School voucher support and demographics

[Meadmaker]

Admiral, do you think food banks should be required to give money to patrons so they can go eat at the local McDonalds?

To the extent that the analogy makes any sense at all, it already happened. They are called "food stamps", and they came about because the government decided it was more efficient to let people choose their own food, with some restrictions, instead of picking the food for them.

ETA: I see admiral already pointed that out.

 

[WildCat]

I said no such thing. I merely responded to when you said:Your inference (intentional or otherwise) is that public schools are like this and teachers don't care about quality. I'm not maligning anyone. I know a lot of teachers both public and private school (and some who are both) and, for the most part, they are all dedicated.

But do not confuse "dedicated" with "competent" or "effective".

 

[Meadmaker]

I think the implication is that by making vouchers available, it adds incintive to those who would like to flee the inner city. Actually, that's fairly logical.

I'm not following. Today, they can't afford any private school anywhere, so if they live in the inner city and want to go to a good school, they have to move. With vouchers, they would have to move, or drive, or pick a good local school if one is available. (If vouchers fund religious schools, and the parents don't object to the religion, it's a safe bet one will be available. Otherwise, it might not be easy to find one.)

So, vouchers add two new options that aren't moving. They can still move if they want, but they don't have to. I can't see how that adds incentive.

 

[Meadmaker]

For starters, I don't understand why that would be a bad thing. Why do you see a problem with parents moving their children to better areas? That makes the children better off.

He's responding to me, and my contention that the current public school system contributes to urban blight by encouraging families with children to move, if they can. That leaves behind only people who can't afford to leave, or don't care.

But I can't see how vouchers make the problem worse. It seems to me that it creates an opportunity to stay, thus improving the neighborhood, without subjecting their children to lousy schools.

If anyone could convince me that it would make the problem of middle class flight worse, I would drop my support of vouchers like a hot rock.

 

[Tricky]

I'm not following. Today, they can't afford any private school anywhere, so if they live in the inner city and want to go to a good school, they have to move. With vouchers, they would have to move, or drive, or pick a good local school if one is available. (If vouchers fund religious schools, and the parents don't object to the religion, it's a safe bet one will be available. Otherwise, it might not be easy to find one.)

So, vouchers add two new options that aren't moving. They can still move if they want, but they don't have to. I can't see how that adds incentive.

I see what you are saying, but I think that scenario is less likely than this one:

Without vouchers they can't afford private school anyway, so they wouldn't be making a big improvement by moving. With vouchers, they can afford private school, but there are few if any good private schools near where they live (even religious ones) and so moving has greatly added appeal.

You can make a case for either scenario, so maybe we should call it a push and say that vouchers make little difference regarding suburban flight.

 

[Tailgater]

This is going to get really convoluted. Can we agree that the restaurant/food bank thing is an unnecessary and wretched analogy and stick with talking about schools? Really, it doesn't need an analogy. If you're talking about apples, you need not make an analogy to oranges, in spite of the fact that they share some characteristics.

Yes please. I was throwing in a successful monkey wrench.

Indeed you do, especially if your child dares to do anything extracurricular. This at least should help quiet those who complain that they shouldn't have to pay school taxes since they don't have kids.

I don't want to derail, but I look at the system a little wider. While I pay alot for my kids in school, I receive tax benefits for those kids, and I really feel like I shouldn't. It was my decision to have children and while I think there should be a base tax for everyone to support the schools, I also don't think there should be any kind of tax credits for families and that extra money should also go to the schools. I have a problem with the tax system in general concerning children in that it is designed to reward people for having more children. IMO, if you can't afford children on your after-tax money, stop having them.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

If this thread is only about segregation, I hardly see how private schooling will change anything.

The people who left the city of Detroit when their kids turned four did so because they didn't want their kids in the bad schools there. With vouchers, some of them would have stayed, making the neighborhood less segregated.



Let me summarize the statistics I've read.

Pro-voucher side: After vouchers went in, we measured the kids' performance. The public schools got better, but they didn't catch up to the private schools, which also improved.

Anti-voucher side: If you control for the proper variables the schools performed equally.

Even if you accept the statistical adjustments made by the anti-voucher side, there's still some explaining to do, isn't there?

I have yet to see any such statistics.

Also, it is presumptuous to label people into two groups.

ETA: Oh, yes, and also strawmantuous. You are taking arguments out of context.

 

[Tricky]

I don't want to derail, but I look at the system a little wider. While I pay alot for my kids in school, I receive tax benefits for those kids, and I really feel like I shouldn't. It was my decision to have children and while I think there should be a base tax for everyone to support the schools, I also don't think there should be any kind of tax credits for families and that extra money should also go to the schools. I have a problem with the tax system in general concerning children in that it is designed to reward people for having more children. IMO, if you can't afford children on your after-tax money, stop having them.

I strongly disagree. (And I find it amusing that both of us are taking the positions that should logically be the other's if we were both selfish wankers.)

I consider education to be a part of the infrastructure of this country. I don't want just my kids educated. I want to walk into a shop and know that the shopkeeper can do basic math. I want people to know how diseases are transmitted so they won't let their kids go around un-vaccinated. I want EVERYBODY to be able to read signs. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege of living in a country with universal (nearly) education.

I agree with the "too many kids" thing though, but I can't seem to get anyone to agree with my suggestion of forcible birth control (including abortion) for people who can't support the kids they have.

 

[WildCat]

I consider education to be a part of the infrastructure of this country. I don't want just my kids educated. I want to walk into a shop and know that the shopkeeper can do basic math. I want people to know how diseases are transmitted so they won't let their kids go around un-vaccinated. I want EVERYBODY to be able to read signs. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege of living in a country with universal (nearly) education.

If you lived in Chicago all your fears would come to fruition, but from those who went to public school. I find it curious that you somehow associate "literate" with "product of a public school", because it isn't the case here!

 

[Admiral]

I consider education to be a part of the infrastructure of this country. I don't want just my kids educated. I want to walk into a shop and know that the shopkeeper can do basic math. I want people to know how diseases are transmitted so they won't let their kids go around un-vaccinated. I want EVERYBODY to be able to read signs. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege of living in a country with universal (nearly) education.

You don't see why removing inter-school competition works AGAINST your goal?

 

[Admiral]

I agree with the "too many kids" thing though, but I can't seem to get anyone to agree with my suggestion of forcible birth control (including abortion) for people who can't support the kids they have.

I personally find that incredibly scary and intrusive.

 

[Tailgater]

I strongly disagree. (And I find it amusing that both of us are taking the positions that should logically be the other's if we were both selfish wankers.)

I consider education to be a part of the infrastructure of this country. I don't want just my kids educated. I want to walk into a shop and know that the shopkeeper can do basic math. I want people to know how diseases are transmitted so they won't let their kids go around un-vaccinated. I want EVERYBODY to be able to read signs. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege of living in a country with universal (nearly) education.

I agree with the "too many kids" thing though, but I can't seem to get anyone to agree with my suggestion of forcible birth control (including abortion) for people who can't support the kids they have.

I think you might have missed something in my post or I don't understand what you disagree with. I agree everyone should have to pay a base tax for school. No doubt about that. My problem is that the people who are using that system are the same ones who get tax credits at the end of the year. I have three kids (one step and two of my own). It's a sweet credit. But that credit should be put toward the very benefit that I am using by sending my kids to public school. People who pay the base tax for public schools and don't have children, get no credit for it. My point being, drop the child credits and put them back into the schools along with the base tax everyone pays. Also use those credits as the bargaining chips for vouchers. The base tax still pays for public schools and the credits can be transferred to go toward the parents school of choice.

 

[Tricky]

I personally find that incredibly scary and intrusive.

So you like the present system whereby people can have as many kids as they want and the government will take care of them, or would you prefer they were turned loose to forage and live by survival of the fittest? Yeah, it's scary all right, but so is China-like overpopulation (where they have enforced birth control).

 

[Meadmaker]

If this thread is only about segregation, I hardly see how private schooling will change anything.

I have yet to see any such statistics.

Also, it is presumptuous to label people into two groups.

ETA: Oh, yes, and also strawmantuous. You are taking arguments out of context.

The most often cited study was by Caroline Hoxby. Plenty of statistics there. I'm not inclined to look them up at the moment, but I've seen them, in context.

 

[Tricky]

If you lived in Chicago all your fears would come to fruition, but from those who went to public school. I find it curious that you somehow associate "literate" with "product of a public school", because it isn't the case here!

What is your solution to this?

 

[Meadmaker]

I see what you are saying, but I think that scenario is less likely than this one:

Without vouchers they can't afford private school anyway, so they wouldn't be making a big improvement by moving. With vouchers, they can afford private school, but there are few if any good private schools near where they live (even religious ones) and so moving has greatly added appeal.

You can make a case for either scenario, so maybe we should call it a push and say that vouchers make little difference regarding suburban flight.

No way on the push. Here's why.

Not only can the inner city people not afford private school today, they also can't afford good public schools. If they could buy my house in my suburb, they wouldn't have to send their kids to lousy, inner city public schools. They could send them to good, suburban, public schools.

So, give them a voucher. Now, they can afford to send them to private schools in the suburbs, but they still can't afford to live in the suburbs. No one gave them any money for the house. Those people stuck in the ghetto are still stuck in the ghetto, but their kids might be able to have better schools.

Meanwhile, there are some parents who might be willing to stay in the city, except for the schools, and have the means to escape to the suburbs. With vouchers, they can still move to the suburbs, and then they can go to public or private schools, but they don't have to move in order to go to good schools. They now have an option that includes living in the city, and good schools.

 

[Meadmaker]

In the more general sense, you have not shown anything that suggests that school vouchers will hurt my situation at all.

Are you denying the connection between school quality and property values? If so, I suggest you pick up a real estate listing brochure and ask why the homes in good school districts have things like "Grosse Pointe Schools" in the listing.

Once school attendance is divorced from geography, there won't be much point in adding those lines to the listing.

P.S. I'm not asserting that it is the only factor, and that the ones you cited are irrelevant, but it would be naive to think that some people are not voting based on pocketbook issues.

 

[Billdave2]

I did a little research last night about the budgets of my local schools and tuition at the private (christian) school in town.

My local school district has a budget of over 78 million dollars. They serve slightly over 12,000 students. Average class size is ranges from 20 in elementary to 27 in high school. Average teacher salery is 43K/year. Some quick math shows that this budget works out to about $6,500 per student which means each class represents $130,000 to $175,000 by the budget. In comparison the private school tuition is $2,600 per year.

So if parents who pulled out there kids to send to private school got a voucher for the whole amount of the tuition it would be less than half what is in the budget. I have a hard time understanding why the public schools need twice as much money to function even if you consider that the public school has a more extensive bus system (which is the only difference I know of between the two).

 

[pgwenthold]

Are you denying the connection between school quality and property values?

Not at all. I just think it goes the other direction.

Schools in wealthy areas are better because they are in wealthy areas.

This is a consequence of basing funding on local property taxes. Schools in wealthy areas, where property tax revenue is high, get a lot more funding.

There is also the fact that wealthier people are more educated on average, and therefore, the kids come from more educated parents. Do you think it is a coincidence that college towns tend to have pretty good high schools? It's because they're loaded with professors' kids.

 

[Segnosaur]

I have a hard time understanding why the public schools need twice as much money to function even if you consider that the public school has a more extensive bus system (which is the only difference I know of between the two).

I can think of a couple of possibilties that may come into play here:

- The public system may be using unionized staff, whereas the private (or christian) school may get by with non-unionized staff

- Did the private school have a wide range of after school activites (such as sports teams)? If its a small school, it may not have had enough students to bother with such luxaries

- Its also possible that tuition at the private school only covers part of the cost of education, and that money is obtained in different ways (for example, if its a christian school, is it affiliated with a church that might be providing some resources?)