Nothing to do with Dean or Iraq

From Mona Charen / Townhall.com

In the interest of topic variety, how about a little disussion on school choice:

Though the news from the education world is gloomy, dismal and sad, I do believe that in 2004 things will improve. Eventually, in America, when things get bad enough, a reforming impulse pushes through the muck and begins to set things right. The following education follies from 2003 are offered in hopes of goosing that process along.

In October, the mayor of Detroit and the governor of Michigan joined forces to reject a $200 million gift offered by philanthropist Robert Thompson. Thompson proposed to help build 15 small charter high schools in Detroit, whose students consistently score below those of other Michigan residents. But after the Detroit teachers staged a one-day walkout to protest the charter plan, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm scurried away from the deal.

Detroit spends, for the record, more than all but 9 percent of Michigan school districts. Only 3.4 percent of Michigan's districts graduate a smaller proportion of high school students. Detroit students score near the bottom on statewide achievement tests. Only 2.5 percent of Michigan school districts spend more on administrative costs than does Detroit. The city also boasts teacher salaries near the very top.

Paul E. Peterson of Harvard reported in 2003 the results of a randomized study examining the effect of school vouchers on African American youngsters in New York. The study began in 1997, when the School Choice Scholarships Foundation offered vouchers to 1,200 New York City public school students in kindergarten through fourth grade. The scholarships were worth $1,400 annually. The students who received the vouchers were similar in every way to those who did not. Eighty percent came from single-parent families. The results were impressive. Students who received vouchers scored one grade level higher in reading and math than students in public school.

The Heritage Foundation prepared a handy table showing how members of Congress exercised school choice for their own children. Among the population at large, about 10 percent send their children to private schools. In the Senate, 46 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats send their kids to private school. But some Republicans and many Democrats have set their faces against vouchers to permit poor children in the District of Columbia to have school choice, too.

Twenty-nine percent of Congressional Black Caucus members and 46 percent of Hispanic Caucus members send their children to private schools. In September 2003, despite vehement opposition from D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and other supporters of the teachers unions, a voucher plan for the District of Columbia squeaked through the House of Representatives.

Florida's "A+" program provides that students in schools performing poorly in two out of four years get a voucher to attend a different public school or a private school. When the Manhattan Institute studied the effect of the program, it found that schools facing the lash of competition made much greater gains than schools permitted to plod on in the old way. A Harvard study of schools in Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin has found the same thing. Amazing! Competition works better than monopoly. Adam Smith: Call your office.

Opponents of the voucher idea rely primarily on the idea that private school tuitions are completely out of reach for most students' families. This would mean that the wealthiest or luckiest students would be "creamed" from the public schools, leaving the rest of the students mired in even worse conditions.

This argument not only fails to account for the competition effect mentioned above, but it further assumes that the public schools are starved for funds, while private schools are serving sirloin steak on white tablecloths in the lunchroom. In fact, while some famous private schools (like St. Albans, where Al Gore went, or Sidwell Friends, which Chelsea Clinton attended) are extremely expensive, most are not.

The Cato Institute looked at prices of private schools in a number of cities around the country and compared their tuitions with what the government spends on education. In the District of Columbia, for example, the government spends $11,009 per pupil. Forty-five of the District's private schools charged less than that per year, and 39 charged $5,000 or less.

In Houston, annual per-pupil spending by the city and state is $7,098. But 119 of the area's 144 private schools charge less, and 90 percent charged $5,000 or less. In Denver, the government spends $9,919 to educate each pupil per year. Only six of the city's 91 private elementary schools charge that much. The median private tuition is $3,528.

Eventually, common sense will prevail. For the sake of the kids, let's hope it starts in 2004.

Personally, I would make all federal assistance to any state for anything dependent on the existence of a school voucher program. I would even favor spending more money on education, if choice was a component of how we handled the schools. But every teacher's union in the country oposes this idea. Anyone on their side able to explain why?

I have no problem with students being allow to choose which school they go to, but having the government pay for students to go to private schools is wrong in my opinion. I think the money would be better spent improving the public schools.

I think the money would be better spent improving the public schools.

But, as the article points out, there is no correlation between spending and results. Giving more money to districts who can''t succeed when flush with cash already is doing nothing more than to reward failure. What pressure is being applied to schools to do better?

there is no correlation between spending and results.

And the reason for that is because of all the codes, rules, and laws that stand in the way of educational reform. Private schools may be a way of causing educational reform. I hope this is true, but I find it more likely that as soon as public money goes into private schools they will be subject to the same counterproductive codes that hamper public schools.

Private schools are allowed to discriminate on a variety of grounds. Many regularly reject applicants because of low achievement, religous affiliation, even race and ethnicity.

I don''t reject these schools rights to cater to their own teachings. However, I noticed that the article states that about 10% of the population send their children to private schools. Assuming that a national voucher program would increase this number signifigantly our country would become even more Balkanized than it already is. The public school system stands out as an institution that unifies Americans. I know that I had direct exposure to many ethnicitys and religions that I might not otherwise have had. Is this not an important consideration?

I''m guessing that Monas'' quotes for tuition prices are from private schools that are sponsored by some group or another. The best price for tuition that I could find within 20 miles was $12.5k, and I live in a good sized city. No school voucher from the government will cover that. There''s a Catholic school, Mormon school, and a Jahovas''(sp?) Witness school close by that I know of, but my kid doesn''t qualify.

My guess is that the teacher unions are against it because private school teachers are not members of the unions.

Personally, I would make all federal assistance to any state for anything dependent on the existence of a school voucher program. I would even favor spending more money on education, if choice was a component of how we handled the schools. But every teacher''s union in the country oposes this idea. Anyone on their side able to explain why?

My parents are both public school teachers. One of my sisters has taught at a private school for a few years. One of my uncles has taught in both public and private schools. My grandmother was a public school teacher (back when public schools were more strict like private schools are today). I studied to become a teacher myself until I became so discouraged and jaded about our nation''s education system bureaucracy that I decided to switch out of that pursuit.

Most of my life has been steeped on both the student and teacher sides of the educational equation, so I will take your challenge and try to explain my view of things.

First, though, I must put this disclaimer: most of my life I have been against vouchers, but anymore I''m not sure what approach is best.

I was against vouchers for many reasons:

First, it would likely further segregate our student populations.

Second, by taking money from the public schools and putting it in private schools, you are essentially stripping funding from the students unlucky enough to be stuck in the public schools as the funding trickles away.

Third, many private schools are religious, and thus earmarking funds intended for secular public schools to be instead diverted to religious private schools could be considered objectionable. Many of the arguments I''ve seen against vouchers include this as a key point, actually.

Fourth, as others have also pointed out, having a voucher doesn''t mean your kid is going to get into a private school. Being a private institution, they can have more discriminatory admission restrictions such as religion and gender. Some people see vouchers as a way of getting federal funding/coverage for private school tuition while bypassing federal non-discriminatory requirements.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, while I''ve been against vouchers for a long time, I have gradually been reconsidering that position. As has been pointed out, student performance and achievement is generally higher in private schools. Also, private schools have more freedom to make strides in reforming educational practices without being subject to so many of the counter-productive legislative requirements that hold back public school reform. In addition, private schools have more freedom to enact effective disciplinary measures than public schools (stupid parents suing public schools for treating their children ""poorly"" when it''s actually just what the kid needs since they don''t get discipline at home).

I absolutely believe that throwing money at schools isn''t enough to solve the problem, but I also contend that this doesn''t mean the school doesn''t need that money. The stats we often see in these articles only tell how much money the government funds these schools. We don''t often see how much money is donated to help the school.

To compound that, the articles often don''t state what the money is actually spent on. Many inner-city schools often spend large chunks of their funds on keeping aging facilities from falling apart, or to finance security staff and equipment that is often unneeded in schools located in less economically-depressed regions. The teachers in schools located in higher-crime or economically depressed regions are often given higher salaries since it is harder to coax teachers there otherwise.

Public schools located in better environments often need to spend less money for better results, as there is less expense needed for things that are not directly related to educational expenses.

Private schools, especially religious ones, are many times located in buildings and/or land donated by affiliated religious organizations. Here in Cedar Rapids, one private school that I can think of right now is located on the campus of one of the Catholic churches. Since the school is sponsored/subsidized (not sure which term applies) by the church, they can operate with less expense to the school itself than the nearby public school.

It''s a complex issue all around. What this country really needs isn''t a stopgap measure like school vouchers or more public school funding. We really need sweeping educational reform, and schools need to be given back the power to have real discipline, not the metaphorical slap-on-the-wrist measures to which they are currently restricted. There needs to be a minimum standard of educational materials and facilities established (for instance, a functional science lab) for schools nationwide, and the necessary funding acquired for maintaining that minimum level of facilities along with regular audits to make sure these funds aren''t used inefficiently.

This is just what I can think of. We need to take a good hard look to see what makes the private schools work so well, and model our public schools after them as much as possible.

On another note, even though I quit the education program in college, I''ve never lost the desire to teach. In my professional life, most of my jobs have been either training or mentoring positions, and I''ve even contracted at a local community college to teach office applications. When I''m teaching or mentoring, that''s when I feel the most satisfied with the professional part of my life, and I recently decided (just a few weeks ago, actually) that it must be my calling.

So, I am working to figure out a means to complete my teacher certification (I only had one class left and then my student teaching to go) and then enter the educational arena. I haven''t decided if I''m going to try to teach in public or private schools, though I''m pretty confident that my focus will be on middle school or high school.

Don''t worry, Ral, I won''t be instilling my political ideals in my students. My goal as a teacher is always to help students to learn how to better educate themselves. That goal has persisted whether I was teaching computer classes, employee training, or youth mentoring at my church. I have ideas on how to better teach and test reading comprehension and writing skills than the current happy-happy-fluffy-everyone-is-good methods that the liberal camp has implemented. My idea is to blend the good aspects of both liberal and traditional teaching.

I''d go more in-depth, but I don''t want to bore you all (unless, unbeknownst to me, some of you are teachers yourselves).

My guess is that the teacher unions are against it because private school teachers are not members of the unions.

Oh, forgot to rebut this. Though many members of teachers'' unions might fall under this rationale, I don''t know any of those teachers. Most of the ones I know object to school vouchers for more of the reasons I listed above; they view vouchers as a flawed stop-gap measure.

Taking this point by point:

First, it would likely further segregate our student populations.

How?

Second, by taking money from the public schools and putting it in private schools, you are essentially stripping funding from the students unlucky enough to be stuck in the public schools as the funding trickles away.

When has the federal government EVER taken money from one program to put toward another? No government program or expendature ever ends. The 268 billion dollar Farm Bill passed early in the Bush administration was supposed to fund all manner of future emergency aid for farmers. When a drought hit the midwest later that year, what was the first thing Congress tried to do? Pass additional disaster relief of course.

Third, many private schools are religious, and thus earmarking funds intended for secular public schools to be instead diverted to religious private schools could be considered objectionable. Many of the arguments I''ve seen against vouchers include this as a key point, actually.

See point above.

Fourth, as others have also pointed out, having a voucher doesn''t mean your kid is going to get into a private school. Being a private institution, they can have more discriminatory admission restrictions such as religion and gender. Some people see vouchers as a way of getting federal funding/coverage for private school tuition while bypassing federal non-discriminatory requirements.

This one has some teeth in it. However, I seriously doubt that Congress will ever give money to private schools with no strings attached. They will lower the entrance requirements for purposes of ""fairness"", and eliminate any restrictions the schools might try to impose in the areas of religion or gender. Even if they don''t, the courts will be on deck waiting to bat clean-up.

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the phrase ""federal non-discriminatory requirements""?

by taking money from the public schools and putting it in private schools, you are essentially stripping funding from the students unlucky enough to be stuck in the public schools as the funding trickles away.

One thing to remember, every single voucher program created has offered voucher amounts lower than the amount being spent per student in the public school. This means that for every child who leaves the public school system on a voucher, the average amount that district has to spend on the remaining students goesup.

Being a private institution, they can have more discriminatory admission restrictions such as religion and gender.

For those of you worried about discrimination by private schools, so what? If the only private schools in the area are Catholic or all-boys, that may mean that only some students can immediately take advantage of private schools. However first of all, most voucher programs also include the ability for students to leave failing public schools for betterpublicschools, so really all students will have choices. Secondly, if some students leave for Catholic or boy''s schools, how does that hurt the one''s left, who can''t attend those schools? Arguing that the plan is bad because it improves the lot of 20-30% of students while leaving the rest no worse off doesn''t make any sense. And the idea that the rest would be left behind at all, doesn''t take into account the fact that making these funds available for parental choice will create a new market for the creation of private schools - and soon enough there will be plenty of alternatives.

"Farscry" wrote:

many private schools are religious, and thus earmarking funds intended for secular public schools to be instead diverted to religious private schools could be considered objectionable.

I would hope not. I assume some anti-religous whacko would consider this an ""Establishment of religion"", but even the Supreme Court which keeps banning prayer in public schools has stated that when the parents are the ones making the choice, there is no government preference of religion.

"Slick" wrote:

Assuming that a national voucher program would increase this number signifigantly our country would become even more Balkanized than it already is.

"Farscry" wrote:

First, it would likely further segregate our student populations

I don''t get this. Schools are segregated now, based on the demographics of where people live. Busing and forced race-based school assignment has been ended in most major cities, and inner-city public schools are 90% minority on average. And are private school kids and public school kids ""balkanized"" today? I''m not sure you''re using that word the right way.

A common theme seems to be that opponents to voucher are only considering the immediate state of things. If every parent could take the money spent on their child and spend it wherever they want, more private schools would open to take advantage of this flood of cash.

School vouchers end up being one of those strange points where I look at the people with whom I agree, and I see some unexpected faces. It''s like that dream I have where I''m playing left tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, strange for several reasons not the least of which is that I hate the Minnesota Vikings and obviously if I played for them I''d be a tight end. I was making a point ... what was it?

Oh yes, I think choices and alternatives, despite possibly drawing the ire of a firmly established teacher''s union that has much to lose, that lead to a greater number of students receiving a better education from locations that they choose is really a reasonable direction after so many years of educational failure.