If you want to fix the education system, I believe it starts with the way they are funded.
WuWei
445
We have 10 public schools spread out over a state. 2 are great. 4 are average. 2 are bad.
When you pool the money, what happens?
In theory, they all end up on the high side of average. Your scenario highlights the issue though. I bet the two great schools have the most money.
That’s not the right question… does school vouchers make it better. My answer is no, at least not for kids who live in poor neighborhoods.
Parents who have kids who play sports care. I was just pointing out another problem that vouchers can’t solve.
No it’s not. The rule I pointed out is strictly due to athletics.
Private school = faith based
All Requires money or a two parent household with one parent at home. Or both. In the case of private schools, athletic ability can garner a scholarship. That’s the only acception (
wHo cAres AbOut SpOrt hurr durr)
How do you facilitate the other 80% of students who can’t afford those 4 options?
See this attitude is why vouchers won’t work either. Vouchers have value like I said in my example above
The above situation won’t work if they value the vouchers based on the school in their zone. So we have to level the value of the vouchers which means Brentwood parents would be funding Inglewood kids to attend their kids school. At the expense of the Brentwood school because they would not remain open if their price per student dropped by 50%.
WuWei
451
In what theory?
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they do.
So you feel “more money”, tax money, will buy the bad schools out of the hole? It’s that simple? What does history tell us about that feeling?
They do. It cost more money to run a school in a rich neighborhood than it does in a poor one. Therefore vouchers for rich school are higher value than those of a poor school. If you level it out… rich school suffers because they won’t get the funding they need per student. So the only way to make up for that gap is to increase the number of students… which also has a negative impact of education. Either way rich school gets worse.
Decoupling property taxes seems like it would be the answer but that would be a disaster. Home values are tied to schools
WuWei
454
And that assumes tax money is the issue.
Are there schools, communities, in some places that no matter how much money you pour into it are never going to be “good” because of the culture?
Maybe, maybe not… but how do vouchers solve that? How do private schools solve that?
Kelby
456
Exactly…along with all of the extra curricular activities, the arts, etc.
JayJay
457
Because we have examples where it’s being done.
It doesn’t lead to better education.
It leads to fraud and poorer kids being trapped in now underfunded schools.
I believe in school choice.
Vouchers aren’t the way to do it.
Killing public schools aren’t the way to do it.
WuWei
459
These are public schools funded with tax payer money with a stated noble of purpose of educating the citizenry for the betterment of society.
Taking requires justification. When 14% can’t read at all and 35% can’t read above a 5th grade level, nobody has any business talking about “sports”.
They can go to Under Armor, AAU or Boy’s Club for their “sports”.
WuWei
462
Nobody has suggested that once.
WuWei
463
Vouchers solve being forced to double dip to have school choice.
