[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

My problem isn't with vouchers per se, but with any voucher system that does not take into account disparities in access and schooling costs, or leaves parents with little option but to send their kid to parochial school because it's the only one within reach that gets adequate funding. Propose a system that doesn't screw over the people with the least ability to make use of it.


Let's say a school in an impoverished area normally is allotted $3,000 per year per student, but in an area with more property tax revenue each student is allotted $6,000 and the education costs, facilities etc, have grown to match it. Will the voucher given to the person in the poor area be based on their local tax revenue, or the costs of the school they wish to send their kid to? Who pays the difference?

In most cases, impoverished urban school districts spend more on students than suburban school districts. Chicago Public Schools spent $11,500 per student in 2008 (the last year I could find data for); Naperville schools (Naperville is a wealthy suburb) spent $11,200 per student. I chose these because I am familiar with these areas, but you'll find similar figures if you look at DC or NY.

So if you give kids vouchers based on their local per student population, you'll be competitive with wealthier counties.

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Do we honestly believe the higher graduation rate in private schools, or schools in affluent areas, are due to some magically better system or a staff of Miracle Workers? In some school districts, getting any graduation is a hard won battle accomplished against impossible odds by teachers dealing with disenfranchised kids from absent families. [/QUOTE]
I don't really disagree with any of this; a student living an a home with two well educated parents is going to be - statistically, anyway - much better off in many ways than a student raised by a poorly educated single parent living on welfare.

Those schools are like outposts in hostile territory plagued by social and economic inequality.

I agree with your description of the schools. What I don't understand is why you want to keep the status quo. These schools have *terrible* outcomes. It's why parents with means will do anything to get their kids out of them.

Why don't you think we should do something for kids without means?

That isn't gonna disappear by installing an education system based on the "to each according to what he can afford" free-market fantasy that caused these social problems to begin with.

Of course it might not work. But what we have now isn't working either - in fact, it's hard to imagine anything working less well - and we've been trying to fix these schools for 30 years at least.

And of course our current school system is *already* based on a "to each according to what he can afford paradigm." And it's working quite well for those who can afford to move to better schools...and horribly for those who can't afford to move.

Vouchers will provide more options for the poor. Maintaining the status quo won't. And the voucher system is very similar to the system we use for financing higher education in the US; it's not some weird right-wing construct.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

So every child gets a voucher and that voucher will count as payment in full to the richest private school that accepts vouchers?

No; they would be forced to attend private schools where the tuition (using the above numbers) was $11,500 (plus any savings, which I wouldn't count on). Do you think attending a school like that would provide worse outcomes than we currently have?