toldailytopic: School vouchers, are you for, or against them?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
- Start date
How about we get rid of the bad schools all together?
elected4ever
New member
Public schools are a wast of tax payers money. All schools should be privet and compete for students. The state should not be involved with school curriculum. The parents who would be paying the school or home schooler would have a choice as to what their children are taught.
Public schools are expensive, inefficient and unaccountable to the parents and the curriculum is arbitrary. They are nothing more than an institution of cultural brainwashing mandated by the state and Federal governments.
Public schools are expensive, inefficient and unaccountable to the parents and the curriculum is arbitrary. They are nothing more than an institution of cultural brainwashing mandated by the state and Federal governments.
PureX
Well-known member
No, you shouldn't. The whole point of taxation is that there are things that society needs that individuals don't want to pay for. No one ever likes paying taxes because the money doesn't get used for things that serve us directly. But it's used for things that we need as a whole. Public education is one of those things. It serves us all even when we don't have kids, or when we send our kids to private schools. Lots of people don't like lots of things that their taxes get spent on. But they are things we need as a society. People in this country used to understand this before we all became a bunch of whining, selfish little babies. (No offense, I'm including me in this, too.)
No, that isn't what will happen, as I explained in the last post. Just like everything else that we have to purchase in this "free market" system that isn't free, primary education will be a captive market, rather than a free market, and will end up just like all the other captive markets in this country - over priced and poorly serviced.
Hey, if you want to drive a car that costs twice what everyone else's car costs, then you have to pay twice as much for it.
You could always home-school. That won't cost you hardly anything.
But the society you are living in has decided that it both wants and needs a good primary public education system. And that means it must collect the taxes needed to fund it. You are a member of this society, and so you are expected to pay some of those taxes. Because the money you earn you are earning from and within this society. You will benefit from it's education system whether you have kids or not, or whether you put them in the public schools or not. And whether you like it or not.
It's your choice. No one is making you pay extra. If the public schools in your area are so bad, why did you let them get that way? Why not stop whining about them and go do something to help make them better? If they aren't religious enough for you, then send your kids to church after school to teach them religion. Or do it at home.
Privatizing isn't the solution. Now that we're being screwed by so many businesses that were "deregulated" in the past, the general population is finally figuring out that the "free market" system is mostly bogus. You can keep preaching that stuff if you want to, but fewer and fewer of us are buying into it, anymore. We simply can't afford to. We're all already being gouged into poverty by the dozen or more other deregulated "free" markets out there.
PureX
Well-known member
Well, let's see. The kids that go to that school will have to go somewhere else, which will still cost money. More money, in fact, than the public school if it's a private school that they go to. Plus, we have to pay to tear down the old school. So it will cost us lots more money to trash the existing school and send them to a private school, than it would to simply fix the one they're in, now. And once the one their in now is fixed, it will then cost less in the long run and provide as good an education as the private school. AND there will be more choices available for everyone.
Trashing the public school, on the other hand, will make FEWER choices available, not more, which will drive the cost of the private schools up even more than they already are over the long run. So you'll pay a lot more and get less for it.
No public schools = fewer taxes. I fail to see the problem.
PureX
Well-known member
So really, you just don't want to pay your taxes. And you think that if there were no public schools, you wouldn't have to.
Of course the cost of tuition for those folks who have kids will skyrocket in the private schools because they know that the kids have to go there, now. And many of the parents will not be able to pay it. So YOUR tax dollars will have to cover them because all the kids have to go to school. And guess what, you will have no say at all in how much those schools decide to charge. Because you don't elect any of the people who are running them. Welcome to a captive market.
Think you're getting hosed by the oil companies, private utilities, the insurance companies, the hospitals and the drug companies? Well, you are. Now you want to add the new primary education companies that will spring up when you dismantle public education. Believe me, it'll cost you far more in the end. It ALWAYS does.
elected4ever
New member
You just have to stop thinking in the Marxist progressive box. You are talking mandates. There should be no government mandates of any kind.
Every industry that you mentioned has government mandates and regulations. These cost money that the industries have to pass on and on top of that we are taxed to pay for an inefficient bureaucracy that does nothing more than gum up the works.
False. I don't mind paying taxes, as long as they go where they are truly needed. Most of the time they don't. And public education is unnecessary as education can be obtained through other, much better, means.
No one has to go to private schools if they don't want to.:nono:
I'm not getting hosed by any of them. And I don't ever plan on sending my children to someone else for education.
Still waiting to hear about that nation that doesn't rely on public schools and has better student achievement than we do.
Anyone want to step up and tell us about it?
Lighthouse seems to be unable to find an example.
you are the reason we like vouchers
PureX
Well-known member
And of course YOU know better than all those people who's job it is to decide these things, because you're an expert on how societies with hundreds of millions of people should be run. Their degrees in economics and education and sociology are all basically worthless next to the towering intellect of Lighthouse. Why we haven't elected you our supreme absolute ruler is beyond comprehension.
And you know this, how?
They will when you eliminate public schools. Which is what you were proposing.
Well, you're paying excessively high prices, and getting less and less for it, and they're banking record profits year after year after year. So you are getting hosed even if you can't see it.
PureX
Well-known member
So in your vision for America, just the rich kids go to school, and the rest go without education? Because some idiot told you to hate "government mandates"?
It's the cost of doing business in ways that effects the public health and safety. Oil companies aren't allowed to drill wherever and however they want, and their refineries must be safe. Drug companies have to test their drugs before they can sell them to humans. Hospitals have to meet strict cleanliness standards so patients don't die of infections. Insurance companies can't just flat out lie to people about their coverage, or cut you off because you get sick. And as every one of these industries is banking record profits, apparently the cost of these regulations is not hurting them even a little bit.
But you, in your infinite wisdom, have decided that they still aren't banking enough of our money in profits, yet, and that they need to make even more money by being completely free of all these silly and unnecessary government regulations. Oil companies should be able to drill anywhere and any way they want to so that they can make even more money. And they shouldn't have to make sure their refineries are safe because we certainly can't let a few major natural disasters stand in the way of their profits! And we certainly can't be bothering the drug companies with demands that they actually test their drugs before selling them to us. After all, WE can be their Guinea pigs. We'll know if the drugs work or not when we start using them. And a few million deaths a year is a minor sacrifice to make compared to boosting corporate profits for the drug companies. And there's no reason to make sure that hospitals are clean, doctors are skilled, and the patients aren't being killed by them. Once you're dead it wouldn't matter, anyway! And if you live then they must have been good enough.
I can't imagine why any of us would dare to doubt your incredible wisdom about these things. How can we live another day with all these useless and profit-killing regulations!
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PureX
Well-known member
You fail to see a whole lot of things. My guess is that it's deliberate.
Lon
Well-known member
Anybody disagreeing with this is undermining parent authority and responsibility. Granted, parents can 'pay for education again' but that's idiotic. Bravo to home-schoolers and parents putting their kids in private schools across the nation. Not only are they supporting a limping behometh cripple, they are sacrificing for a quality education with their well-earned funds again.
Alright, so those huge institutions employ a huge number of local professionals. Alright, so they inadvertently, and through no fault of their own, allow kids to learn and grow up mostly on their own because there is not enough time in the day for individual attention for huge class sizes.
Yeah, let's not hold them to any kind of accountability that a voucher system would demand. Let's worry that these institutions will fall apart and hundreds of underpaid teachers and nonprofessionals from every community will be looking for better paying jobs.
Let's not ruin these megaliths of learning even though about every private institution is doing the same job more efficiently for 80 to 90% less often times.
Bottom line: really, don't worry about the American education system. Maybe a building won't last, but every good teacher out there will, in fact, keep working regardless if they need to move to a new building or not, and the loss of $ will force the kind of quality education we all want instead of "waiting for it somehow to miraculously happen."
This comes from a public servant school teacher. I've never had a problem with parent accountability. It's my job and theirs not, imo, anybody else's. "Yes" schools will look rather different if vouchers were set in place, "No" closing down buildings isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, imho, it will allow mothers home-schooling, to be stay-at-home moms again, if the vouchers would pay for them to do so. Churches could become relevant again by allowing these mothers to meet with their children for courses that are beyond their expertise. Christian schools and private schools could afford better tools for the trade. In other words, all around responsibility for education goes to parents wanting to exercise the right to spend their own money how they see fit.
Lon
Well-known member
Really easy. Compare scores of any private institution with any public school.
After scores, compare: drop-out rates, college enterance, employment, cost-per-child, etc. etc.
Lon
Well-known member
Not true. Most private schools cost less than public by far.
Regarding the buildings? Private and public institutions will pick those up.
Barbarian muses:
Still waiting to hear about that nation that doesn't rely on public schools and has better student achievement than we do.
Anyone want to step up and tell us about it?
Lighthouse seems to be unable to find an example.
(Barbarian, eager with anticipation)
Darn, another false alarm. He went right up to the challenge, and then ran away.
What you're doing is measuring the average difference between kids whose parents are willing to pay extra for education, and those whose parents aren't. What we need to do, is compare nations without strong public school systems and those that depend mostly on public schools. Do you think you can do that?
And, of course, if private schools took all children, regardless of disabilities and academic needs, their costs would be much, much higher than those of public schools. And their results would be much, much worse.
But we're back to square one; is there anyone out there who wants to step up and show us a nation that does not primarily depend on public schools, which has higher student achievement than the United States? How about one that has student achievement almost as good as the United States?
Anyone?
Still waiting to hear about that nation that doesn't rely on public schools and has better student achievement than we do.
Anyone want to step up and tell us about it?
Lighthouse seems to be unable to find an example.
(Barbarian, eager with anticipation)
Darn, another false alarm. He went right up to the challenge, and then ran away.
What you're doing is measuring the average difference between kids whose parents are willing to pay extra for education, and those whose parents aren't. What we need to do, is compare nations without strong public school systems and those that depend mostly on public schools. Do you think you can do that?
And, of course, if private schools took all children, regardless of disabilities and academic needs, their costs would be much, much higher than those of public schools. And their results would be much, much worse.
But we're back to square one; is there anyone out there who wants to step up and show us a nation that does not primarily depend on public schools, which has higher student achievement than the United States? How about one that has student achievement almost as good as the United States?
Anyone?
HisServant
New member
Our schools would do much better if we got rid of the Department of Education on the federal and state level (and their tremendous burden they place on local schools with their unfunded mandates) and let local communities run their own schools.
I am totally convinced that people do not get involved because they feel powerless to change things. When the entire system.. from the federal government all the way down to local government is corrupt.. and the parties that supply candidates for elections are complicit in this corruption.. you are pretty much powerless to change anything.
As far as school vouchers.. as long as you pay a separate tax (like we do here in Pennsylvania) and schools are not funded out of the general budget.. the issue of vouchers will always come up because when your schools are rated as failing and there isn't anything you can do about it, the obvious choice is to take your kids out of public schools and put them in a private school. The problem where I live is the school taxes are so high, that it makes it impossible for a parent in the median income bracket to afford private school.
I prefer funding schools like they do in Delaware (where it is part of the state earned income tax).. so that retirees can afford to stay in their homes when they no longer earn an income. This also makes the issue of vouchers a lot tougher.
I am totally convinced that people do not get involved because they feel powerless to change things. When the entire system.. from the federal government all the way down to local government is corrupt.. and the parties that supply candidates for elections are complicit in this corruption.. you are pretty much powerless to change anything.
As far as school vouchers.. as long as you pay a separate tax (like we do here in Pennsylvania) and schools are not funded out of the general budget.. the issue of vouchers will always come up because when your schools are rated as failing and there isn't anything you can do about it, the obvious choice is to take your kids out of public schools and put them in a private school. The problem where I live is the school taxes are so high, that it makes it impossible for a parent in the median income bracket to afford private school.
I prefer funding schools like they do in Delaware (where it is part of the state earned income tax).. so that retirees can afford to stay in their homes when they no longer earn an income. This also makes the issue of vouchers a lot tougher.
elected4ever
New member
Well lets face it, Considering the fact that we are spending more and more tax money on education and our level of quality education is going down and down I can't see where we are doing better with your so called government experts.
We can't be worse off a with private educational system than we are now with a tax funded public one. Passing our personal responsibilities of on another never improves the quality of anything when there is no repercussions for failure.
Just remember that whatever you tax you get less and less of. The reason for that is the individual is no longer responsible for the outcome but a so call education system that is more interested in its own proliferation and survival. Political correctness becomes the norm and not the student's education.