jim rozen wrote:...
Malcolm Kirkpatrick wrote:...
MK. Topic: School vouchers and the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel.
Discussion deleted (success with minimal school)...
Right, and Charles Lindbergh was tossed out of my
alma mater on his ear. Those are some great stories but
times have changed, and there was no public education
as we know it now, in any of those examples you mentioned.
Were Robert, Joseph, or Ben educated with public funds,
or did they pay their own way?
MK. a) Times have not changes that much. Most work people will do has
not changed so much as to make 12 years of school necessary. b) There
was "public" education (i.e., State operation of schools) in Henry's
time. Taxpayers obviously supported the Admiralty school which FitzRoy
attended.
MK. Discussion deleted (school vouchers, funding of)...
MK. Which school voucher plan are we discussing? My ideal? My ideal is
parent performance contracting, not a voucher. In a school voucher
system, yes, public schools would still have to accept students
according to their usual criteria. I'd suggest that they be budgeted
in the same way as independent, voucher-accepting schools, monthly,
based on enrollment. The only differences between the NEA/AFT/AFSCME
cartel's schools (the "public" schools") and voucher-accepting schools
would be 1) that the taxpayers' per-pupil support of the cartel's
schools would be 100%, while the school voucher would be 0 X%
100%.
Umm, hold it. 100% of *what*? For condition (1) above,
public taxes pay for all of of the kids who want to go
to public schools, just like now? And at the same time,
the public taxes pay some fixed percentage of vouchers for
kids who want to go to a private school, or home school?
Who decides what the total is? Do the taxpayers get to say
what the total budget of the public school should be, or do
they deduct some amount for the X that's going to the private
schools? Unless there is some means to strangle off the
public schools, they will demand the same level of support
as before, and the entire she-bang will wind up costing
*more*.
MK. Your legislature (or school board) determines the aggregate level
of tax support. This level allows a per pupil budget of "$c.xy".
School vochers are funded at a level (a/b)c, where 1/2 a/b 1.
Simple.
MK. The greatest barrier to school vouchers is determined lobbying by
the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel.
I guess this discussion is finally coming together in my mind.
The voucher folks have a story to tell. That story, simply put,
is:
1) Public education in the US doesn't work well. It costs too
much and does a poor job of teaching skills.
2) We've found a proven way to solve these problems that exist
by giving state money to private schools.
My trouble here is that I really have not seen much evidence
that (1) above is true. And (2) seems to be quite a stretch.
In (1) one invariably sees teacher's unions, stupid teachers,
stupid school boards, stupid kids, stupid parents blamed.
And one *never* sees the voucher advocates admitting that
there really is competition to public schools out there,
right now - and it has not had the effect that they
desire. How can the be sure that more competition will
do it?
MK. Evidence of poor performance? The Singapore 5th (fifth) percentile
score (TIMSS 8th grade Math) is higher than the US 50th (fiftieth)
percentile score. The Hawaii juvenile arrest rate --falls-- in summer,
when school's not in session. Juvenile hospital admissions for
human-induced trauma --fall-- in summer.
MK. Evidence that competition between school districts improves
performance? Abundant. Compute the coefficient of correlation between
mean district size and
NAEP 8th grade Math score. States with numerous small districts
outperform States with a few large districts. See the studies of
Caroline Hoxby (Harvard Econ.)
Also...
MK. Gerard Lassibile and Lucia Navarro Gomez, ["Organization and
Efficiency of Educational Systems: some empirical findings", pg. 16,
"Comparative Education", Vol. 36 #1, Feb 2000]. "Furthermore, the
regression results indicate that countries where private education is
more widespread perform significantly better than countries where it
is more limited. The result showing the private sector to be more
efficient is similar to those found in other contexts with individual
data (see, for example, Psucharopoulos, 1987; Jiminez, et. al, 1991).
This finding should convince countries to reconsider policies that
reduce the role of the private sector in the field of education".
And I really am all ears to find cases of (2) where it's
been shown that kids do get a better education for less
money. That would be a great thing. In the meantime I'm
holding my breath.
MK. Breathe.
"If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a
good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It
might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they
pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the
poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expense of
those who have no one else to pay for them." -- J.S. Mill, On Liberty
From: Hyman and Penroe, Journal of School Psychology.
"Several studies of maltreatment by teachers suggest that school
children report traumatic symptoms that are similar whether the
traumatic event was physical or verbal abuse (Hyman, et.al.,1988;
Krugman & Krugman, 1984; Lambert, 1990). Extrapolation from these
studies suggests that psychological maltreatment of school children,
especially those who are poor, is fairly widespread in the United
States...."
"As with corporal punishment, the frequency of emotional
maltreatment in schools is too often a function of the socioeconomic
status (SES) of the student population (Hyman, 1990)."
Take care. Homeschool if you can.
http://www.rru.com/~meo/hs.minski.html (One page. Marvin Minsky
comment on school. Please read this.)
http://www.schoolchoices.org (Massive site. Useful links).
http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/index.html
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared...sNav=pb&id=289
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11606 (School Reform News
on Sweden's school voucher policy)
http://www.nlpc.org