Run schools off "user fees"

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I wonder if a government-subsidized tram and bus system makes it easier for students to enroll in parochial or independent schools in the Netherlands.

So, vouchers would work in New York City and Minneapolis? This transportation argument applies to State-operated grocery stores as well. Subsidized transport makes shopping easier, but the State cannot subsidize everything unless Martians provide the resources.

Before waves of poor Catholic immigrants to the US provoked an allergic reaction in the wealthier Protestant majority, subsidization of Church-operated schools and unsubsidized schooling were more common policies in the newly independent ex-British colonies of North America than were policies of direct government operation of schools. The policy of direct government operation of schools prevailed in theocratic colonies like Massachusetts and Connecticut.

 

[Travis]

I also prefer the bolded part, but IMO a vote for Obama will not get it for us. Sorry.

As to schools, taxation like death is part of life; I do wish the funds were better spent (way too many Administrators) and accounted for.

We could change that if we had federal control of the education system.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(AlBell): "As to schools, taxation like death is part of life; I do wish the funds were better spent (way too many Administrators) and accounted for."

We could change that if we had federal control of the education system.

Evidence is against this. As control moves away from parents, costs rise and performance falls. The interests of system employees differ systematically from the interests of parents and taxpayers. I recommend the 1990 Brookings study by Chubb and Moe, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools and the 2000 Brookings/Urban Institute/CED study (Steuerle, et. al. eds) Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services.

Gerard Lassibile and Lucia Navarro Gomez
"Organization and Efficiency of Educational Systems: some empirical findings"
Comparative Education, 2000, Feb.

Furthermore, the regression results indicate that countries where private education is more widespread perform significantly better than countries where it is more limited. The result showing the private sector to be more efficient is similar to those found in other contexts with individual data (see, for example, Psucharopoulos, 1987; Jiminez, et. al, 1991). This finding should convince countries to reconsider policies that reduce the role of the private sector in the field of education.

 

[Beat]

Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights.

-- And that means nothing. Did they insist that everyone else should be home schooled? Did they want to take away the other people's option to send their children to public schools?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights.

Tesla was insane. What's your point?

 

[332nd]

Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights.

Odds are the people who bake the bread & make your bulbs were public schooled. What's your point?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Beat): "When I hear people spew the nasty idea that schools should have user fees for those who attend, my response is always something like this: 'fine, if you want it that way, you cannot benefit from anything these children contribute to society when they are older, because you didn't help them.' Shuts them up every time.""
(Malcolm Kirkpatrick): ""Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights."
(Beat): "And that means nothing. Did they insist that everyone else should be home schooled? Did they want to take away the other people's option to send their children to public schools?"

(tyr_13): "The 'lets get rid of them,' crowd likes to use all the fallacies and run around that other 'woo' thinking modalities such as anti-vax and Truther movements such as proof by verbosity, red herring, non-sequiter..."

The point? I wondered if Beat would apply the standard of argumentation to himself that s/he applies to others. Asserting a "contribution" to society from government-operated ("public") schools without any method of measuring that contribution is a non-sequitur. For example:...
(Redtail): "Odds are the people who bake the bread & make your bulbs were public schooled. What's your point?"
"Odds are the people who bake the bread" in Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands did not attend government-operated schools. Many people assert a connection between subsidies to the schooling industry and economic growth or between attendance at school and economic growth, but this is seldom demonstrated. On the other hand, the connection between compulsory school attendance and anti-social behavior is pretty clear. A statistician in the office of the Attorney General, State of Hawaii gave me these charts.

E. G. West
"Schooling and Violence"

We conclude that so far there is no evidence to support the 19th century Utilitarian hypothesis that the use of a secular and public school system will reduce crime. Beyond this there is some evidence indeed that suggests the reverse causality: crime actually increases with the increase in the size of the public school sector. Such findings will undoubtedly stimulate further work, and clearly more research would be helpful. But if further investigation confirms the findings of Lott, Fremling, and Coleman, we must reach the verdict that the cost of public schooling is much higher than was originally believed. Published figures show that the conventional cost of public schools, on average, are already just over twice those of private schools.11 When we add to this the extra social costs of increased delinquency, the full seriousness of the inefficiency of our public school system is more starkly exposed.

From the US Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Students ages 12 to 18 were victims of about 1.5 million non-fatal crimes when they were at school compared to about 1.1 million non-fatal crimes while they were away from school."

As to "Did they insist that everyone else should be home schooled? Did they want to take away the other people's option to send their children to public schools?", given the "crowding out" effect of policies which restrict customers' use of tax subsidies to one supplier, it's opponents of parent choice who would "take away other people's option(s)". Further, compulsory attendance statutes, child labor laws, and minimum wage laws so restrict the option of on-the-job training for most children, for most vocations that this amounts to taking that option away.

(thaiboxerken): "Tesla was insane. What's your point?"
How do you shoe-horn Tesla into this discussion? He attended a government school. Does Ken assert a relation between attendance at some type of school and insanity? If so, again, this works in favor of parent control, seems to me.
Roland Meighan
Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications
Educational Review, 1995.

So-called 'school phobia' is actually more likely to be a sign of mental health, whereas school dependancy is a largely unrecognized mental health problem.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Grocery stores operate on user fees (customers pay). Most businesses would be less productive if their employees were starving. Is this an argument for free groceries and for State operation of grocery stores?

 

[Travis]

Grocery stores operate on user fees (customers pay). Most businesses would be less productive if their employees were starving. Is this an argument for free groceries and for State operation of grocery stores?

It's a good argument that the government needs to be the last line of defense against starvation. Which it currently is with good results.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

It's a good argument that the government needs to be the last line of defense against starvation. Which it currently is with good results.

The government program that provides that "last line of defense" is a voucher program (Food Stamps). That this entitlement program yields "good results" depends on how one assesses relative the impact of private charity versus State charity on moral hazard. I recommend Charles Murray's Losing Ground.

 

[ZirconBlue]

I thought libertarians were in favor of social mobility.

In theory, yes. In practice, not so much.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(ponderingturtle): "I thought libertarians were in favor of social mobility."
(ZirconBlue): "In theory, yes. In practice, not so much."
The bureaucratic, age-graded, residence-determined government-operated school system reduces social mobility. Who gets the wretched schools on the mainland US? Blacks and Hispanics. Who's overrepresented in prison in the US? Blacks and Hispanics. Who gets the wretched schools in Hawaii? Hawaiians and Samoans. Who's overrepresented in prison in Hawaii? Hawaiians and Samoans. Minority students in parochial schools are more likely to graduate high school, get accepted to college, graduate from college, and get advanced degrees than are minority students in government-operated schools. Herman Brutsaert compared parochial and government schools in Belgium (which subsidizes parent choice of school). Mean scores are higher in parochial schools than in government schools and the correlation between parent income and standardized test scores was lower in parochial schools than in government schools (government schools exacerbate inequality). Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

 

[Minoosh]

I don't usually care, but this thread seems like it is in the wrong place. More people will probably see it here, though.

Bringing up vouchers also seems beside the point; they don't address the "user fees" issue. If vouchers are issued to each child, they're not a user fee.

In my county schools are almost all "open enrollment" - any kid can go to any school. In practice maybe this doesn't matter much because parents are probably going to want young children to stay in the neighborhood. For high school, the real equalizer would be transportation vouchers, not tuition vouchers.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...Bringing up vouchers also seems beside the point; they don't address the "user fees" issue. If vouchers are issued to each child, they're not a user fee.

There is a discussion of bundled vouchers in the Brookings Institution book Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services. If vouchers apply only to one good or service, they do not work like user fees. If legislatures or school districts structure vouchers so that parents may use them for a variety of goods or services, then they have an incentive to shop around. If I find money on the ground, or even if some rich guy promises me a steady revenue stream, my grocery expenses work like user fees, in their relation to buyer and seller incentives, even if someone gave me the money.

 

[tyr_13]

I have never met any one in real life who believes in public schools aren't doing well get rid of them.

That's good. I have though sadly enough, and of a couple of different flavors too.

I do know a few give all the power back to the state/local school people.

I've heard that more than I've heard the 'get rid of them/ complete privatization' argument as well. Unfortunately I mostly hear it from people who want to 'stop protecting fags' and 'teach good Christian values about the origins of life' or, "why should teachers get paid more than $25,000, they don't work very hard or during the summer and ******" Notice that the last one is an actual quote...

I have heard the I do not have kids why should I pay taxes for the school statement many times over the last 30 something years since I moved to Long Island, NY. That I believe is the product of living in an area with such high property taxes. I even hear the my kids are now grown argument. I have not noticed it being party specific though.

People complain about school property taxes around here in the same way all the time. I echo your observation that it isn't party specific, but I'm not claiming any of those positions are. There does seem a trend though.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I've seen the product of "home schools." We can do with fewer kids who think Jesus hunted dinosaurs with Ronald Reagan.

We can do with fewer people who see other people's children as their meal ticket and as raw material for their social experiments.

 

[Beat]

(Beat): "When I hear people spew the nasty idea that schools should have user fees for those who attend, my response is always something like this: 'fine, if you want it that way, you cannot benefit from anything these children contribute to society when they are older, because you didn't help them.' Shuts them up every time.""
(Malcolm Kirkpatrick): ""Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights."
(Beat): "And that means nothing. Did they insist that everyone else should be home schooled? Did they want to take away the other people's option to send their children to public schools?"


The point? I wondered if Beat would apply the standard of argumentation to himself that s/he applies to others. Asserting a "contribution" to society from government-operated ("public") schools without any method of measuring that contribution is a non-sequitur. For example:...
(Redtail): "Odds are the people who bake the bread & make your bulbs were public schooled. What's your point?"
"Odds are the people who bake the bread" in Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands did not attend government-operated schools. Many people assert a connection between subsidies to the schooling industry and economic growth or between attendance at school and economic growth, but this is seldom demonstrated. On the other hand, the connection between compulsory school attendance and anti-social behavior is pretty clear. A statistician in the office of the Attorney General, State of Hawaii gave me these charts.

You took what I said completely out of context. Let me break the reasoning down for you step by step:
1. Person insists on enforcing their (ridiculous) expectation on to other people.
2. I respond with another equally ridiculous expectation using their style of reasoning.

I hope that clears it up.

 

[leftysergeant]

We can do with fewer people who see other people's children as their meal ticket and as raw material for their social experiments.

And we can do without people who think that the kids should be working for peanuts in a factory whether or not they have what it takes to be artists or engineers just because some factory doesn't want to put back into the system from which he benefits.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Beat): "When I hear people spew the nasty idea that schools should have user fees for those who attend, my response is always something like this: 'fine, if you want it that way, you cannot benefit from anything these children contribute to society when they are older, because you didn't help them.' Shuts them up every time.""
(Malcolm Kirkpatrick): ""Cyrus McCormick and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. You are free to quit eating bread and using electric lights."
(Beat): "And that means nothing. Did they insist that everyone else should be home schooled? Did they want to take away the other people's option to send their children to public schools?"

The point? I wondered if Beat would apply the standard of argumentation to himself that s/he applies to others. Asserting a "contribution" to society from government-operated ("public") schools without any method of measuring that contribution is a non-sequitur. For example:...
(Redtail): "Odds are the people who bake the bread & make your bulbs were public schooled. What's your point?"
"Odds are the people who bake the bread" in Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands did not attend government-operated schools. Many people assert a connection between subsidies to the schooling industry and economic growth or between attendance at school and economic growth, but this is seldom demonstrated. On the other hand, the connection between compulsory school attendance and anti-social behavior is pretty clear. A statistician in the office of the Attorney General, State of Hawaii gave me these charts.

You took what I said completely out of context⁰. Let me break the reasoning down for you step by step:
1. Person insists on enforcing their (ridiculous) expectation on to other people¹.
2. I respond with another equally ridiculous expectation using their style of reasoning².
I hope that clears it up.

Nope.
0. Seems to me I included more context than do most of those who participate in this discussion.
1. Not at all! It's advocates for compulsory attendance statutes and tax aupport of schools who "insists on enforcing their expectation on to other people".
2. You say you "always" respond to the "nasty" idea that schools "should" have user fees with the rejoinder "'fine, if you want it that way, you cannot benefit from anything these children contribute to society when they are older, because you didn't help them" and that this "shuts them up every time". "Nasty" is your value judgment. Obviously the people who advance the proposition that schools "should" operate on user fees disagree. The difference could well turn on different assessments of the impact of the current system, the imagined impact of some alternative system, and the strength of the "public goods" argument as applied to the pre-college education industry. Until these considerations receive examination, it's inappropriate to "shut them up every time", seems to me. If you "shut them up every time" at that preliminay stage in the discussion, how do you know what "style of reasoning" is behind the value judgment "should"? The missing context here is their reasoning, which you admit to (actually, brag about) excluding from consideration.

 

[tyr_13]

We can do with fewer people who see other people's children as their meal ticket and as raw material for their social experiments.

Wait a tick, don't those criticisms apply to the method you're advocating?