toldailytopic: School vouchers, are you for, or against them?

[Nathon Detroit]

The problem, of course, is that every dollar spent via a voucher, is not spent on the public schools, as it was supposed to be. So the public schools suffer as the private schools gain.

So what?

Isn't the goal to get a quality education for your child? If public schools cannot provide a quality education shouldn't we allow for alternatives?

In theory, the public schools would have to learn how to function better and more efficiently, because of the competition, but in reality that isn't what happens. What happens is that the public schools fall apart from lack of support.

And why would that be a bad thing? If the public education system was ultimately replaced by private and religious schools that provided better education wouldn't that be good?

All competition really does is exaggerate the extremes while it eliminates the middle.

So... you are pro-choice but not when it comes to schools eh? :doh:

 

[some other dude]

I was such a student growing up. I'd spend hours upon hours at the public library reading all sorts of books. The idea of not wanting to learn is so foreign to me. Why do you think many kinds think this way? :idunno:

If I could answer that, I'd be a wealthy man. It all comes to motivation. I have one boy, 21, who is content to sleep all day and play video games all night. My other son is off to college next year and he's bubbling with excitement. Every course he's taking this year is exciting to him.

As for your personal experience, I was the same way. I'd go to the library to study, get distracted by something or other and bam - four or five hours had passed.

I'm the same way on this darned computer. I've spent hours this morning researching the history of the Mennonites and the Amish, the technical spec changes through the past few decades of the Evinrude/Johnson three cylinder engines, geological structures in northern Quebec and goodness knows how many other rabbit trails.

 

[chrysostom]

I am for vouchers
and
I vote republican

 

[The Berean]

If I could answer that, I'd be a wealthy man. It all comes to motivation. I have one boy, 21, who is content to sleep all day and play video games all night. My other son is off to college next year and he's bubbling with excitement. Every course he's taking this year is exciting to him.

Perhaps some proper motivation is needed or your 21 year old? :Clete: :maxi: :whip:

As for your personal experience, I was the same way. I'd go to the library to study, get distracted by something or other and bam - four or five hours had passed.

:idea: :sherlock: CleverDan :readthis: oly:

I'm the same way on this darned computer. I've spent hours this morning researching the history of the Mennonites and the Amish, the technical spec changes through the past few decades of the Evinrude/Johnson three cylinder engines, geological structures in northern Quebec and goodness knows how many other rabbit trails.

Hmmm...This morning I was researching the aerodynamics of a faired recumbent bicycle, how to extract oxygen from lunar soil, how to lower my cholesterol, and tried to determine what really is the air-speed velocity of an unladden swallow.

 

[some other dude]

Hmmm...This morning I was researching the aerodynamics of a faired recumbent bicycle....

:chuckle: I used to belong to the IHPVA before PCs, mostly for their information about what people were doing with human powered hydrofoils, but an awful lot of the articles in their newsletters were about faired recumbents, as well as the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross flying projects.

I certainly got an education about boundary layer fluid dynamics.






(great - now I've got a half dozen more links added to my favorites to look at tonight)

 

[PureX]

Isn't the goal to get a quality education for your child? If public schools cannot provide a quality education shouldn't we allow for alternatives?

Not if using the alternatives is further choking off the public schools.

But we aren't addressing the problem. If we fix the public schools that are failing, (and the vast majority of them are not), then all the schools will be good choices.

If the public education system was ultimately replaced by private and religious schools that provided better education wouldn't that be good?

No, because it eliminates choice, and it eliminates social oversight. It will also eliminate quality and efficiency in the long run.

Contrary to popular nonsense, the free market system fails when the market's are not free. And "free" means that we have the ability to refuse to buy the product or service being offered. But as our society has become more and more interdependent, our ability to refuse many products and services is gone. Fuel, electricity, health care, retirement funds, insurance, education, and such, we cannot reasonably do without. These are no longer free markets, they are 'captive' markets. And captive markets work very differently than free markets. In a captive market the sellers no longer have to fear us refusing to buy their products or services. All they fear is being undercut by their competitors. But their competitors fear the same thing, and they all know it. So it's in none of their interest to start a price war. In fact, it's in ALL of their interest to inch the prices up, and up, and up, until they threaten to "break" the consumer. And so that's what they do.

Welcome to our world. Where the cost of oil, gasoline, utilities, insurance, health care, medicines, education and everything else we have to buy has crept up and up and up until it threatens to "break" us. Because these are all, now, captive markets, and not free markets.

Non-public K-12 education would be a captive market. If we "deregulate" education, and turn it over to the market system, it will become more expensive, by far, and stagnate in terms of quality. Just as has happened with all these other examples of captive market products and services.

In the end it would be far cheaper and less painful to simply fix the bad schools that we have.

So... you are pro-choice but not when it comes to schools eh?

I am anti-"deregulation" if it causes any more of these 'captive markets'. The average American already can't afford to buy gasoline, pay utilities, purchase health insurance, pay for health care, buy medications, retire, and pay their taxes. All because the cost of these things are up as high as they can possibly go without completely "breaking" the system.

Our free market isn't free at all. And it's killing us. If we dump the primary education system onto the market, the same thing will happen to it that has happened to all these other captive markets. And we'll just get hosed all over, again.

 

[some other dude]

Perhaps some proper motivation is needed or your 21 year old? :Clete: :maxi: :whip:

His mom finally got tired of having him underfoot in her apartment and shipped him down to the family farm for six months to fill in for a couple of Mexicans who got deported. Talked to him on the phone the other day (Hey Gringo! How eez eet going?) and he said he's never worked so hard. Hopefully he'll come back with some motivation.

 

[The Berean]

:chuckle: I used to belong to the IHPVA before PCs, mostly for their information about what people were doing with human powered hydrofoils, but an awful lot of the articles in their newsletters were about faired recumbents, as well as the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross flying projects.

No way?! I'm actually building a faired recumbent to race in 2012! Do you still keep up with the IHPVA stuff? Since 2001 they have an annual speed challenge in Battle Mountain, NV. The goal is go as fast as you can over a 200 meter time trap. The men's record is 82.819 mph and the women's record is 75.960 mph. I'm going after several women's records with my bike. I met this 21 year old college kid who is a freakish athletic talent. She's a cardiovascular monster and she can really push herself.

I certainly got an education about boundary layer fluid dynamics.

The "holy grail" is the laminar flow fairing. I'm thinking of designing a fairing with a bumpy surface similar to the effect of a dimpled golf ball. According to legendary HPV builder Matt Weaver a 100+ mph faired recumbent bike is possible. We shall see.

(great - now I've got a half dozen more links added to my favorites to look at tonight)

:thumb:

 

[The Berean]

His mom finally got tired of having him underfoot in her apartment and shipped him down to the family farm for six months to fill in for a couple of Mexicans who got deported. Talked to him on the phone the other day (Hey Gringo! How eez eet going?) and he said he's never worked so hard. Hopefully he'll come back with some motivation.

My very first job was picking strawberries when I was 13 years old for $2.50/hr and $0.50/box. Working six days a week, 8-12 hours per day, in 90-100 degree heat, and coming home smelling like rotten strawberries mixed with mud motivated me to study. My dad told even me I can work in the fields like him or go to college. Guess what I chose? :chuckle:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Not if using the alternatives is further choking off the public schools.

Yet the alternatives are cheaper and better! The goal should be quality education, not propping up a failed government school system. You seem more concerned about an institution than you are about the education of our children.

Shouldn't I have the right to spend my education dollars where I see fit?

 

[PureX]

Yet the alternatives are cheaper and better! The goal should be quality education, not propping up a failed government school system.

Whoah! What failed government school system? We're talking about a few mostly inner-city schools. The vast majority of our public K-12 schools are doing well. The system needs some fixing, but it's not a "failed" system by any stretch.

You seem more concerned about an institution than you are about the education of our children.

I suggest that we fix the system we have. How does this translate in your mind to my not caring about kids getting a good education?

Shouldn't I have the right to spend my education dollars where I see fit?

You are free to send your kid to any school you want, and to spend all the money you want to. But you're not free to choose where your tax dollars will be spent. That must be decided by the society in which you live. In our case, by our elected representatives (and the bribery of their corporate sugar-daddies *wink*).

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Whoah! What failed government school system? We're talking about a few mostly inner-city schools. The vast majority of our public K-12 schools are doing well. The system needs some fixing, but it's not a "failed" system by any stretch.

I would like to be the judge of a failed system when it comes to my own kids. You might like the public school system but I don't. I should have the choice to direct my tax dollars to the school of my choice.

I suggest that we fix the system we have. How does this translate in your mind to my not caring about kids getting a good education?

Competition will help fix the system. The schools that are quality will survive while the ones that are failed will be replaced by alternatives directed by market forces.

You are free to send your kid to any school you want, and to spend all the money you want to. But you're not free to choose where your tax dollars will be spent. That must be decided by the society in which you live. In our case, by our elected representatives (and the bribery of their corporate sugar-daddies *wink*).

You want me to pay for my child's eduction twice?? Once for the school I don't use and then again for the school I use? That is unfair and doesn't make sense.

Doesn't it make more sense for me to pay for the schools we use?

Why should I pay twice?

 

[CabinetMaker]

In theory it works like this... Every family already pays taxes to fund the government school system. But some families would rather choose private or religious schools. Therefore under a voucher system the government would issue you a voucher so that you could pay to have your child attend the school of your choice.

It's supposed to be a way for you to spend your educational tax dollars the way you see fit.

I am for them. I see well educated children as an absolute necessity for the future. For the few short years that I have kids in school verses the number of years paying taxes, I have no problem with people using that money that would be spent on their kids anyway to educate them where they wanted. Provided that the education they receive meets minimum requirements for literacy, mathematics, writing skills and generally prepares them for college or life in our society.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't have a problem with private schools competing with public schools. It wouldn't even be a problem if they got public funds, if they were willing to take any student, including special-needs students.

But they would likely fail economically, if they had to do what public schools must do; care for the educational needs of students who required extensive one-on-one time by trained staff.

If someone knows of an exception, I'd be happy to hear about it.

We had a mostly private school system in the U.S. for a while, but we turned away from it, because it was incapable of handling the needs of a growing population that had to be educated.

I don't see that any private-school model tried so far, has managed to overcome the drawbacks. It's a valuable supplement to public schools. The question remains: can someone name me a nation that doesn't depend primarily on public schools, and compares favorably to the achievement levels in the United States?

 

[organiccornflake]

Heavily against it. Taxes are used to pay for school already; more taxes shouldnt be used just because I family doesnt like the school the government is already paying for.

 

[The Barbarian]

Still waiting to hear about that nation, which does not rely primarily on public schools, that has higher pupil achievement than ours.

I'm guessing that I'm going to be waiting a long, long, time.:think:

 

[King cobra]

School vouchers are a slippery slope toward ruining good private schools. Good private schools would become like current government schools. Not good.

“Here’s some tax money. Oh...and by the way...”

 

[The Barbarian]

School vouchers are a slippery slope toward ruining good private schools. Good private schools would become like current government schools. Not good.

“Here’s some tax money. Oh...and by the way...”

Precisely. It's why many conservative groups don't want anything to do with government money. Government money always involves government control.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/711224/posts

 

[ebenz47037]

toldailytopic: School vouchers, are you for, or against them?

I'm against school vouchers because they are still government funding for schools (although I do think competition would be one of the best ways to improve schools in general). If a private/religious school takes school vouchers, i.e. government funding, for a student, the school opens the door for the government to control more and more of the curriculum and extracurricular activities in the private school.

 

[The Horn]

Am I for school vouchers ? Yes, and no . School vouchers sound like a great idea in theory, and they may help SOME poor and disadvantaged kids to get a better education, and thus a chance at a better life .
But there's just one problem . There simply aren't enough good schools for all kids in America . Too many will still be stuck in the bad ones , which are dilapidated
and woefully lacking in up to date supplies and educational equipment .
So these vouchers may be of some value, but they are far from being a panacea for
America's problems with public education . There's no substitute for renovating existing ones and building more first-rate new ones . Not to mention attracting more high caliber people into teaching by increasing teacher salaries .