Give everyone vouchers and education will be 10 times better.
Lots of places don't, and are also doing fine.
That's because that particular feature is orthogonal to any real issue.
When the problems in Detroit and LA subside maybe I would be with you on this point.
What if the student has a learning disability? In a smaller school, that will certainly take down the test scores - will three LD students ruin the school's reputation? How about people with down syndrome, for example?
What if the student requires major accommodations - for example, the student is quadriplegic? The big school systems currently take money from all students to help out with these expensive cases.
Will these private schools with vouchers be required to maintain the same standards as the public schools? For example, can a school discriminate via race or religion?
Most voucher advocates are really looking to take the easy students and dump the hard cases on a backstop underfunded public system. Then everyone will look at the public system and say, "see how much better the private system is!"
Because the private system does not take the hard cases.
Everything is a process of improvement overtime. The reality is, we don't have all the answers ever. What matter's is how much things are improving overtime. I don't see that with public schools.
I could easily ask you a ton of questions on how to fix Detroit or LA schools.
Allowing competition fixes a lot of problems.
Public schools, are derived from the Prussian system, its optimized to create obedient workers, its the lowest common denominator in education.
Arguements of equality in public schools are out the window too when you compare the funding and quality between poor counties and wealthy ones.
Its especially unjust that parents paying for private education pay twice, for public and private.
Second, let's see what happens if we fund private and public schools equivalently. Class sizes of 10 don't happen by accident.
Paying for private education "twice" is just part of rich people paying for the society that enabled them to become and stay rich.
"Second, let's see what happens if we fund private and public schools equivalently."
Detroit get's $14k per student. Cost of living in Detroit is low and barely anyone who graduates is literate.
I don't think funding's the problem.
US Public schools blow everyone else out of the water if you shave off the bottom 10%. The US problem with schooling is more and more a problem of equity. People need to understand that helping other kids isn't going to hurt their kids.
US taxpayers would rather throw money at prisons and police instead of education and social workers. I don't mean schools when I say education, I mean outreach to families and help getting them what they need.
Who is "everyone else?"
"US taxpayers would rather throw money at prisons and police instead of education and social workers."
Agreed. End the war on drugs and personal freedom. End the wars, bring every troop home, from everywhere. Cut the military budget.
"I mean outreach to families and help getting them what they need."
In 2019, we spend $90,960 per family of 4 on welfare. The money's there. Unaccountable bureaucracies waste money. This will never change.
Where is yours for that $90k BS. Sounds like a serious argument for just giving poor people cash.
Again, I don't know who you're referring to by "everyone else."
"Where is yours for that $90k BS."
Enjoy!
Federal Breakdown 2019 in Billions:
$59: EITC Refundable Tax Credits - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/020-0906
$29: Child Tax Credit - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/020-0922
$64: SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Programs) - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/012-3505
$51: Housing Assistance - https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/CFO/documents/3%20-%20FY19C...
$57: SSI (Disabled, blind or senior citizens) - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/028-0406
$31: Pell Grants - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/091-0200
$16: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/075-1552
$23: Child Nutrition - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/012-3539
$12: Head Start - https://www.acf.hhs.gov/about/budget
$5: Job Training - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/016-0174 , https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/016-0181
$5: WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) - https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/wi...
$5: Child Care - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/075-1550 , https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/075-1534 ,
$4: LIHEAP (Utility bill help) - https://liheapch.acf.hhs.gov/Funding/funding.htm
$1: Lifeline (phone payment help) - https://www.usac.org/wp-content/uploads/about/documents/annu... Page 8
$409: Medicade - https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/075-0512
Total: $771 billion
People below the poverty line in 2019: 33.9 million - https://www.statista.com/statistics/233138/number-of-people-...
$771 billion / 33.9 million below poverty citizens = $22,743
$22,743 * Family of 4 = $90,972
THIS IS JUST FEDERAL SPENDING AND DOES NOT INCLUDE STATE AND LOCAL SPENDING!
This is a great deal for the students because they enter the college of their choice with a better background than a typical student.
Society is disadvantaged when intelligent students aren't allowed to achieve their fullest potential. We need programs that allow students to independently work at their own pace. We'd have a ton more 15-16 year old's attending college.
There's so much room for improvement.
There is considerable reason to believe almost all variability in school performance is due to factors unrelated to the actual school itself (predominantly, the socioeconomic background and environment of the students and degree of parental involvement), which explains why limited scale efforts which require active parental choice to engage always perform better than the baseline, but scaling those up to be the baseline usually fails to have the same results. Better schools are just the schools attended by the students that would do best whatever school they were in.
So, if you aren't directing the solution at the things outside of schools that drive school outcomes, I don't expect you are going to solve any problem with the schools.
Like corrupt administrations that siphon funds needed to fix buildings teaming with cockroaches.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2016...
We can postulate how a top down approach might work but these students will still be suffering while we sort and continually monitor (we won't) the system.
Involving market forces and allowing parents to have say in where their children will be educated puts the power in the most effective hands for change.
Just like remote learning, if I don't like K12, I can try another online school, same as I dump Netflix for Hulu. I'm not even geographically limited. If there is a teacher that specializes in teaching dyslexic students and I have a child that's dyslexic, I'm no longer limited that the teacher isn't in a school within 5-10 miles. The teacher can be in another state even technically as long as she's board certified in my state. There is also a geographic arbitrage advantage, if my school system doesn't pay teachers enough to live comfortably in my city, maybe the teachers can be hired where its cheaper to live. Or teach for NYC and live in rural NY state.
This claim could desparately use evidence.
Market forces improve conditions. Motivations are realigned to the incentive of the parent's satisfaction with their kid's education. Service improves when you have competition.