Vouchers, Homeschooling, and markets, Oh My!

[Lisabob]

Pack says: "If we are paying customers and don''''t demand the best product for our money, then we risk not getting the best product. "

 

Pack, that sounds like a pretty market-based critique there.

 

But that''s basically what happened in Michigan, prior to the change in education funding laws that occurred here in the mid-90s. Not only did people "get what they paid for" (perhaps) but also, those with the means to pay more, got more. Schools in wealthier areas simply raised property/school taxes and passed bonds to pay for extra programs, more teachers/smaller classes, new equipment, you name it. Schools in poorer areas could not compete. And lower income parents were more or less stuck, because to get into the "good" public school districts, you had to be a resident - which was beyond their means.

 

Enacting a more equal system of school funding where every school gets a base payment per pupil from the state, and enacting "school of choice" laws where parents no longer have to prove residency in a district to enroll their children in public schools, was supposed to reduce the discrepancy. At the end of the day this was supposed to benefit the whole society.

 

Did it work? Well the funding plan didn''t exactly work for well-off areas because it prohibited people from investing in their own school districts and programs. And it didn''t exactly help rapidly growing areas (most are ex-urbs, formerly rural), because the formula fails to provide sufficient money to cover that rapid expansion. And it didn''t really do much to help the poorest/most messed up school districts because those schools get penalized for their shortcomings more than they get help to fix them through additional funds to improve programs. This was a short-term strategy when what we need is a long-term vision.

 

Did "school of choice" work? Yes, for some people who could manage to leave their neighborhood schools. But it utterly ignores (as does the voucher system) the fact that those lousy school districts still exist, still must serve an ever-more-difficult population (selection bias), and that now, due to declining enrollment and penalties for failing to meet targets, those schools have to serve this extremely tough population with EVEN FEWER resources.

 

Beavah, if that''s what the critics and supporters of vouchers agree is "supposed" to happen, then the supporters have missed a key point. These schools are not going to go away! Not unless we totally re-design our public education system, and you strike me as enough of a realist to know that isn''t going to happen. So we''re left in limbo. Rather than a little short term pain for a serious long term gain, vouchers and similar programs seem to me to just perpetuate the agony for most people and for society at large, even if they help a few kids out in the interim.

 

I wish I could believe differently but I don''t see much evidence to support an alternate viewpoint where deep and radical change takes place.

 

By the way - the city of Cleveland has been closely watched in the last 6 years or so because it has one of the larger voucher programs in the country. What I hear about that system is that it works really well...for the kids who get in, and stay in, the private schools. But, this is a small percentage (I believe it has been done on a lottery basis - not sure if it still is now), and private schools are/were (?) not obligated to accept the weakest or most difficult-to-educate students, or keep them enrolled if they do get in. So the city public schools become warehouses for the less desirable students. Those students deserve an education too, even though a market approach might suggest that they''re not the most lucrative ones to teach. If there are others who have more current knowledge of how Cleveland''s voucher program has evolved, I''d really love to hear about it.

[Aquila]

In order to provide a diverse and higher level program we are actually shuttling our child TO the inner city school which is the only one that has IB and MYP programs running at the middle school level. Yes, there are MORE children there that I would normally not choose for him to associate with, but he knows what he wants(has had a stated goal to attend Annapolis since he was ten) and knows the kinds of choices(people, activities) he has to make to get there. In the mean time he is learning to interact with people of other races who attend the downtown school - an opportunity he would not have had in our otherwise largely homogeneous Anglo community.

[Beavah]

Last I heard, Lisa''bob, the Detroit Public Schools have gone from 200,000 to 100,000 students in the last ten years or so. That''s half of the students in that failin'' district getting a positive option that they didn''t have before.

 

Sure sounds like it''s goin'' away, eh? If they actually allowed school choice within the city without transportation problems it might go even faster.

 

Don''t know much about Cleveland. Milwaukee is doin'' OK. Lots of interest in startup schools because of voucher availability... 50+ applications a year. Lots of those startups not that great, but about a quarter each year pretty sound. Some oversight is clearly needed.

 

Beavah

 

[Lisabob]

"Many districts are offering $$ to homeschoolers to keep them in the public system, yet have the parents educate them. Up to $2000 per child. But there''''s no such thing as a free lunch, and government money always comes with strings. "

 

How does that work? I''ve not heard of this before. How do they stay "in the system" and yet be homeschooled?

 

Beavah - yes, Detroit''s school population has declined precipitously over the last decade. Some of those students are school-of-choicing their way out (though I am skeptical about this because a lot of the inner ring suburban schools may not be a heck of a lot better, and we continue to see middle class flight out-out-out away from those areas too). However, the biggest loss of students probably comes from Detroit''s and Michigan''s overall declining population. The car-based economy here hasn''t been strong in about 15 years. People are leaving the state in droves for places that have jobs and that''s especially true of our old automotive industrial cities like Detroit and Flint.

 

In the process, I pray that those kids are ending up somewhere with better schools, but if they do it isn''t because school of choice is working for them!

 

 

[Hunt]

"I always love da argument, though... that "those people" aren''''t smart enough/involved enough/caring enough about their children to be entrusted with choice. Only wealthy folk can handle that."

 

Call me cynical, but yeah, I think there are a substantial number of parents like that. There are plenty of poor families that are dysfunctional in various ways, and I just don''t believe the parents in those families are going to participate in a choice program. So, I think that any choice program will leave a core of extremely difficult-to-educate students in the very worst schools--of course, that''s where they are now, so maybe the end result--for them--isn''t much different.

[OldGreyEagle]

Sorry, but I choose to be pig headed about this, as opposed to other situations where I am pig headed but dont choose to be

 

So, the answer is to abandon all the publicly funded facilities that have accumulated over the years because we as a people cant make the system work? What is next, vouchers to choose what type of government we want? I want a benevolent dictatorship, my neighbor a democracy and the guy across the street a representative republic. Yeah, that should work as well

[Gunny2862]

Aquila,

I know that the weakness of my argument is that I can only talk about what I see from the home schoolers(HS)I know. The following is a short synopsis of the conditions an outsider sees in local home schooling.

 

The ones that I see "weekly" are very much in the "religious fundamentalist" "hiding their children from the secularist evil world" group v. the "I''m going to give the child the best education possible" group. The socialization in the majority is only with other HSers in what I can best describe as "home school only" sport leagues, or school collectives that allow parents who are weak (or timid) in one area to allow another parent to teach that portion of the curriculum.

 

So there is very little diversity that the kids that I know of are exposed to. In one group in particular the "church HSed" kids from the same church aren''t "allowed to associate with the same churches youth group because they other kids in the youth group have been "tainted" by going to those Public Schools(PS)." And yes, that was a HSer parents paraphrased statement of why their children wouldn''t do the churches youth activities. Now they do have the right to insulate their children if they choose to do so. I do "get" the argument. I just don''t necessarily find it compelling, although I do think it''s slightly offensive, in our circumstances.

 

The HSed that I have met outside of Scouting on the whole can barely relate to public schooled youth of their own age, much less across race, age or gender - with the exception of the home schooled who are Scouts. Partially because there is an "I am home schooled and your parents don''t care about you, you heathen." attitude among the non-Scouting HSed when talking to their PS peers. Of course to be fair not all PSed kids fair well outside of their peer group. But in my experience, the PSer''s do tend to be better prepared to speak to adults other than their parents.

 

The HS boys that get into Scouting tend to work out fine after some period of adjusting into the fact that the other boys are always talking about "outside" things they are insulated from. Conversely they do tend to be better Scouts because they aren''t focused on talking about everything else but are focused on advancement and Scouting activities because that is what they are here for.

 

Anyway that''s MY perception of the LOCAL(and where my comments come from) but not National picture and I do know some exceptional HSed kids - but they were first, kids I knew before I got into Scouting and second, ALL of the exceptional HSed I know were, or are in Scouting.

 

From this perspective, my boy has a better chance of developing a wider set of skills, including his leadership skills in the PSs, school sports, and through Scouting, locally, than if we were to join the home school cliques I am aware of locally.

 

I am sure that there are other, better home school situations.

 

NOT trying to offend anyone, just showing you the context from which I speak. I know, or expect and hope, that that is NOT the nationwide norm on home schoolers or their children.

[packsaddle]

Gunny, I also see those distinctions (fundamentalist vs best education) but while those are motives for going that direction, ALL of them can either excel at home or they can be miserable failures. Success or failure may have nothing to do with motive.

I see strengths AND weaknesses, both coming from the same source: family-to-family variability. Any family that invests honestly and wisely in education will have a better chance of a good experience (whether HS, public, or private) than the family that invests unwisely or not at all. Where society allows the every-family-for-itself approach (whether through HS, vouchers, private, whatever), society is allowing the risk of such failures. But most of the risk is isolated to that family.

On the other hand, where we all invest in a standard public school setting, the risk is shared. And if we, as a group, invest unwisely the failure is also shared by all and not just the few. This is the problem with the totally public approach as exemplified by some districts that we all hear about in the news.

 

I support a market approach to all this because it uses evolutionary principles of fitness and survival. It is ruthless. It tends to weed out bad decisions and more quickly optimizes for success.

The problem with that approach is that the failures remain in the population as less-productive people and since this selective process always works most successfully on pre-reproductive members of the population, this translates into children for human populations. And I hate to see children hurt.

Therefore, I see an optimal market that includes not only the HS and private schools, but also the entitlement programs (public schools). The difference in my approach is that I think EVERYONE should pay for education if they have the means. And if they want the best education they should be willing to pay more for it. My bias is that a lot of people who say they want vouchers don''t really want to pay for education, they want something for nothing.

I disagree with the voucher approach because I view it as a deception at several levels. But mostly because it enables the government-handout crowd who complain loudly about public schools but who are too cheap to invest in the HS or private alternative. I''d rather have a marketplace where selective pressures will eventually remove them from the economic and political populations.

[Aquila]

>>How does that work? I''''ve not heard of this before. How do they stay "in the system" and yet be homeschooled?

[Beavah]

So, the answer is to abandon all the publicly funded facilities that have accumulated over the years because we as a people cant make the system work?

 

Yah, well, I hear yeh. But what''s the alternative? Keep tryin'' reform and getting the same outcome, while another generation of kids loses? Problem is that the current system eats a lot of resources providing poor service, and traps a lot of kids. Bigger problem is probably that a lot of lobbies have gotten comfortable with the dough - school politicians, administrators, teachers'' unions. And there''s a lot of "faith rhetoric" used to whip ''em up and prevent reform by those who "believe" in public education. Our education delivery system is identical to the old Soviet economic model, eh? How successful were they at reforming the Party from within to provide better service to the Proletariat?

 

I''m not really a voucher proponent and I agree with Hunt that at least in the short term the poor and dysfunctional will be the last left behind - but the poor are left behind now, eh? And I don''t think there''s ever anything the government can do about the dysfunctional, no matter how much we''re willing to curtail freedoms so as to play "Big Brother."

 

So da question is what can be done to reform the system that breaks the stranglehold of entrenched "interests?" Parental choice seems like a candidate. But if it is, the transition is goin'' to be disruptive. There''s a lot of kids ready to flee the public system if given a chance.

 

-----

 

Lisa''bob, are you tellin'' me that the population of Detroit has actually declined by 50% in the last ten years?? Holy Exodus batman! That really is unbelievable. Gotta feel for yeh folks in Michigan.

 

Beavah

 

[Gunny2862]

Aquila, I agree about innocence lost and protecting your children but I am also watchful and protective. I don''t see any of the... "They don''t swear, they don''t bully, they''re not held back while others catch up nor are they pushed ahead to keep up, they don''t waste a lot of time on current youth culture, there''s no boy-girl relationship drama, they dress modestly, and treat others with respect. We would never put them in a youth group that did not have adequate supervision." ...in my child or his PEERS either.

 

Now there are kids at school who do swear and everything else that you mentioned and sadly for the particular HSers I referenced earlier their parents don''t know that some of their kids do the same and are having other particular immoral behaviors with other HS kids but are hiding it from their parents.

 

But yes, I am proud of my child and his approach to education, socialization and his friends. To date, and that''s all any of us can say, the boy is doing all I could expect of him; He studies, gets above average/ excellent grades, reads for fun, loses and wins well, knows the stakes of the boy/girl game and is choosing not to play, knows when to lead and when to follow and makes good choices about who to follow. Is a leader in individual and team sports and is looking for more responsibility to make those around him better and grow himself.

 

Do I worry about that going south, absolutely, because that is a pretty impressive characterization for a thirteen year old.

[packsaddle]

Beavah, There''s nothing stopping parents from making those choices now. School choice just costs money and if parents aren''t willing to pay the price, then tough luck...they made their choice.

Aquila is an example of the way it should work. He exercised his choice in the path for his children. If they succeed that''s great. If they fail because of the path he chose, then HE will be responsible for the failure of his children and I won''t feel the slightest twinge of responsibility for the failure or for the cost of fixing the situation if it occurs. Tough luck or not, he made that choice.

 

What gets me is the people who whine and wring their hands over problems with public schools and just give up when a few vouchers are waved at them by politicians. People DO control the public schools either through hard work and strong actions or through lack thereof. They CAN have good schools if they want. If they want to opt out, then that option is available as well. It costs money and it ought to.

But there''s a chance that what is really happening is that some of them don''t really care that much about the hard work and personal investment necessary to make their schools great. In that case those failing schools are exactly the place they should be, because those people made it that way. And as Aquila says, time will tell for the outcome for those children as well.

[scoutldr]

The older I get, the more Libertarian I get in my thinking. How about let''s let everyone keep their tax dollars and use them to buy whatever they need. Want to send your kid to high school? Great...the Catholic HS down the road from me charges $10 grand a year. Too much? Maybe the Lutheran school or the charter school is cheaper. What''s that? You want the better Catholic school, but can''t afford it because you had three kids out of wedlock and only make minimum wage? Sorry...that was your choice, so you deal with it. My kids are out of school...maybe I''ll use my tax dollars to buy that new boat I''ve been wanting. After all...isn''t that what vouchers are all about? No, you say? You want to use MY tax money to pay for YOUR voucher? Now, why in the world should I be paying to educate YOUR kids??? Because it''s the best thing for society? SO every child can have an education??? Wait a minute...that''s why we gave you PUBLIC schools and you didn''t want them, remember???

[OldGreyEagle]

scoutldr

 

that is what I was trying to say all along

[packsaddle]

Heh, heh, THAT''s the spirit, Scoutldr!