How bad does the public school system have to get before people see vouchers as the cure?

I would frame the question differently: How bad does the public school system have to get before we spend the time and resources to fix it?

Vouchers aren’t the cure, so I guess the system will have to get so bad that people aren’t smart enough to realize what a bad policy they are.

@janbb How bad does the public school system have to get before we spend the time and resources to fix it? How would you fix it? If it takes more money and the money comes from property tax, how do you do that? Do you somehow employ everyone in the poor neighborhood to higher paying jobs and make it so they can buy a house where they live to provide the property tax? Do you just pump more money there in spite of them earning or owning it? What would happen when those of the better neighborhoods complain that all that money (some of which they believe they paid) is going to ”those poor people and hood rats” and not being pumped into their child’s school?

The increase in the percentage of homeschooled students from 1999 to 2007 represents a 74 percent relative increase over the 8-year period and a 36 percent relative increase since 2003
SOURCE

I put this here because at least in my locale, it’s clear that nothing within the public school system will change anytime soon. What is changing however is the amount parents/families are willing to put up with.

Recently an entire grade at a private school in Bavaria failed the Abitur Exams with an average of 0.8 out of 15 points.
How bad do private schools have to get before people stop seeing them as the cure?

@SpatzieLover I guess if enough children disappear into homeschooling either the powers-that-be will wake up, because they miss the heads the feds will count for funding or outlaw homeschooling and force them youngsters back in the classroom.

Well, let’s see….

Since the majority of HS graduates in the U.S. don’t seem to know the difference between “your” and “you’re”, and many of them cannot locate Canada on a map, I’ll have to give our public school system….(and it pains me to do this).....

F
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@Hypocrisy_Central What’s happening (again at least in my locale) is that the homeschooling numbers are getting great enough that:

1) our gov’t is finally deeming homeschoolers deserve a tax break since they’re saving taxpayers so much money

2) Schools are reaching out to homeschoolers to join sports/music/art, so that they can hope to lure the kids/parents back into the system.

3)Schools are finally looking into alternative curricula models (Waldorf, Montessori, etc) instead of the typical institutionalized version of schooling.

Apparently, much worse.

Although there’s no correlation between “spending” and “performance”, we continue to demand more spending… as if that will improve things. It won’t. We spend more dollars per student in an absolute sense and I suspect, though can’t find the data to prove it, on a cost-weighted basis, too, than any other country in the world, without the performance to indicate that the dollars are well spent. Obviously, they aren’t, especially when nominally well educated people think “we just need to spend more” to improve the results.

Vouchers will help, as they will at least enable more choice in schooling location, which is at least a precursor to competition: the apparency of choice. If we would next decentralize controls, first by abolishing the “Department of Education” and next by greatly reducing the power of state school boards, then we’d be taking a long step toward improvement.

@CWOTUS We spend more dollars per student in an absolute sense and I suspect, though can’t find the data to prove it, on a cost-weighted basis, too, than any other country in the world, without the performance to indicate that the dollars are well spent. I ran across a cost breakdown as you suggest some time back, wish I could remember it…(it might have been in a Time magazine). We outspend nations we call “Third World Nations” yet they were kicking the US ass in basic learning, especially mathematics, and science. Some of those nations even had larger class sizes but that did not seem to take away from their student’s ability to learn as they claim here in the US.

Vouchers will help, as they will at least enable more choice in schooling location, which is at least a precursor to competition: the apparency of choice. It will bring choice. If schools want the students they will have to invest in their schools, fix drinking fountains, lockers, paint the place, hire teacher that are dynamic and exciting not just going through the motions until retirement because they know no matter how boring or apathetic they are, they will not lose their job because of the teacher’s union. Contrary to most beliefs not all of the money will be sucked into private schools. If every school universally is under voucher, the private schools will have to compete with the public schools and visa verse. Some of the public schools might even get better than some private schools. Parents will shop the best bang for their buck out of curriculum, extra curriculum activities, sports, arts, etc.

@Hypocrisy_Central I think that you missed a key part of my response. I mentioned the “apparency of choice” for a reason. In the USA, for example, in every state that I’ve had to get a driver’s license, you have a choice in “which DMV office” to visit within that state. That is, you don’t have to go to the nearest DMV, and you don’t have to go to the central office for the DMV; you can pick any branch office. But they’re all part of the DMV. So it’s just an apparency of choice; it’s not really much of a choice at all.

If all of the local schools are more or less clones of each other, then there won’t be a lot of real competition among them, except at the margins.

Private schools are definitely the way to go, whether home schooling or some kind of for-profit venture or even (some) parochial schools. Not every private school is equivalent to every other, and not every one is better than even the worst public schools. Some private schools can be pretty bad, and there’s no doubt about that. But with real choice, students don’t have to be consigned to that school for their entire schooling.

Parenting also plays a huge part in all of this, of course. And with Americans on average working longer hours than most of the rest of the world, they do have to find time to be involved in their children’s education and other upbringing. It’s unrealistic to expect schools – of any sort – to act in loco parentis in all aspects of a child’s life.

@CWOTUS If all of the local schools are more or less clones of each other, then there won’t be a lot of real competition among them, except at the margins.
Clones of each other, is what we basically have now. Some agency or governing body says ”this is the curriculum you will teach, and this is how you will teach it. This is the foreign language you will offer and what grade you will offer it in.” etc. If schools have more flexibility in what they teach if one school focuses more on science and AP classes, those seeking that will want to enroll there, thus bringing their voucher dollars. Furthermore, if the teachers are also dynamic, sharp thinkers, and not boring, even better. Unlike the DMV, there will be measurable differences between school as they try to be unique to attract students and their parents.

1)
A primary goal of voucher initiatives is to siphon public money into private religious schools. If you admire the work of the madrassas in in Pakistan, and their key role in supporting the Taliban, you should support vouchers in US schools.

2)
The pro-voucher argument is based on magical thinking, that kids can be transported to and from the school of their choice each day, regardless of distance, regardles of working parents’ schedules, and regardless of the cost of transportation.

The way to fix public schools is to fix public schools, not to drain away resources and then point and cry, “Look, they’re failing!”

@jaytkay The way to fix public schools is to fix public schools,....
One way to do that would be…..?

Liberals in power and teacher’s union will never allow vouchers because they would lose power and money. Providing a decent education to students is down on their list of priorities. In fact a dumb-down student will likely be a failure in life and therefore likely to vote democrat. The more democrat voters, the more democrat power. Power and money is what this is about. It has nothing to to with how lousy public schools are or will get.

In the future one will go to centers where computers are set up to learn via teleconference classes etc Those that can afford computers at home will learn at home.
There are Universities and Colleges that have adopted this method successfully at present.
It saves everyone monies spent on teachers,classrooms, buildings etc
It is the way of the future to accomodate those working and learning on their own time that is convenient for everyone.

You can not teach children the same way as adults. Children need personal contact, and individual help with problems.
The problem with too large class sizes is just that, the lack of individual help for pupils. Replacing the teacher with a computer screen will make the problem much, much worse.

@CWOTUS You said: “If all of the local schools are more or less clones of each other, then there won’t be a lot of real competition among them, except at the margins.” But they aren’t all clones of each other. Because of the way that schools are funded in the United States, the quality of public schools varies greatly based on the property values in the areas they serve. Incidentally, this makes it bollocks to talk about public schools as if they are some single entity that can be judged alike.

Okay, I’ll grant the truth of what you say there, @Patton. Let me rephrase, then: Most middle-class schools within a state’s jurisdiction are more or less clones of each other, and schools in lower-class areas in the same state are generally worse to much worse.

I’m not encouraged by your observation, even as accurate as it was.

@CWOTUS Most middle-class schools within a state’s jurisdiction are more or less clones of each other, and schools in lower-class areas in the same state are generally worse to much worse.
The money following the child would break that mold, if it exists. Imagine all the cell phone companies being mere clones of the next, why would one bother to choose Sprint over Verizon unless they just liked the sound of the name better? Cell companies try to at least look as if they are offering better service or more feature, even if they are not. Sooner or later the user will determine if they were getting something more with company A than with company B, it will be the same with schools. Those who did not change or adapt would still get students but lees than those trying to cater to what the students and their parents want.

Homeschooling might be an option.