers, nor administer the same tests as public schools, nor report their students' academic achievement.

Nor do they have to provide the special education services required of public schools. While voucher supporters portray vouchers as a new Civil Rights Movement, disability activists see a different reality.

Jim Ward, president of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights in Washington, D.C., warns that voucher programs threaten the rights of students with special needs. He cites a 1998 survey by the U.S. Department of Education that between 70 and 85 percent of private schools in large inner cities would "definitely or probably" not participate in a voucher program if required to accept "students with special needs such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement." Among religious schools, the figure was 86 percent.
"The Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision struck down 'separate but equal' schools, but voucher programs threaten to usher in a new form of segregation," Ward warns.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

OKgrannie said:

NO. 1. There is no evidence that private schools perform better than public schools.
2. Since 95% of private schools are sectarian, it is basically a way to fund church schools with public money.
3. The government will still have to fund public schools for all the students the private schools reject, the private school rejected students are usually the more expensive to educate, the handicapped, the special-needs students, and they will have to do it with less money per student.

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Vouchers is the only alternative right now. But just remember where those "public moneys" came from. They came from taxpayers, who have a right to educate their children they way they see fit.

The truth is you have no evidence that privates are better than publics.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

OKgrannie said:

Your friend's experience was not typical. Private schools select their students, so why would they select students that are more expensive to educate? Special ed kids and those with other handicaps will most likely be left in public schools that will have lost a good deal of their funding.

As far as vouchers helping poor students get out of public schools, the voucher may cover the cost of tuition and perhaps even books, but students are left to cover many other expenses themselves, such as uniforms, fees, transportation, school supplies, etc., these extra expenses may mean the poorer students still cannot afford private schools.

Special Voucher Report -- Vouchers: Special Ed Students Need Not Apply -- Rethinking Schools Online

Milwaukee's voucher program, the country's oldest, has long been seen as a prototype for what, in essence, is a conservative strategy to privatize education under the guise of "choice." With the U.S. Congress poised to start the first federally funded voucher program next fall in the Washington, D.C., schools, vouchers have once again jumped to the fore of educational debate.

Although Milwaukee's voucher schools receive tax dollars, they operate as private schools and thus can ignore almost all of the requirements and accountability measures that public schools must follow. They do not, for example, have to hire certified teachers, nor administer the same tests as public schools, nor report their students' academic achievement.

Nor do they have to provide the special education services required of public schools. While voucher supporters portray vouchers as a new Civil Rights Movement, disability activists see a different reality.

Jim Ward, president of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights in Washington, D.C., warns that voucher programs threaten the rights of students with special needs. He cites a 1998 survey by the U.S. Department of Education that between 70 and 85 percent of private schools in large inner cities would "definitely or probably" not participate in a voucher program if required to accept "students with special needs such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement." Among religious schools, the figure was 86 percent.
"The Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision struck down 'separate but equal' schools, but voucher programs threaten to usher in a new form of segregation," Ward warns.

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Total hogwash, and you know it.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Lakryte said:

I understand your point, and the main problem behind it is what I said. Why will the kids be abandoned? Because the parents don't care. "Because the parents don't care" is really not a strong argument. What about those students with parents who do care? Why should they be left at a public school and lose their opportunity because some students have parents who don't care? It simply isn't right. And if that child had uncaring parents, if there was a voucher program or not he would still be at the same school and would still have the same outcome. That last sentence of yours really doesn't make any sense. With or without vouchers it would be like that.

You are basically arguing that since not every single student will be able to go to private school from a public school, none should. And I don't think that is right at all. It doesn't have to be 10 kids from every class (which I doubt it would). It could be 1 or 2. Nobody is arguing that we take so many kids out of public schools that they are crippled and underfunded (which doesn't make sense because all tax payers pay for public school, so the funds will stay roughly the same...)

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This is one of many reasons I said vouchers would be a bad idea. If you want to focus on this and ignore the rest, that's fine. That still leaves many reasons the vouchers would be terrible.

But.. what is to stop a school from being crippled by the loss in funding due to the students leaving? For each student that leaves, the school loses money. This makes it harder to teach the students who are left. My point is that we should fix the public school because it can teach everyone rather than take out a few students and leave the rest in a failing school.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

American said:

Total hogwash, and you know it.

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Would you care to provide any reasons why you think it is hogwash and back it up with credible links?

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

American said:

Vouchers is the only alternative right now. But just remember where those "public moneys" came from. They came from taxpayers, who have a right to educate their children they way they see fit.

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Parents do have a right to educate their children as they wish, so long as they fulfill state laws requiring education, but they do not have a right to expect taxpayers to pay for it. One, taxpayers have a right to expect the government to fund quality education, and two, taxpayers should not have to pay money that benefits any religion.

The truth is you have no evidence that privates are better than publics.

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Exactly, and neither do you.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Dezaad said:

To my mind, if we don't teach the students who come from poor upbringings, if we don't teach the students who are born with learning or behavioral disabilities...

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My nephew's family lives in DC. He is Autistic, very bright but needs special training and a setting to learn. Everyone here knows that DC's educational system is a monstrosity. My sister had to sue to get my nephew placed in an special school and yes for the district to pay part of it some of the rest was paid by a Foundation for that purpose. Please do not tell me how the government schools are so good in these cases where in DC the schools pretend to teach and the "students" don't even pretend to learn.

Dezaad said:

then

... we will condemn a large minority of people to a cycle of poverty and ignorance, and we will all pay the price for that, as we should. Education is the foundation of opportunity. If we do it no where else in our system of prosperity, we should attempt to elevate everyone to a more equal level here.

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How about giving each and every student a best and fair chance to succeed and let the outcomes be based not on what the government schools want to teach in a one size fits all way but on the students ambition and talent. And I do mean best chance, no half baked program which will not help a student but make some people feel good that somthing was tried at least (and then blame society, the parents or the student.) And finaly, THE OUTCOME SHOULD NOT BE EQUALITY BUT THE BEST THE STUDENT COULD POSSIBLY BE. This is a much higher standard than saying we should raise the floor and no more.

Dezaad said:

Any system of education must account for this requirement. The biggest problem with voucher systems is that they utterly fail to account for it. If they cannot account for this problem, they should be rejected.

There are certain things free markets do not efficiently address, and a broadly educated society is one of them.

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How about systems of education. Let there be as many possible types of schools that would get voucher funding and each and every student would have a place that would help with that students weakness with respect to education. And the voucher system is not really a free market, the funding is tax based and the State government would impose some sort of standards on the schools that did accept funding (mostly health, zoning, but some making sure it is not a fly-by-night operation, also making sure that the school wont run out of other funds if it is a start up.)

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

I favor vouchers if, and only if, those vouchers come with strings attached. Government money should not be going to any program, public or private, which does not meet educational standards and require testing to make sure students are actually learning at required levels. If you do that, I've got no problem with it. However, most private schools would refuse to take government vouchers if they had to actually prove they were doing a good job, were actually required to teach actual science, actual history, etc. The reason most of these private schools exist in the first place is they don't want to have to provide an actual well-rounded, fact-based education.

Until they're willing to, I say no to vouchers.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

galenrox said:

So you're telling me you trust government regulators more than parents to care about children's education? Because the Department of Education has done such a good job thus far?

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Certainly they have to do a lot better, but yes, a team of professional educators and experts from a wide variety of fields is certainly better than uneducated parents at deciding what a child ought to be learning to become a functional member of society. The reason that most school boards are so awful is because they draw from that pool of uneducated parents and political hacks with an agenda, who then use emotional, rather than rational decision-making to decide what they want kids to learn, mostly so it doesn't interfere with the silly things they personally believe.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

galenrox said:

Really? Once again, because the Department of Education has proven so effective thus far?

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I already said that they'd need to do a lot better, didn't I?

Tell me, what specific structural changes would there be to make sure that these decisions are being made by unbiased apolitical experts? Let's say Mike Huckabee gets elected President with a big Republican majority and decides to stack this team full of people that don't believe in evolution and think that anywhere that teaches any form of evolution (including bacterial and cellular evolution) isn't fit to teach students, what then?

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Actually, I'd rather take the decision-making process out of the hands of the politicians entirely because the politicians are no more educationally-saavy than most parents. I'd rather see a completely apolitical group made up of professional scientists and educators making the decisions of what the curriculum ought to include and then have a pool of people who work in that field actually decide the specifics of what ought to be learned at what level. Of course, this is only going to apply to the sciences, which are in a horrible state in the United States today, but a similar system could be put in place for softer subjects as well.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

galenrox said:

And what makes you think that that would be reasonable to expect?

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Expecting intelligence from the elected is like expecting it from the electorate. It's nice to wish for but to seriously expect it... not really a good bet. Nothing is ever going to change because we're going to have the same ignorant voters putting equally ignorant politicians in charge. This isn't a question that is going to have an easy answer, it's one where you have to give a little wishful thinking that we might actually be able to solve the problem.

Taking it out of the hands of the people (which is what you're talking about, saying parents can't decide and their elected officials can't decide) is authoritarianism.

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Yes it is and in some places, it's necessary. The ignorant and uneducated are inherently incapable of making decisions on education. We no longer live in a world where the majority of people can get an 8th grade education and still find work and be a functional part of an increasingly technological society. When you have a lot of parents who didn't need to know anything about them durn computers and neither do their kids... that's a problem. In order to shift from a largely rural non-technical society to a highly-technical society, kids need to learn not only how to function, but how to think rationally and critically about the world around them.

Where in the Constitution do you suggest the government is given the authority to create a board of philosopher kings with no democratic oversight whatsoever with the authority to dictate a large proportion of how children are raised and to do so with taxpayer money (which they presumably would have to have unlimited access to, to prevent the politicization of the appropriations process)?

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Where in the Constitution does it mention automobile licenses? Like it or not, the Constitution is not the end-all-be-all of reality. It was meant to be a growing, evolving document but some people are so in love with the words that they can't move beyond them to the concepts.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Kids in crappy schools should be given the option to obtain vouchers to go to schools which don't suck so much.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Dav said:

Kids in crappy schools should be given the option to obtain vouchers to go to schools which don't suck so much.

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What makes you think that going to better schools is going to make better students? Most crappy schools are crappy because nobody cares, neither parents or students, what happens. Moving the same stupid parents and students to another school isn't going to magically make them value education.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Cephus said:

What makes you think that going to better schools is going to make better students? Most crappy schools are crappy because nobody cares, neither parents or students, what happens. Moving the same stupid parents and students to another school isn't going to magically make them value education.

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Applying for a voucher is already a sign that the parents care. The students might not care simply because the teachers don't care.

This is not all about education, either. Some schools are downright dangerous places, where survival is a priority above education. Kids should not have to belong to such an environment if their parents do not wish it.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Layla_Z said:

This is one of many reasons I said vouchers would be a bad idea. If you want to focus on this and ignore the rest, that's fine. That still leaves many reasons the vouchers would be terrible.

But.. what is to stop a school from being crippled by the loss in funding due to the students leaving? For each student that leaves, the school loses money. This makes it harder to teach the students who are left. My point is that we should fix the public school because it can teach everyone rather than take out a few students and leave the rest in a failing school.

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So your willing to leave the good students in a poor setting because the school will loose money? They should fall on their sword for the collective?

I've heard schools need to be fixed all my short life and to date no one has done anything responsible in "fixing" these schools.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Dav said:

Applying for a voucher is already a sign that the parents care. The students might not care simply because the teachers don't care.

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It's more likely that students don't care because their parents don't care. I'm sure you'd get plenty of parents who are pretty apathetic signing up for vouchers in the hopes that a new school might improve their kids, but that improvement has to come from the home, teachers can't magically make kids want to get educated.

This is not all about education, either. Some schools are downright dangerous places, where survival is a priority above education. Kids should not have to belong to such an environment if their parents do not wish it.

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Yes, I'll agree with you, but again, what made the schools dangerous in the first place? They don't get that way on their own.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Cephus said:

It's more likely that students don't care because their parents don't care. I'm sure you'd get plenty of parents who are pretty apathetic signing up for vouchers in the hopes that a new school might improve their kids, but that improvement has to come from the home, teachers can't magically make kids want to get educated.

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No, but teachers can make education interesting enough that children want to learn. At least I am of the opinion that this is the case.

Cephus said:

Yes, I'll agree with you, but again, what made the schools dangerous in the first place? They don't get that way on their own.

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You are correct. without the parrents, students, teachers, and other things influncing the atmosphere of the school, a school would not be dangerous at all.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

I fully support voucher programs, it is not fair for parents to have a choice between bad public schools and paying both taxes and Private school fees for their children to get a proper education.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

The Mark said:

No, but teachers can make education interesting enough that children want to learn. At least I am of the opinion that this is the case.

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Only if the students are at all open to learning. Students who are only herded in because they are forced to do so and don't care what anyone says aren't going to learn no matter how interesting the teachers make it. That kind of mentality starts at home and is reinforced on the streets. By the time a teacher gets these students, you're lucky they're not shooting each other in the classroom.

You are correct. without the parrents, students, teachers, and other things influncing the atmosphere of the school, a school would not be dangerous at all.

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The point being, these schools are dangerous because they have been permitted to be that way. If parents and students and teachers all refused to allow it, they wouldn't be. Just moving the students to other schools without fixing the underlying cause isn't going to make the students any better, it'll just spread the problems around.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Harry Guerrilla said:

So your willing to leave the good students in a poor setting because the school will loose money? They should fall on their sword for the collective?

I've heard schools need to be fixed all my short life and to date no one has done anything responsible in "fixing" these schools.

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So in your opinion we should just give up since the school's haven't been fixed yet. I say that we don't give up so easily. The public schools need to be fixed so that they provide a great education and teach their young students how to use your and you're among other things.

Re: Are you in favor of vouchers for children to attend private schools? (high/gramma

Layla_Z said:

So in your opinion we should just give up since the school's haven't been fixed yet. I say that we don't give up so easily. The public schools need to be fixed so that they provide a great education and teach their young students how to use your and you're among other things.

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In my opinion there is no real action to fix them as it wouldn't be a political issue to rally supporters for. Politicians have no incentive to actually "fix" anything as they use it to their gain.

I do not think bright children should be forced to fester in a terrible school because no one wants to fix or change the current system.

Every election year it's garbage in, garbage out. Random politicians says, "I'm going to fix our schools." Supporters cheer, politician gets elected, no fixes.

Next election year same thing.