Voucher problems

K

kjm

New member
Does anyone see the problem with GW's voucher program? If a student has attended a dreadfully substandard school for the past 3 years, chances are he is too undereducated to pass most private school's entrance exams thus being forced to stay in the crappy one. A catch 22. This is probably why the Democrats will support him on this one. I oppose vouchers in favor of tax credits.

The government shouldn't have anything to do with the education system. Government money shouldn't go to private, religious institutions. With tax-credits, the government only frees up the income of the parent to purchase the finest education they can afford. No government money goes to churches or other institutions. No liberals can whine because you've cut their legs out from under them. Tax credits are the way to go.

I don't like the government (that institution that has ruined our schools in the first-place) deciding the standards of schools. I don't like that the government will be able to dictate to private schools the same kind of crap that ruined the government schools. If the government gives the schools a check, you can damn-sure bet that it will come with strings. The parents should be the ultimate decision-maker of what schools are providing a sound education, not government.

If you're wondering what all this has to do with RKBAs, just go to any public school and look at the little signs all over proclaiming them a victim-rich zone. Our fight is with the schools if we want to make an impact and save our Republic.
 
"If a student has attended a dreadfully substandard school for the past 3 years, chances are he is too undereducated to pass most private school's entrance exams thus being forced to stay in the crappy one. A catch 22."

Most of the private schools I am familiar with, Catholic, Protestant, or secular, will take anyone who will behave. Now if you're talking about Groton or Eton, maybe there's a problem.
 
"Government money shouldn't go to private, religious institutions."

Friend, it is NOT government money - it is citizens' money.

Secondly, if all taxpayers support our school system, then the full (monetary) amount for each student should go to the school the student attends - the school of the parents' choice.
 
Dennis, I couldn't agree with you more. I want a move to school privatization but when the government is the one cutting the checks it ALWAYS comes with strings. The government should simply exempt me from supporting a government school system. Give me a tax-credit and then I'm in control of the schools funding. Give out government vouchers, the government maintains control of all the money. While it may not be bad under a Republican administration, you may bet your life that a Democratic administration in the future will use that power to eclipse the last great institutions of education in this country. Government shouldn't take our money and then tell us that they'll give some of it back if we behave the way they want us to.
 
As a homeschooling parent I am VERY wary of all these voucher OR tax-credit schemes. While the details may vary, all of these threaten to undermine the independence of private schools and homeschooling.

Even a tax-credit scheme has to come with strings -- definitions of what a "private school" is, subject matter requirements, perhaps even standardized testing -- in order to qualify for the credit.

Such strings may be mild in the beginning, to allay fears and mute criticism, but it will only take a few well-publicized cases of fraud (and fraud will happen), or radical/unconventional teaching, for new regs to be laid atop the original ones. Meanwhile, private schools and homeschooling parents who had become dependent on the tax credit or vouchers will have to play along or undergo severe financial hardship.

IMHO the best way to help the cause of alternative education is to support private programs for it, and encourage government at state and local levels to KEEP THEIR DADGUM HANDS OFF OF US.
 
Every parent should have the right to send their children to the school of their choice.They are paying for the schools and damm well deserve the best there is.If it is a religous school who cares.If anyone thinks that the private school is making money off the student tuitions had better do some checking.I see the trash that some of these schools are turning out and allmost get sick.Not only not taught the basics but allso full of propaganda put there by the liberal goverment programs but allso by the colledge educated brainwashed liberal teachers.
As you can see I get very worked up about this subject.So much of the negative is nothig but pure liberal propaganda and too many people fall for it.
 
The problem with vouchers, as I see it, is that it's the "problem kids"--the ones who cost the most money to teach--that end up left in the public school system because no one else will accept them (except specialty schools that cost $30k/year and up). In my city, the average special education child costs $15,000 to educate. This is paid for by not spending as much on other kids. I'm not thrilled with that system but unless considerably more money is invested in schools vouchers will take the "cheap" kids out and leave the "expensive" ones.

By the way, in my city most of the independent schools (ie, non-Catholic) have academic testing. That means the choice for many parents becomes the (now underfunded) public schools or a religious education they don't necessarily support.

By the way, what was Bush's exact voucher proposal? Because most school funding is at the state level. :confused:
 
Folkbabe,
I believe his proposal is to give up to 1500 bucks to parents who live in failing school districts after 3 years of poor performance. While schools draw the lions share of funding from state and local resources, the federal government gives a chunk too. Usually in the form of block grants to the states.

As for special ed kids, it is a hard one for me. I have a friend whose child is a special ed kid. She's profoundly retarded, cripled, and unable to eat correctly (she gets her nutrition from a feeding tube). She gets one on one attention, and her progress is measured in stuff like she was able to pick a correct color crayon one out of 9 times today whereas she picked the correct color only one out of 13 times last year. She is unable to talk and can only communicate using grunts and screams.

While I am proud that she is making progress, I'm not sure that the tax dollars are appropriately spent here. The child has no hopes of ever being independent. She will never cook her own meals nor will she ever be able to tie her shoes. She will wear diapers until her last day on earth and so she is draining resources from an already poor community. When she becomes eighteen, she'll never be able to work. She will live with her adoptive parents until they are unable to meet her needs and then she will probably be shipped off to a nursing home to spend her remaining days. While this is a bleak story, I thank God there are folks out there who choose to adopt these children and care for them. Just being around someone with that kind of commitment is an affirming experience.

...The problem is that I don't think she needs to be draining resources from the other kids in the proportions that she does. She probably cost the ISD at least 30-40K per year not counting building costs and other indirect expenses. The benefit back to society is almost none. We should always keep in mind the sole purpose behind a taxpayer supported education system: To provide for an educated electorate (a great indictment of the education system today is what happened in Fla. Folks were unable to follow simple instructions and arrows). There is no other reason for the taxpayers to foot the bill of a school system, and this was the founding reasons behind a public school system in the first place. The mission of the ISD isn't to provide charity work, or even to boost egos and self-esteem.

Simply put, this child will never be a part of an educated electorate thus should be put out of the school system. Maybe some charity will develop (or already exists) to help these kids, but the ISD isn't in that business. I also believe that if a child is convicted of a felony, he too should be permanently barred from schools as he will not be a member of the electorate either. If schools want to function ever again, they need a well-defined mission, and they need to stick to that mission. A child with ADD or ADHD or any of the many other "special needs" afflictions can and probably will become a productive citizen, therefore we can cater to those kids. I just have a problem with the profoundly retarded, criminally insane, or other people who will never give back to society taking tax dollars from those who will. It violates the mission behind public education.

It is hard to be so analytical about a human life, but to sacrifice a few thousand for the miniscule benefits of one just seems backwards to me. The safety and security of the Republic demand that we get back to a school system that knows its mission, its limitations, and performs a few functions well. A lot of what gets dumped on schools has nothing to do with education. Morality isn't a teacher's job. Morality is the parent's job. Schools should only enforce societal morality. It isn't that much to expect that students don't steal, assault, rape, cuss, or abuse substances while at school (and at the expense of other students). Parents frequently think it is the school's job to raise their kids, and unfortunately the schools are trying.

My local school is splendid, and even with vouchers I would send my child here. I don't think there is a better place for him. Unfortunately I am moving to a place where the public schools aren't quite as great and I will be forced to pay for a schooling system I don't use as well as pay for a school system I will. I'll be charged for a service not provided to me, and that is morally wrong (theft). The equivalent is if McDonnalds charged you for a big mac just because one was made available to you even if you chose to eat at Whataburger instead.
 
Hmm. KJ, I see your point. ... I had a sudden lapse of common sense and didn't consider how the government would not let a simple program exist without making it 'better'! (argh!)

If the state divided the sum of school funds available by the number of students in the state, a "per student" dollar amount might be fair. I agree, Beemerb, academic achievement is more important than who sponsors the school.

My problem with tax credits is they can't be used by everyone. A single Mom with little income may pay too little tax (or none!) for the tax credit to work. In my bracket a tax credit for "X" amount may save me 18% but my rich neighbor saves 24% (or whatever the marginal tax rates are nowadays).

Then again, as Folkbabe notes, either system would tend to reduce public schools even further into mere detention/babysitting facilities.

Well, what do we do? How do we get the "per student" share of our tax dollars to the school we want our kids to attend?
 
Dennis

FYI

A tax credit is a direct dollar-for-dollar reduction of an individual's tax liability; compare with tax deduction, which reduces an individual's tax liability only in proportion to his/her tax bracket.

:)
 
Dennis, in all honesty, it was Ron Paul who explained it to me and sold me on the tax credits. He is very persuasive, and his arguements are based on morality, and sobriety. As for dividing up the funds, that would be a hard choice, but almost anyway it is done will be better than what we have now. As it is, private schools already give tuition breaks to good kids who are poor. I am assuming that they will continue, and even step up the practice once they are getting more business.

Other hard facts: Some kid just don't belong in a classroom with other kids. The monkey should be on the parent's back to insure that their child meets normal standards of behavior while at school.

Some kids are also just plain stupid. Not everyone was born with a whole heap of neurons or whatever they're called, and they are destined to become ditch-diggers and garbage men. Not that there is anything wrong with any honest employement, but we shouldn't be keeping these kids on a college-bound track at the expense of them and their classmates.

I truly wanted to take auto-shop, and I wanted to become a mechanic. My counselor wanted me to stick with the college track and told me that only "stoners" take AS. I stuck it out in a curriculum that didn't interest me, and I ended up in the Army because there was no where else to go. I finally pulled my head out of my 4th point of contact, and educated myself to make up for the deficiencies of my High school education. Now I'm doing great in college, but I'm 30 years old. Had I been an auto mechanic for the past 12 years, I would be independently wealthy or at least doing damned good. Have you seen what they charge? IT would have been far better for me if I'd have been allowed to pursue auto mechanics than to have to waste 10 years in the Army, and then another 4 in college before I could make the kind of money I'd be making eight years ago with an ASE Cert. There just isn't anything wrong with teaching kids a trade, and I believe we are doing a disservice by keeping them all in a college track when some don't want to go.

I believe a kid should be able to function in society by the time he is beginning 9th grade. He should be able to read, write, and compute. He should be able to balance a checkbook, and think somewhat critically. If he wants to, he should be able to start on a trade education in the form of apprenticeships if he so chooses. What sucks is that our public school system sends him on to a college-bound education, and only about a third of all students will actually ever graduate from any college. What a waste of time and money and talents. College isn't the answer to every child's future, and some kids are just plain stupid. Some are bright mechanically, and others are bright academically. Public schools are too monolithic to notice simple facts, and they are too politically correct to act on facts. I say we should do them in before we lose another generation of our "posterity."
 
kjm, I believe most of the children in the City special ed system are there for behavior problems and more minor learning disabilities. Of course, the "minor" problems can cause major problems if the child is not given proper tools to overcome them. That said, there a children who the City is paying $30k a year to send to private institutions that specialize in behavior and mental problems. Is that money worth it? It does mean that many of them get high school diplomas and hopefully are therefore able to lead more productive lives but then other children are left with less resources.

I think the problem with saying "My child doesn't go to the public school so I shouldn't have to support it" is that we all support many public programs we don't neccessarily use. My tax dollars support the interstate system despite my rarely using it. Like schools, roads are seen as positive contributer to society. Many people never have children and yet have to pay money into the system; likewise, many people never reach the age at which they'll recieve medicare & social security benefits but they still pay the taxes. Society is better off with an educated public.

On a practical note, the private schools can't simply accept every applicant. Many already have long waiting lists. The Catholic school system in my area is very extensive but it wouldn't support half the students from area public schools suddenly applying to it. Most of the top schools will choose not to expand because they won't want to become too big. What the vouchers will probably mean on a practical level is rising academic standards at private schools (because they have a larger pool of applicants) and, in the long term, construction of more Catholic schools.

That said, I really do understand the frustration of parents who do not have the money to get their children out of failing public school systems. While children in our County system are reading at about grade level, children in many of our City schools are not _expected_ to be able to read until at least 3rd grade and therefore higher level skills are not taught. $1,500/year, by the way, is not nearly enough for most of the Catholic schools in this area, not to mention the independent schools. What a credit or voucher of that size would mean is that middle class parents would gain some but lower class parents would not.

The problem with a tax credit is that unless it can actually be sent to a low-income parent as a check it won't do families who pay little tax much good. There are many families I know who pay far less than $1,500/year in federal taxes so I'm not sure how this would apply to them. For that reason, I like a voucher better.

Time for me to come clean. I was able to attend an independent school through financial aid and my parents having a middle class income. I would dearly love to see every other child be able to make that same choice, regardless of income. I've sworn I'm never giving money to my school except to financial aid funds. However, my parents did not use tax dollars to send me there (and therfore didn't take money away from the school system).

Re tracking: I'm fine with it if it's the kid's decision. I have problems with it if in the 2nd grade some teacher decides "this kid is stupid" and for the rest of his life that decision stands. By the way, most public schools track far more than private schools. The private ones have to answer to parents who expect that *their* kid is college-bound. That's why the private schools compete over percentages of students who go on to college within a year of graduation (usually around 97-99%).
 
Folkbabe,
While there may not be that many private schools now, there will be if there is ever any incentive to go into that business (supply/demand or free-market economics). Where there is opportunity, there will be people who will exploit that opportunity. Simple fact that some private schools can't compete with some public schools. My local schools are of that high quality. OTOH, it is wrong to insist that we sacrifice more of our kids to save a system of education that is failing in many urban areas.

As far as interstate highways are concerned, it is one of the few things the Federal Government still does that is constitutional. I believe it is in Art 1, sec 8 under providing postal roads. While more than the USPS uses them, they can be attributed to that clause. We also are forced to pay for artists such as Maplethorpe, and Andre Serranno. Both are perverts of the highest magnitude, and nowhere do I find a constitutional provision for paying their salaries (through the National Endowment for the Arts). Just because we pay for it doesn't make it right. The Constitution doesn't provide for educating children, and so it is clearly not a Federal issue.

I'm not always looking out for every hard-case out there. To tell you the plain truth, I believe that life is what you make it. There are parents out there who will abuse any system at the expense of their kids. Just look at foodstamps, SSI, SS, Medicaid, and AFDC. These are rife with abuse. I just don't care. If you're poor, there is probably a good reason. I don't buy that a majority of the poor are poor through no fault of their own. Heck- off of my wife's salary of 27K, and my income of about 1200 per month, we support my ex-wife, her kids, ourselves, our son, and two lawyers plus the mortgage, and car payments. We do this off of very little income because we have prioritized our lives. I've been desperately poor before. I've been about as poor as a working person can get (200 bucks per month, no heat, electricity, phone, furniture, and no medical or dental care). I've had to exist off of less than I now spend on my gun hobby.
The thing that experience taught me is that I did get by without government assistance. You (the taxpayer) didn't make me poor, I made me poor through bad choices. It was up to me to get myself out of the hole I put myself into. I did it. I didn't ask anyone to help me because nobody else put me there. It is likewise wrong for someone who is poor to demand that those who are working really hard to foot their bills too. If you make a baby, you support that baby period that includes the physical, MENTAL, spiritual needs of that child. What do you think all those illegal immigrants are doing in a foreign land, working horrible jobs for horrible wages? Exactly. They are supporting their obligations back home.
I don't see how a system designed to help the bottom one percent will succeed if it is at the expense of the top 99%. Some kids will just have to go to a second rate school, but even with my limited income, I would sell my vehicle, or take an extra job (or both) to give my kid the very best education I could afford. A lot of decent people in the Ghetto would probably do the same thing, but they need some of their misspent dollars back to do it. Some parents just simply wont make that kind of sacrifice, and so there isn't much you can do for their kids.
 
It's worthless. The feds need to get entirely out of education. Stop taking in tax money for education and fire everyone in the federal education department. That's the only 'reform' that will work. You know it's worthless when Ted Kennedy likes it.
 
Stop requiring everyone to pay for everyone else's schooling. If you have a kid, it should be *your* responsibility to educate him, not your neighbor's. I can't wait until this happens. This country will be great again.
 
Education of kids deserves to be supported by taxes because we all benefit enormously from the human capital represented by an educated population. Educated people are more productive, pay more taxes, end up on welfare less often, commit fewer crimes, etc. There is a huge public interest here that justifies large public investments in education. The problem is that we have not been getting our tax money's worth.

Tax credits do nothing for people who pay no taxes (almost half the population), so they would have to get a government check. Whether you call that check a voucher, an education credit, or a kangaroo makes no difference.

The idea here is not to destroy the public schools, it is to force them to improve through the threat of competition for funding. Anybody with a pulse knows that the vast bulk of U.S. kids will continue to be educated in the public schools for the foreseeable future. Everybody also knows that a primary reason for the relative success of private schools is their ability to select who they admit and boot out. But a voucher plan will put the spotlight and heat on particularly lousy individual schools to shape up or lose their enrollment to other public schools, private schools, or private tutoring.

What the Bush plan would do is force schools to emphasize reading and math by annually testing student achievement in those areas. The most important classroom-level predictor of student achievement is simply the amount of time spent in basic instruction. In most schools, the amount of time spent is amazingly low. It can be low, because under present arrangements nothing depends on how well the kids do. Bush's plan will force schools to focus on what's important and put their resources there. That will mean more reading and math teachers, and a lot more time spent teaching those subjects. The vast amount of curricular junk that's been added over the past 30 years will have to be jettisoned, and discipline problems will no longer be able to be tolerated. Nor will teachers who can't do the job.

The immediate response by the education establishment will be to attack test scores as the appropriate outcome measure. This is always their first line of defense, because they know that it is only with such scores that there can be any real accountability. When test scores are low, the usual response is to attack the test as not providing a complete enough picture of a vastly complex situation, and similar hogwash and copouts. The typical next step is to shop for a test with easier norms; that's how we got so-called Big City Norms, and how the California achievement tests many places replaced the Iowa tests. Finally, they will claim that what's really required is more money and smaller classes, neither of which has ever shown any correlation with student performance.

If the education establishment manages to deflect the testing and voucher aspects of the Bush plan, then they will have gutted it. Testing provides the productivity measure and vouchers provide accountability. Without those, it will be just another pile of money poured down the rat hole.

Prediction: Bush will bargain away vouchers, testing will survive only in a weakened form, and huge quantities of new money will go down the rat hole.
 
First, there should be no three-year buffer period. That would take a child in a bad school from the end of his freshman year to graduating highschool.

The idea behind vouchers is to have the money follow and be controled by the parent so that they can leave bad schools NOW.

Also, vouchers are not limited to going to private schools. They can also be used in other public schools. In Arizona you can go to just about any government monopoly school you want no matter where you live. But in most States, if you want leave a bad school district you have to go through the ordeal of selling your house!! Some folks send their children to "live" with "relatives" in better districts.

Also, there is no reason that "strings" have to be attached. Where there strings attached to the GI Bill when people went to seminary school or Notre Dame? Oh, you say, that's different. They were adults. How is that different? Should parents not be able to control where their children go to school?

Rick
 
This is a mess of an issue, but I think gun owners should generally be hesitant about supporting public schooling. See the nonsense that is taught about the Constitution and 2nd Amendment!

The fear of vouchers ruining private schooling is real. Most of the opposition against vouchers by the public is predicated precisely on the fact that private schools can set their own standards, standards for admittance and behavior, and choose their own curriculum.

The 'public good' argument of Byron forwarded in defense of government involvement in education, going back at least to Adam Smith, is complete hogwash! The fact is that almost all the benefits of being educated acrue to the individual, thereby essentially stripping the 'it benefits society so must be subsidized' argument of its force. That is why I am still pursuing my education. The "we must subsidize" it argument only works if individuals don't benefit from being educated but rather others benefit. And if you still want to stick to the 'public good' argument the easiest way would be to offer the public the opportunity to take exams and offer them monetary rewards based on the score.

Furthermore, public schooling makes no more economic sense than having a centralized bureaucracy produce all our food, firearms, and shoes.

As for me, if and when I have children, they will be educated at home or in private schools and will receive an excellent education in much less time and expense versus public schooling. Further, they won't have some 60's leftover telling them lies about what the Constitution really means.

Valdez
 
I agree with you KJM!

The only way you can get the money back with the incremental system we got is to use the vouchers.

I would prefer that they didn't take it out of my check to begin with. :)
 
"The 'public good' argument of Byron forwarded in defense of government involvement in education, going back at least to
Adam Smith, is complete hogwash! The fact is that almost all the benefits of being educated acrue to the individual, thereby essentially stripping the 'it benefits society so must be subsidized' argument of its force."

Ideology gone off the cliff. The value of an educated population can be seen in the extremely rapid recovery of war devastated Japan and Western Europe after WWII, for one commonsense example. Anyone who thinks the education level of fellow citizens is merely their private matter and carries no consequences for others needs to spend some time living in the Third World.

There is a huge literature on human capital formation and on estimating the internal and external returns on investments in education, whether those investments are made by individuals or societies. It is ludicrous to contend that educational investments do not generate returns both for the individual (e.g., higher lifetime income) and for the society (e.g., lower welfare expenditures and a higher rate of technological advance).

Societies subsidize education in order to lower its costs to make the individual rate of return higher, thus encouraging more people to try to acquire schooling in their own self interest. If families had to bear the full cost of educating their children, many would make the necessary sacrifices, but many would not (or could not), and society would be worse off for that. These are not matters of theory and speculation: Anyone who has doubts should spend some time in countries where those public investments have not been made.
 
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