Comment by eitally | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eitally | Hacker News Reader

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I don't completely disagree with you, but where's the incentive for a government to give you vouchers to spend on non-governmental education, directly taking away funding from the schools the same government is responsible for managing?

If it was a different pool of money, I get it, but -- speaking specifically about the Bay Area -- one of the reasons public schools have suffered is because of attrition toward parochial & private options. When school attendance shrinks, so does funding, which creates a downward spiral of performance in many cases. And it isn't even that all the private options are superior, but because public school funding is dependent on attendance, they detract from the capability & capacity many of these schools have to deliver high quality education. I'm sure it isn't unique, but I've never lived in a place that had such a high proportion of kids in parochial & private schools, and it absolutely does harm the public schools. Compare this to somewhere like Massachusetts, which is equally progressive, treats teachers equally well (better), and has much higher performing public schools -- largely because fewer families with means to pay for private actually do, and those kids & households further support the teachers and administration of their neighborhood schools.

> where's the incentive for a government to give you vouchers to spend on non-governmental education, directly taking away funding from the schools the same government is responsible for managing

The schools are there for the kids. They aren't cattle to be used as a commodity input to a jobs and spending program.

> but where's the incentive for a government

The incentive is because it saves the government money, and educated the student better.

If costs the government 20k per year to educate 1 child, and a private school can do a better job of it, for 15k, then the government saves money by having the private school do it instead.

The Bay Area has a really interesting synergy of situations that all contribute to really terrible public schools. A big one is that even in the best school districts, the salaries do not match the cost of living, so teachers cannot afford to live in the communities they work. Another one is that, thanks to prop 13, low property taxes on long-held properties create a serious bottleneck to funding for the schools. Both of these serve to strangle off the quality of education, which in turn drives parents to private schools, landing us at the point where enrollment is dropping off and, as you say, lowering school funding as well.

I would argue that until the Bay Area housing crisis is resolved (probably in part by repealing prop 13), the private-school exodus will continue.

> And it isn't even that all the private options are superior,

By what metric are the private options not superior to the Bay Area Public Schools?

No education requirements for private schools is one way they aren't superior. I would pose that segregation would be the other way private schools aren't superior.

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