Supreme Court sets higher bar for education of students with disabilities

Those who reject vouchers argue that education is not and cannot be a free market in the usual sense. An important property of a free market is the ability for companies to fail: indeed, the majority of startups and small businesses fail. And while it's acceptable for restaurants a grocery stores to come and go, a private school going under has serious consequences. Unless the school goes under in the middle of summer break, all the students will be out of an education for a time. Even if neighboring schools are able to immediately take in all the displaced students, the disruption costs students weeks of productive learning. Also, competition requires people to have different options when choosing a school, but there's no guarantee schools will crop up appropriately, especially if poorer school districts will come with smaller vouchers. Finally, relating back to the article, if the private schools have any choice in which students they take, they will be incentivized to avoid taking students with disabilities, which generally are more costly to educate.

The proponent's response to all of this is that these problems can be alleviated with proper regulations, and then we leave the realm of ideology and it becomes a negotiation. Personally, I'm skeptical that a voucher system could be implemented well enough to improve education, though it could come out cheaper, but I don't think it's worth the risk. I'm open to the idea, though, or at least talking about it.

The total amount of funding for schools hasn't changed. One could inversely argue public-school funding is bad because it reduces money for private schools. Both arguments are tautological. They first assume their system is better, say the other competes for their money, and thusly conclude that funding for their better system should be preserved. (This is not an argument for or against charter schools. I'm just saying the "depletion" argument is silly.)

> You also divert money from public schools for no guarantee of better results

When properly done, charter schools can outperform public schools [1]. Otherwise, the evidence is mixed. I'd thus argue defaulting to the status quo. Teachers argue the status quo is state education while conservatives argue it's parent choice.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/charter-school-perf...

My wife is an SLP (i.e. "speech teacher", but more recently in management) and has dealt with several cases where very well-off families keep their children in public school so the state picks up the cost of special programs, even for simple stuff like articulation. In some states/counties, some students are entitled to government-funded therapy even if the kid goes to private school during the day!

Given everything we know about how _little_ teaching methodology matters to overall, aggregate outcomes--that what matters most, by far, are the home environment and the peer environment--I don't even see the debate about vouchers as remotely legitimate. From a 10,000 foot view, public education has the maximal benefit with minimal _actual_ burdens on other students. Rich kids will tend to go to rich public schools, and that's all that really matters. Poor kids will go to poor schools because poor parents rarely care, nor have the time or wherewithal to care, about those issues. But at least public schools will meet a baseline. Those parents that do care usually are able to make busing arrangements. Basically, all the corner cases can be adequately handled with smaller programs. There's no need to upset the existing structure of public school education.

Only bad things can happen. The history of education is littered with foolish ideas. The only obvious good idea was to institute public education in the first place. Beyond that, there are no easy solutions to improving educational outcomes. It's largely a cultural issue, and you can't legislate culture, nor can you throw money at it.

Well, if I do poorly at my job, I won't get paid either. Why does a school system get protection that the people paying for it do not? The status quo continues to hurt children.

> And once you divert public money to private schools, are they obligated to meet the same academic standards?

Well, yes, they should be held to the same standards as our public schools. Heck, if they take tax payer money they should have the same standard of what can be added as extra fees (no BS taking the money and demanding additional tuition).

It bugs me that when private social programs are brought in to deal with the worst-of-the-worst[1] and get results that we don't allow our children the same outlet education-wise.

FYI: North Dakota has a variation of open enrollment for public schools https://www.nd.gov/dpi/SchoolStaff/SchoolFinance/OpenEnrollm...

1) I remember the lecture by one group out of Chicago in the 90's (cannot remember the name but they had some good data collection that I took hints from). They had a client burn down their HQ. They still continued even with that individual.

Also, this action was only pursued after two professors at a university for the deaf filed an official complaint with the DoJ. Isn't it bizarre that two professors at an institute of higher-learning filed a complaint to have educational resources, which were freely available to the entire world, deleted?

> not a "product" of Obama's DOJ other than the expectation that the DOJ enforce the laws of the United States.

A bizarre statement, considering how the Obama administration and DoJ simply declined to enforce laws they didn't like.

The idea that in 2007 anyone thought that all the videos your school would post online would have to be accessible to hearing-impaired users is simply inaccurate.

I'm still at a bit of a loss as to the functional impact. I understand the monetary argument in the first paragraph, there are similar laws pertaining to educational material funding and accessibility such as CA EDU 60119[1] which requires access to all students all primary education materials BOTH at home and in the classroom.

But I'm still struggling to understand how this will functionally change anything? I guess I'm wondering if there is a measurable mandate for anything other than what could hypothetically be "superficial change" to accommodate the language of the supreme court.

[]1http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/textedcod60119.asp

I suppose withholding an obviously short and easy 8-0 decision until after the hearings would be just as political. But to announce the ruling now, during the last day of the committee confirmation hearing, seems extremely political and like an indictment against Gorsuch.