Why are progressives against school vouchers..

DC_DEEP

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The problem is convicing the haves to give more to the have-nots.
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I would gladly vote to divert some (a percentage) of my district funds to poor/rural districts in MD. Better schools are good for the entire state.
I understand the differences in per-pupil wealth, but I was speaking more to the rationale of, say, distribution of funds within the Baltimore City district.

One of the small districts in which I worked had only two schools, elementary (K - 6) and secondary (7 - 12). What possibly could have justified the secondary school having just 3 English teachers, only a half-time music teacher, but 6 full-time coaches and 3 coaching assistants? Just one science teacher for 7 - 9 grades and one for 10 - 12? It's obviously due to the school board demonstrating their priorities. They could have dropped one of the assistants, and used one month's salary to buy me some textbooks. I had none... but the athletic teams always had fine uniforms and fine facilities.
 

LeeEJ

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What possibly could have justified the secondary school having just 3 English teachers, only a half-time music teacher, but 6 full-time coaches and 3 coaching assistants?

Because English and music students don't get on local TV every Friday night. An image of a strong athletic program implies that the entire school is doing well.

I think it's stupid, but that's how people think.
 

DC_DEEP

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Because English and music students don't get on local TV every Friday night. An image of a strong athletic program implies that the entire school is doing well.

I think it's stupid, but that's how people think.
The nail has been squarely hit upon its head. And you know, they are right. English and math and chemistry and physics are boring, annoying requirements. Football and basketball are IMPORTANT.
 

JustAsking

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Freddie, DC, and NIC,
Thanks so much for the kind words. I truly feel the same way about you and others on this board, so your comments mean a lot to me. Conversations with all y'all are what keep me coming back almost every day. I spend a lot of time in the "science oriented culture war" blog discussions, where the comment wars seem extremely polarized between the religious fundamentalists and the empiricist fundamentalists, so it is often quite predictable. So quite often the quality and diversity of discussions here is often much better here on LPSG.

In my comments earlier in the thread, I avoided the subject of the quality of the public school system in the USA for two reasons. One is that the OP's question was pretty specific and interesting, and two is because I don't feel qualified to offer any meaningful suggestions on how to improve public education. I do think the public school system needs something drastic, but I can't put my finger on the source of the problems. Lex is right to say that it is a very complex problem that is fraught with subjectivity.

As for the OP's question, I have another angle to offer. Progressives are also suspicious that there is a right wing religious component to activity that undermines the public school system. As a reaction to the courts upholding the establishment clause on issues like school prayer and teaching creation science, conservative Christian groups are creating alternative educational venues in large numbers. Homeschooling is one of those avenues. The organizational energy behind this movement is horrifyingly fierce. Sadly this is even being extended to the UK. Ignorance and stupidity is quickly becoming one of the USA's chief national products.
 

Lordpendragon

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It is worth remembering IMO, that when someone pays $20,000 a year for private education or up to £25,000 ($50,000) in the UK, they have already paid tax on that income, in the region of £15,000 ($30,000) in the UK. Their tax funds an awful lot of often woefully inadequate but free education for others. Let's not start telling the people who earn the money that pays the taxes, what to do with what we allow them to have left over.

When you remove any element of competition from a system, it invariably becomes worse for the customers and institutionaised for the benefit of those that work within it. Sadly the ideal of the progressives, as laid out by JA, is a pipe dream.
 

JustAsking

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Referring back to my earlier comments about the difference between the progressive and conservative world view, I would like to say that school vouchers are in the same category as school bussing.

The progressive sees bussing of kids from the economically challenged inner city to the affluent suburbs as a way of leveling the educational playing field. They would see kids from the inner city as "victims" of their particular circumstances and therefore needing the intervention of a process that levels the playing field for them. My feelings tend towards the progressive in theory, but I find that solutions to problems like this that involve large government programs do not work very well as a rule (with a few notable and excellent exceptions such as project Headstart.).

The conservative sees bussing as dangerous to the free-market of educational opportunity. In their world view, they see themselves as having the competence and ability to be successful enough to move to an affluent suburb so as to "buy" their children a better education. To a conservative, this seems fair, because they feel they earned it the old fashioned way, so wtf? Bussing, however, flies in the face of this because it works at cross purposes to this. Since the conservative puts a lot of stock in personal competence and hard work, they tend to see poverty and other impediments to opportunity as the product of "bad choices" made by the people in those situations. A conservative would underestimate the affect of societal barriers for disaffected groups of people and overestimate the opportunity for someone from a disadvantaged background to simply make better choices and work harder.

I think school vouchers are as alarming to progressives as bussing was to conservatives.
 

JustAsking

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...When you remove any element of competition from a system, it invariably becomes worse for the customers and institutionaised for the benefit of those that work within it. Sadly the ideal of the progressives, as laid out by JA, is a pipe dream.

Lord P,
Yes indeed, these are the two horns of the dilemma. The progressive utopia eliminates the beneficial effects of competition, whereas the conservative utopia leaves lots of opportunity for exploitation. Both extremes are pipe dreams.

Again, I am not proposing solutions. I was trying to address the OP's question from the two different "narratives" that frame the world views of progressives and conservatives as I see them.
 

Lordpendragon

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Interestingly, JA, in the UK the progressives are against bussing. They see it as undermining the right for everyone to have access to the same standard.
 

SpeedoGuy

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Not to mention that using public tax money to fund tuition for select students at a private school just is not the right thing to do.

I don't think so either. There is already a healthy market for private education, why isn't that sufficient for the economic elites? Why demolish public education to promote privatization? The last thing America needs is even more economic and social fragmentation and I fear that is what school vouchers will quickly accomplish.

If America just gives up on public education (and make no mistake, that's what vouchers really represent) it would be a big step backward. We might as well also give up on public universities, public libraries, public fire protection and law enforcement, public hospitals, national parks and public beaches, any semblance of public healthcare, etc. After all, no one deserves more than what they can afford, right?
 

JustAsking

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Interestingly, JA, in the UK the progressives are against bussing. They see it as undermining the right for everyone to have access to the same standard.
I am not sure I understand that. But it might be because UK and US public schools are funded differently. In the US, schools are funded largely by local taxes along with grants from the state. In my town, referenda are held where people vote for "levies" applied to their property tax. The result of this is very uneven funding between the affluent suburbs and the inner city.

This is one of the reasons bussing was proposed in the 60s.

I don't think so either. There is already a healthy market for private education, why isn't that sufficient for the economic elites? Why demolish public education to promote privatization? The last thing America needs is even more economic and social fragmentation and I fear that is what school vouchers will quickly accomplish.

If America just gives up on public education (and make no mistake, that's what vouchers really represent) it would be a big step backward. We might as well also give up on public universities, public libraries, public fire protection and law enforcement, public hospitals, national parks and public beaches, any semblance of public healthcare, etc. After all, no one deserves more than what they can afford, right?

One of the big reasons is one I alluded to before. Public schools are run by the government and therefore are subject to strict adherence to The Establishment Clause. In other words, no prayer in school, no Bible classes, and no Creation Science. Naturally, anyone is free to send their kids to a Christian Academy and not have to dismantle public schools in the process. However, the very extreme right not only want their own kids to have prayer in school, they want your kids to have it, too.

Dismantling public schools is something that has come from the culture wars. It goes beyond the conservative utopia to a theocratic dystopia.
 

Lordpendragon

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I am not sure I understand that. But it might be because UK and US public schools are funded differently. In the US, schools are funded largely by local taxes along with grants from the state. In my town, referenda are held where people vote for "levies" applied to their property tax. The result of this is very uneven funding between the affluent suburbs and the inner city.

This is one of the reasons bussing was proposed in the 60s.

It is different in the UK JA.

Every kid is pretty much given the same funding from central government. However our local government (like your city hall and counties I think) do have quite a large impact on how this money is spent.

Very generally, some of our inner city areas, with bigger social issues can perform much worse than other areas. People who live inthese areas are nominally given the choice to opt out from their designated local school, but in reality there are few who can manage this.

Whilst I accept that it is not helpful for parents to abandon their local school, I do not believe that it ever works to try to force people to fit an ideological model (left or right, religious or not). Also the parents are tax payers. It should not be divisive between parents of different income levels, rather it is a matter for government and education providers to do something about. In the Uk at any rate.
 

DC_DEEP

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Whilst I accept that it is not helpful for parents to abandon their local school, I do not believe that it ever works to try to force people to fit an ideological model (left or right, religious or not). Also the parents are tax payers. It should not be divisive between parents of different income levels, rather it is a matter for government and education providers to do something about. In the Uk at any rate.
I have never had children, but I still pay taxes toward funding the public schools - and I do it gladly.

For our non-USA friends, most of the funding for public schools in the USA comes from property tax. Each school district has a different tax rate, voted on by the residents in that district. It is expressed as a "millage rate"; a 7-mils tax rate equals 7/1000 of your property's assessed value. I am not certain if this is just on real property or also on personal property. A few areas do not have these taxes, so they have funding based on some other criteria.

So, over the years, I've contributed a bit to the public school funding, even though I will never have children to take advantage of it. I do not resent that, in the least. Public school was available to me, and my parents paid their taxes to support it. Fortunately, my school system, although not a rich one, was a good one. I still resent the implications of a voucher or even a bussing system. The way I see it, it isn't much different than me making a contribution for a specific cause, only to have that money diverted to a different cause (for instance, if I donate to American Diabetes Association, and my money gets diverted to Salvation Army.)

But still, the underlying issue is that the public schools are seen as failing - which they very well may be. But the solution is to fix the failing schools, not to further cripple them by removing funding.

I put out the challenge before, and only got one response. For anyone who sees the schools where they live as a failure, what have you personally done to make those schools better? Attended any school board meetings? Spoken to any of the teachers? The administration? Asked the principal, "What can I do to help?"

P. S. When I was in high school, we had one public school system and one (rather wealthy) parochial school system. But many of the students at the parochial school were bussed to the public school for their science classes. There were 4 of them in my general chemistry class, and those same 4 in my advanced chemistry class the next year. I didn't take physics in high school, but there were 6 of their students in that class. I'm sure that the two school systems had a financial arrangement, but the point is that way back then, it was cheaper for the parochial school to pay the public school a pro-rated tuition for a couple of classes than to hire a chemistry/physics teacher.
 

AlteredEgo

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Talk about your Catch-22's.

I can see 2 reasons for crappy school performance.

1) The administrators and educators are trying hard ( my personal belief) but the demographics of the school districts is such that the pool of pupils is not education motivated. Trying to teach kids who don't give a shit about learning is the most thankless of tasks.

2) The kids want to learn but the administrators and educators are shit. I find this more difficult to believe. I think most who go into education are highly motivated to do a good job.


I went to the best public school in my district. It was illegal for me to be there, because I lived outside the zone. To be honest, my neighborhood was a little higher up the socio-economic chain at the time. All the schools in my district had the same problems: Over-crowding, poorly-maintained buildings, behavioral problems. All the schools in my district had these issues, except two: The one I went to, and the one down the street from there.

In district 11 in the Bronx, there is a neighborhood known as Co-op City. On Baychester Ave, at the entrance of this neighborhood is what is known as an educational park. In the center is a huge, state-of-the-art high school with its own planetarium, a huge, huge library, 7 floors, and several computer labs. Surrounding this are two elementary schools (each with three playgrounds) and two middle schools, each with a courtyard with basketball hoops. All five schools access the high school's track, field, and tennis courts, and the community's handball courts. When I was in school, these were the newest schools in the district.

Both elementary schools and both middle schools had the same students from the same communities.

But the elementary and middle schools I went to were MARKEDLY superior to the ones just down the street on the other side of the high school. Same district. Same ratio of neighborhood kids to bussed in kids (from the projects accross the highway). How is it then that there was such a dramatic difference in results?

The funds were put to better use at my schools. My elementary school always had new Apple computers in the library and more books. My middle school had a rich music department, and an equally rich visual arts department. We were randomly divided for mandatory fine arts training. I learned to play the bass starting at age 9, and because of that had many doors opened for me both academically and extracurricularly.

More innovative ideas. While other schools were having bake sales, our school had a stronger emphasis on physical fitness, and had book sales instead. We had more field trips than most other schools, often selling candy or gift items to raise money for these trips. Students were grouped together according to their needs which ranged from students so severly autistic they needed one-on-one attention to a student so extremely gifted she required one-on-one attention. (That student went to the best high school in the entire city and graduated in January of her sophmore year.)

More opportunities for parental involvement. Because of the music and art, the creative writing and drama, parents had more invitations to come see what students were doing- and not just their own child, but students doing things their child was not involved in. Because my mother and I were constantly invited to the school in the evening we were there frequently, even though we could not accept every invittion. But asa result, my mother knew the assistant principal, the dean of my grade, teachers with whom I had very little contact, my primary teachers. She was able to develop real relationships and a level of comfort with these people. Frankly, I think it helped.

So what was going on down the street? Why were those schools with the same amount of funding, the same demographic so far behind my schools?

Is it poor administration? Is it underperforming teachers? I doubt it. I think it is more a matter of a lack of imagination. Those schools performed about as well as other schools in our district, just much worse than the ones I attended.
 

Freddie53

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One of the big reasons is one I alluded to before. Public schools are run by the government and therefore are subject to strict adherence to The Establishment Clause. In other words, no prayer in school, no Bible classes, and no Creation Science. Naturally, anyone is free to send their kids to a Christian Academy and not have to dismantle public schools in the process. However, the very extreme right not only want their own kids to have prayer in school, they want your kids to have it, too.
Well put. I would add to that. As far as I know no court has ruled that a child can not pray at school. What the courts have ruled is that the schools and/or teachers shall not lead in prayers.

What is happening here is that the extreme religious right not only want to have prayer in schools, they want to dictate the type of prayer that the students can pray and they want that prayer lead by the school and staff.

Let's suppose there is a Catholic child praying to the Mother of God, Mary, or a Muslim with his prayer shawl facing east toward Mecca, A Hindu praying to one of the Hindu Gods, and on and on it goes.

Suppose a "liberal Christian" wants to pray for a friend who is having an abortion and wants to pray that it will be successful without complications; a liberal Christian who wants to pray that Hillary Clinton be elected President of the United States; A Democrat who is praying that God will help us get our troops out of harm's way ASAP.

Oh no these prayers won't pass the litmus test. The prayers will have to be prayers approved by the extreme religious right and they will have to be prayed to Jesus, not Marry, Allah, Zeus or any other God figure in our history or even a new God that has just arrived on the scene.

And while we are at it, the courses on the Bible will be lead by the religious right and only THEIR interpretations will be given. The interpretations by the liberal Methodist, Presbyterians, Episcopal, and Unitarian churches will be declared hermetical by the school and/or the teachers.
 

Lex

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...

I put out the challenge before, and only got one response. For anyone who sees the schools where they live as a failure, what have you personally done to make those schools better? Attended any school board meetings? Spoken to any of the teachers? The administration? Asked the principal, "What can I do to help?"
...

It's easier to bitch from afar than to get your nails dirty. Here are some really easy things that would help teachers tremendously:
  • Donate supplies (pencils, paper, markers, crayons, glue). Many teachers have to purchase these out of pocket as the school allocation is not enough.
  • Donate time (ask a teacher if s/he can send home things that you can help them with and send back) Think about things like word rings and index cards. Teachers spend hours cutting and pasting. Every little bit helps.
  • Organize a fund raiser. Ask your church/organization to have a fundraiser and give the proceeds to a local school. Think about how much money you can raise with the help of your middle class peers.
  • Volunteer. Spend time in the School. Help with hall, office or cafeteria duty.
GIVE BACK.
 

dong20

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It's easier to bitch from afar than to get your nails dirty. Here are some really easy things that would help teachers tremendously:
  • Donate supplies (pencils, paper, markers, crayons, glue). Many teachers have to purchase these out of pocket as the school allocation is not enough.
  • Donate time (ask a teacher if s/he can send home things that you can help them with and send back) Think about things like word rings and index cards. Teachers spend hours cutting and pasting. Every little bit helps.
  • Organize a fund raiser. Ask your church/organization to have a fundraiser and give the proceeds to a local school. Think about how much money you can raise with the help of your middle class peers.
  • Volunteer. Spend time in the School. Help with hall, office or cafeteria duty.
GIVE BACK.

I entirely agree in practical terms, but by doing so the root causes are not really addressed so one perpetuates the problem.

I give some time to a school not too far away from me; I'm paid for some but a chunk I do pro bono so to speak as I know they can't properly afford some of the things they need done. It's not much but it's something.
 

Lex

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I entirely agree in practical terms, but by doing so the root causes are not really addressed so one perpetuates the problem.

I give some time to a school not too far away from me; I'm paid for some but a chunk I do pro bono so to speak as I know they can't properly afford some of the things they need done. It's not much but it's something.

If more people spent time in schools, they would see how fucked up they are and then there would be larger segment of the citizenry ready to leverage the powers that be to fix things. I really don't think most people have any idea that they can walk through a lot of schools in their city and feel very unsafe while smelling the stench of urine in the stairwells and seeing the litter of drug paraphenalia on the playground. I've been there and done that.
 

Wyldgusechaz

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there is a interesting definition of insanity and it goes like this:

If you do the same thing over and over, and expect the result of your action to be different than it is, you are insane.

If I for example I want to effect change in a country, and i send 1000's of troops, lots of equipment, and decided to do more of the same, year after year, and expect a different result even tho I am doing exactly the same thing, I am nuts. I need to change my approach if i want change cuz doing the same thing gets me nothing.

If I am the 3rd highest country in the world in spending per pupil, and my educational results are falling, and I decide spending MORE money trying to effect a change, then again I am nuts. I need to try something different, ANYTHING!

If it means allowing privatization of education, school vouchers, orphanges, we have to think outside the box. With having tripled funding for education in real inflation adjusted dollars over the last 40 years and the skills of our children are falling, money is clearly not the answer.
 

Freddie53

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I really don't think most people have any idea that they can walk through a lot of schools in their city and feel very unsafe while smelling the stench of urine in the stairwells and seeing the litter of drug paraphenalia on the playground. I've been there and done that.
Why is there the stench of urine in the stairwells. Are the students pissing their pants or are they just "whiping it out and pissing on the stairs to create mischief. Are the bathrooms so bad or dangerous that students feel safer peeing on the stairs then going into a bathroom where they are afrraid they might be attacked in some way.

Where are the teachers? I would think the students would get caught pissing on the stairs wheether they did in on purpose or had an accident.

The conditions you have described are deplorable. And we expect students to learn in this environment?
 

dong20

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If it means allowing privatization of education, school vouchers, orphanges, we have to think outside the box. With having tripled funding for education in real inflation adjusted dollars over the last 40 years and the skills of our children are falling, money is clearly not the answer.

Rule nothing in or out, sounds reasonable, at least at face value.

That money is part of the problem is undeniable but, and I know this will sound lame I'm quite convinced that modern western "I want it NOW" culture is a factor in the increasingly poor academic performance of todays children. I see the evidence when I'm travelling; a sort of insidious creeping infusion of an almost laissez faire attitude to this and other social issues in more and more countries.

The ability of rich parents to provide a better range of educational (and social) options is also a factor. I think that is what, rightly or wrongly causes huge alarm bells go off when terms like privatisation, vouchers etc are bandied around. Privatisation and truly equitable social provision are seldom synonymous.

Look at some of the countries in that list, many of them spend less per pupil but achieve better results, there are other variables which need to be considered. I agree that a fixation merely on the fiscal will probably end up in a stalemate but until that,and declining parental responsibility are addressed it's hard to see how things will improve.