School vouchers fail yet another test

Of course here in Wisconsin the new pro voucher line is “See vouchers do work! Voucher students are performing as well as public schools. We need to expand the program.” Yes, it’s a crock, it’s disingenuous, and misleading but that’s the way wingnuts do things.

The Freidman/Neocon school of voodoo economics considers any deviation from privatization, deregulation and reduction in social spending anathema. Championing school vouchers is not about education. It is about the privatization of our education system. Diverting students to Tali-fundy schools accomplishes this. If you can bash unions and gain right wing votes in the process, what’s not to like? The push for vouchers is not going away.

Question for everyone:

Where are the best grade schools in the world?
Where are the bet high schools in the world?
Where are the best colleges in the world?

I would guess that at least 80 of the best 100 colleges in the world are in the US.

Why do have such poor to average grade schools and high schools and the best colleges in the world?

I would support vouchers in DC with greater oversight, because some schools like Gonzaga that they can actually afford to go with voucher help make sure these kids get an education.

But vouchers can’t work without oversight, especially if they just give the kid the opportunity to go another school that won’t give them an education. Since the voucher program as envisioned by Bush is simply a corporate giveaway to his buddies…

If you look at a city like DC, where the vast majority of schools are failing and exorbitant amounts of money are thrown at the problem to no avail, you have to consider other options. It’s profoundly disappointing that the current voucher program isn’t one but I wonder if it could be under a Democratic administration.

It would help if some of those elite private schools (like Sidwell, which has a picture of Karl Marx in their history department even as they charge tuition rates comparable to a state university) were more accessible and affordable.

Certainly the voucher programs aren’t perfect and with the current crop of private schools being mainly religious schools there isn’t much choice. It seems like the answer is trying to create more small charter schools to provide more diversity and choice in the community. I don’t see any other working solution. Money doesn’t seem to help, standardized testing has proven to be a complete failure. Vouchers may not work immediatly but they at least provide incentive for a larger diversity in type and size of schools. I’m not sure I would frame it as a secular versus religious argument, that’s the way it is now because so far only well off religious people put their kids in private school. After a few years I think you’ll see more small focused schools start up that will meet the diversity of needs that’s required now.

Vouchers have never been anything else but a semi-plausible way to rob the Public Schools, diminish their budgets, and give money to private ‘educators’ (e.g., Chester Finn, Lamar Alexander, et al). The voucher movement is part an parcel of the conservatard/flying monkey/fuckwit attack on Public Schools.

Neil Wilson,

The reason that many European Countries do not have a good university system is that they run their university system like the U.S. runs the public school system. Free to most students, low barriers to entry, unionized work force, and the desire to keep the schools all equal. The European model is more like the SUNY Model.

Image what the State of New York could do if they decided to have a flagship state university like Michigan, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, etc.

Ugh, usually I love the even-handedness with which CB writes, but in this case he’s engaged in some disingenuous arguments.

First, he paints a homogeneous pro-voucher movement, when in fact there are all sorts of different people supporting vouchers for several different reasons. Many of those reasons I strongly disagree with (religious indoctrination of children, for instance).

However, I am more sympathetic to the argument that letting parents direct children (and therefore funds) to different schools will create an economic incentive for schools — both public and private — to improve. I am also swayed by arguments that teachers unions have built in conflicts of interest and often have to decide between the welfare of their members versus what benefits the children their members teach. Or, worse, the welfare of the union versus the children the union’s members teach.

If you accept (or will even entertain) either of those arguments, it stands to reason that voucher programs will take years to have any measurable effect. To an economically-focused voucher supporter, the fact that test results are very similar just means that vouchers haven’t immediately broken anything and are doing no harm in the short term, and it does not at all indicate that a market-driven educational system is doomed to failure as nay-sayers so often suggest.

Now, I know I’m going to get called names and attacked for even hinting that vouchers may be less than a terrible awful very-bad thing. Heck, I’m no voucher cheerleader, and to the extent that I agree with testing them empirically, I would personally prohibit their use for religious schools. I just figured that some percentage of you out there might be interested in a more nuanced pro-voucher viewpoint than CB presented,

Neil Wilson,

I would guess that at least 80 of the best 100 colleges in the world are in the US.

I would guess that at least 80 of the best 100 grade schools and high schools are in the US.

Beverly Hills High School for instance has outstanding test results.

Jim@20: How is it easier to blame teachers, unions, and the public school system as a while than it is to blame parents, as you’ve just done? That didn’t look particularly hard, either.

Me, I think the macro problem is caused by lots of smaller problems, including parents, teachers, bureaucracy, ideologues, and all sorts of others. So I’m for tackling each step of the way whenever possible rather than focusing on one — be it parents or unions — to the exclusion of others.

I agree with Jim. Most of the disparities in educational outcomes disappear, statistically, when when adjusts for the parents’ level of education. Private schools are more about keeping kids isolated within a certain ethnic, religious or socio-economic group than real educational improvements. In that sense, they’re about as socially useful as private health insurance.

The OECD’s PISA studies also confirm that this finding holds up pretty much everywhere in rich nations (emerging economies are another story).

That said, there is a minority of public schools that have quality issues and, certainly, there’s a lot of room for offering greater academic choice. It bothers me to no end that foreign language instruction is nearly non-existend at the elementary level.

So are the private schools in these voucher programs required to accept any student?

How many private schools have the capacity to accept special needs students, those with physical handicaps and learning disorders?

How many private schools have to provide free breakfasts, lunches, and school supplies for their students?

How many private schools have a substantial percentage of their students that are not fluent in English?

Lastly, what is the average cost for public schools to spend to meet these demands from their students?

Brooks @24,

Well, seeing as how I’m a voucher supporter (see post #17), and I agreed that parents share blame (see post #21), I’d say the last time an outspoken (I did speak out, right?) voucher supporter blamed parents was about… 5 minutes ago?

Right. Now point me to someone outside of a blog or other internet forum where a pro-voucher proponent has blamed parents. Go ahead and find something. i’ll wait.

I don’t think anything has been proven, when one looks at the actual numbers. Looking at what the Department of Education is reporting, the amount being spent on private elementary and secondary schools is a nit. In 2007 (the last line item), total expenditures for all elementary and secondary education across the country is nearly $600 billion. Yet, less than 8% of that goes to private schools, whether they get paid directly as tuition from individuals or government-provided vouchers to assist in covering the costs. Less than 8%. Public schools, funded exclusively by local, state, and federal tax dollars, which means there is no choice given to taxpayers to decide whether or not to pay for it (the government calls that a crime), still receive just under 93% of all the money spent on education at these levels of schooling. Even those people qualified to receive tax-subsidized vouchers from some level of government to cover private school tuition might still have to pay some taxes, including property taxes if they are homeowners or own a business, to cover the tax-subsidized vouchers and expenditures for public schools (although they would probably get some kind of tax credit or tax deduction to reflect this on some taxes; in the parts of Illinois I’ve lived and paid property taxes in, Chicago suburbs not in Cook County, we don’t itemize the property taxes, sent as bills from the county to be paid in two parts, that pay the lion’s share of public school money; but we can take private education credits and deductions on both state and federal income taxes; but, this doesn’t lessen the impact of the property taxes paid by homeowners and businesses).

“Liberals” love talking about how much they love “oversight” and fiscal responsibility, and that the supposed lack of oversight in private schools, even those somewhat subsidized by taxes, is “proof” of the failure of private school vouchers, citing studies like this as “evidence”. I’ve read parts of the actual report referenced here, and conclude that it is fair, even based on the limitations stated by the authors of this privately funded study. That isn’t the problem. And neither is the oversight or lack of it in regards to private schools. Nor are the arguments made by “liberals” about their so-called concerrrrn for fiscal responsibility.

The fact of the matter is, almost 93% of all money for education goes to public schools, funded exclusively by taxes, and all complete with a variety of government “oversight”. The problem public schools in this country, the poorer areas of big cities, which happen to be run exclusively by Democrats, suck, even with all this “oversight”. The “liberals” have three “answers” to fix this problem: 1) maintain the status quo, which is to do nothing; 2) attack tax subsidies private schools sometimes get and try to use more tax dollars to fund further studies to use as “evidence” to “prove” their attacks; and, 3) provide more tax dollars to public schools, regardless of what will be done with the money, and then whine when more money isn’t provided, using “racism” and other hateful invalid arguments. That’s it. Not “in a nutshell”; this is it. This is all “liberals” do. This isn’t any kind of real concern about total oversight of the public school systems, nor of what anybody would say is fiscal responsibility. What “liberals” say and do is nothing, lie, and promote further fiscal irresponsibility with tax dollars. And all one has to do to prove this is to look at the actual numbers.

The Freidman/Neocon school of voodoo economics considers any deviation from privatization, deregulation and reduction in social spending anathema.

But using taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for “private” schools isn’t real privatization, it’s not deregulation, and it sure as hell isn’t a reduction in social spending. It’s faux privatization, making private profit at public expense, and it’s no more than a form of corruption.

Are you a believer in democracy and freedom of choice? If so, then you should support the implementation of school vouchers and I will attempt to tell you why I believe the preceding argument, which states that school vouchers are failing, is faulty. As a political science major, I have studied education policy in a legislative process class, where I took part in a simulation of Congress. During the simulation, I was the ranking member of the Education and the Workforce committee and worked with others to create and amend education bills. Vouchers provide the necessary funds to allow students from low-income families to attend the private school of their choosing. They help to create more diversity in private schools and they even benefit failing public schools who now have an incentive to improve their conditions so they don’t lose potential students to private schools. Children are the future of this nation and their public education system is failing, lacking, and falling behind. The original commenter states that vouchers are failing because public school students have scored higher on standardized tests than private school students who have received funding, but the statistics used are only from the Milwaukee area and do not represent the entire country. Also, private schools do not have to comply with No Child Left Behind testing regulations and so their tests may be more challenging. It is time to reform our education system, as we strive to set the standard for success worldwide and allow the potential for more Einsteins and Edisons.