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Comment by zrail | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you. ISA proponents make two arguments that sort of resonate with me, though. First, incentive alignment is closer with a private structure. This is weak to me because there’s no reason why incentives can’t be aligned in a similar way with, say, an additional tax on students that looks similar to an ISA (big standard deduction, time limited, with a total cap on return).

Second, and more reasonable to me, is that the political climate makes public universal education impossible at the moment so why not pioneer in the private space? I would love to see society invest in citizens, and in fact I would go farther and fully federalize the preK-12 system and ban charters. Such things are just not realistic with a government that can’t even pass a simple budget without fireworks.

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> A tax on students

It would take all of about two decades, maybe less, for program spending to spiral out of control. And the only way to solve it would be to expand the tax to non-students.

Would you invest in an ISA for a person that is intending to become a teacher?

Arguably a very important job with high impact, sadly it’s not well paid.

> and ban charters.

Why? What's the difference between publicly funded versus publicly funded and operated?

The current incarnation of charter schools are a problem because they can choose who they want to admit with very loose regulations. Anyone who looks like they might be expensive or against whatever their corporate beliefs happen to be are not admitted. Public schools have to take everyone, which means they get the most expensive students (read: special needs and disabled students) while being stripped of revenue that they depend on to help those students.

Federalizing K-12 in the US is a pretty radical proposal but I think it's necessary if we ever want to get out of the inequality quagmire we're in now. Leveling the playing field would mean that no matter where you happen live your kids have access to well funded high quality primary education.

Which state? In Massachusetts all charter school admission is by lottery, with preference given to siblings of existing students and students who reside in the district the charter school is located in.

You’re right, it varies greatly by state. I’m thinking specifically of Michigan.

IIRC in Utah the public schools still receive funding for charter school students.

In either case, why should "easy" students be held back to the level of the "expensive" ones when instead they could go to a tech- or arts-focused charter school and contribute far more back to society?

Leveling the playing field would mean that no matter where you happen live your kids have access to well funded high quality primary education.

This seems...highly unlikely. Instead you will see everything reduced to the lowest common denominator, metal detectors at the doors, prison schools.

The purpose of charter schools is to circumvent equal access provisions and to break teacher unions.

Or to offer programs and incentives that the unions won't agree to such as: longer academic year, longer school day, merit pay, on-call duty, at-home visits, non-traditional facility, non-traditional pedagogy, poor performance termination, etc...

I mean, sort of. Experimentation in things like that is of course possible in private schools, but so are unions. The charter system as currently implemented doesn’t do that, by and large, or if they do it’s a minor aspect. The primary effect is circumventing equal access to make a profit at public school’s expense.

If you looked into it I think you'd find that charter providers do not support having a new separate union for teachers that provides all of these "programs and incentives."

Having worked at charter schools... I can tell you that each state runs their charter program a little differently, but generally teachers at charter schools are not union represented. Each school charter is issued independently of any others and the school design can vary dramatically from one charter to the next, which is actually the point. Some charter schools have long days. Some go year round. Some focus on at-risk youth. Some focus on alternative pedagogy... etc, etc.

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