Vouchers? For or Against?

[candycorn]

If a parent doesn't send his kids to public school they should get their share of taxes that would have been used to educate their children back

That sounds fair. Which makes me wonder if they should be paying for it off the top anyway.

 

[candycorn]

School vouchers were created to suppress the working class, by allowing politically active parents to send their kids to private or to magnet schools, instead of fixing their own local public schools, the only reason to send your child to private school, is because your public school system is lacking in some way. If that is the case then we should fix the public schools system not just give a few loudmouth parents a free ticket to private school so you can keep taxes low, and the next generation of american kids dumb

Welcome Purple Owl.

As one of the ranking liberals on this board, I can understand your stance from a political standpoint. Somehow, though, I think politics has to take a back seat to the obvious failures in our educational system.

Here is what I think we should do (it will never pass but it’s what I think we should do):

2017: Identify 10 states that would be wiling to participate in a DOE voucher “top to bottom” program that will last from 2020 to 2032 school years. Make it clear that all Federal Funding for education would come in the form of vouchers sent directly to parents during these 12 years. The states, by agreeing to the participation, agree to make up any short-fall with their own Education funds. So if the costs of sending a kid to Private School 123 is X and the federal contribution is 75%, the State agrees to make up the 25%. Basically like they do now with public schools. The difference is that the money will now go to whomever owns the school.

2017: Announce that in 2020, the Department of Education will be uncoupled from the Executive branch and sat up as a separate federal agency. The current term of the Secretary will end in 2020 anyway and a new director will be selected by drawing from the nominees from the governors of the 10 states that are participating. So the governors have some real skin in the game.

Mid 2017: Close the application process on July 31.

2017: Have the DOE come up with a scoring system that actually measures the education received by students in all 50 states. Grad rates, SAT/ACT scores, drop out rates, etc…. Have them put together a matrix that assigns a value 1-10 and rank each state. Alaska may have a 8.7; Nevada may have a 7.55, Missouri may have a 6.2, etc… The key is that the same data is considered; not just one “great” or one “poor” stat. You rank all 50 states as a baseline to measure improvement of the 40 vs the 10 that will be vouchered.

Fall 2017: Select the States that applied to be part of the voucher program: The top 2 scoring get in. The bottom 2 in scoring get in. That is first and foremost. From the applicants that are left…the highest population gets in. The lowest population gets in. The other four applicants are systematic choices where States can now opt out. High schools in these four states will have very different electives. It’s not all thought through yet but here is a possibility: One will offer what we have now; football, volleyball, basketball, tennis, band, concert, drama, academic decathlon. One will offer no inter-murals at all. You’d still have PE but you won’t have the “classic” track meets where schools from 70 miles away travel to a site. You’d just race kids in your class. One would offer a mix stressing vocational education and some limited inter-murals and another would offer a mix stressing college preparatory courses offering intermural competitions

2018-2020. Schools in the 10 states get grants to help them get ready. To train the teachers. To assist some of the private schools in expanding their classrooms because it’s a given that some will move their kids just on the notion of going to a “private” school.

2020-2032. Have the director and their staff ritualistically monitor every school to see what is the outcome from not only test scores but other society factors. I think you’ll see that regardless of how you fund Jenny; if Jenny doesn’t have a good home life, Jenny will suck at education. But this will pretty much eliminate any discussion to the contrary (hopefully). I think there will be winners and losers just like in every case and a whole lot of “Well, Indiana had a tornado that wiped out it’s best school” and stuff like that.

During this time, administrators and principals will have carte blanche to do what they want in their schools. The only standard is using the scoring system that was applied in 2017…getting as close to a perfect 10 as you can. So if the 6 States who are totally unfettered have a great State DOE, they can finally do what they want to do. Pay teachers more? Lengthen the school year? Shorten the school year? Scrap the myth that you won’t always have a calculator within a few inches of your fingers in 2020 and focus on teaching kids the concepts of critical thought….Its’ the ultimate laboratory. In the 4 states that are mostly unfettered, you will finally get to see what interests kids more; chunking a football around or turning a wrench and being able to tune up your rig for ultimate superiority on Friday night outside the stadium???

At the end of it all, you can look at the state’s individual approaches and have a score that shows what approach worked best. What approach worked worst. How they did overall against the non vouchered states…. And in 2032 when we have the election, those running can look at the stats and decide whether they want to fold the DOE back into the Executive or keep them as free from politics as possible.

 

[Nia88]

I think vouchers are not solving the core issue. The solution isn't to allow kids to choose schools outside of their district. The solution is make schools better and ensure that children no matter where they live receive the same quality of education. Tax money for education should be divided equally so there consistency in the resources and education children receive.

 

[AnCap'n_Murica]

Against.

Vouchers are EBT cards for government schools.

Privatize the whole mess and knock it off with the half measure turd polishing.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

If the republicans weren't so hell bent on cutting public education I'd probably be ok with vouchers. I think the parents should have the choice.

What I really wish the republican party would focus on is improving public education instead of ripping it down.

Does "improving it" = "throwing more money at it" ?