Look for the union label!

[ivan]

The real benefit of vouchers accrues to those who are born into families who are too poor to dream of sending their children to private schools.

 

i don't see this at all - the price tag for a high-faluting private school is way higher than for a public school - sure, give families the amount they threw into the common pot for education back to them to spend how they will, but it's not gonna get poor kids into anything better than what they left. it might make middle class families just capable of affording a posh school by throwing in extra on top of the voucher, but i doubt it.

[JayB]

So would you support vouchers on the condition that they couldn't have a specific religious charter to advance as part of their mission?

 

Are you sure that there's still a first amendment problem if the parents, rather than the government, determine who gets their money? What differentiates these from tax deductions for donations to churches, in your mind?

 

yes to the first question

 

as to the second question, i don't like any of the tax exemption bullshit that churches get, though i know the court has upheld it. tax exempt donations to charities is fine, but not charities who wrap it up in buddha/jeebus/mohammed whatever. it's probably just my angry atheism talking

 

i don't know anything of sweden or norway's voucher experiment - enlighten me, if you can in a 1000 words or less - is comparing our giant heterogenous nation to a tiny homogenous one sound?

 

wouldn't the transition to a voucher system dangerously destabilize the current public schools? schools and the infrastructure already built were designed for large populations which could only decline. future planning would be harder w/ potentially giant #'s of students coming in and out of the system.

 

 

Other than knowing that Sweden has had a voucher system in place since 1992, that schools that accept vouchers can't charge more than public schools, and that enrollment in private schools has increased from 1% to 10% in general, and to 20% in secondary schools since that time - I don't have much to add but there's plenty to Google.

 

With regards to small/homogenous vs large heterogenous question, I think that the proper question is whether or not there are any logically and/or empirically sound arguments that suggest that letting parents control which school get's their child's tuition money will either be impracticable or make the kids worse off than they are now. IMO vouchers that distribute the burden of examining and evaluating the quality of whatever is being bought with them amongst millions of individual parents and families are inherently more cost effective, scalable, and responsive than centralized bureaucracies that are subject to the limitations imposed by informational and public choice constraints.

 

As far as the infrastructure is concerned, I don't think that we necessarily need to make the well-being of educational infrastructure that may or may not be useful for improving education any more than we need to worry about the well-being of the factory that was cranking out Commodore 64 or ColecoVision consoles at one point. Seems like there's plenty of folks that'd be running schools that'd be interested in using the schools in the event that the government-run schools could no longer afford to occupy or maintain them, but if not I'm sure that someone would find a use for them. Ditto for teachers that no school wanted to hire in a system where the money follows the kids.

 

I generally don't like any tax exemptions, for a variety of reasons (spawning waste and corruption being foremost amongst them), and it's hard for me to find a cause that I like the government subsidizing by any mechanism any less than I do religion. Having said that, the reality is that as things stand now, and are likely to for some time - there are several mechanisms such as tax-deductible tithes, grants and subsidized loans for students attending private colleges, etc that are at least as susceptible to 1st Ammendment arguments as the voucher issue. Until and/or unless those get addressed, it seems like the 1st ammendment argument is a bit of a red herring.

 

I suspect that you're a great teacher that'd probably capture a premium, and take home a greater share of the tuition under a completely voucherized funding regime than you do now. Do you disagree?

[prole]

The real benefit of vouchers accrues to those who are born into families who are too poor to dream of sending their children to private schools.

 

i don't see this at all - the price tag for a high-faluting private school is way higher than for a public school - sure, give families the amount they threw into the common pot for education back to them to spend how they will, but it's not gonna get poor kids into anything better than what they left. it might make middle class families just capable of affording a posh school by throwing in extra on top of the voucher, but i doubt it.

 

The utopian vision at work here as with other privatization schemes is that with all of this money sloshing around in parents' pockets, saavy capitalist educators will meet the need by building private schools in the areas where they're needed. It didn't happen. Never mind that the failure rate for private schools approaches those for new restaurants. Hey, if that kid from Compton can't find a school in his area, he can always walk to Beverly Hills or Brentwood and cash in his coupons there.

Edited September 22, 2009 by prole

[JayB]

The real benefit of vouchers accrues to those who are born into families who are too poor to dream of sending their children to private schools.

 

i don't see this at all - the price tag for a high-faluting private school is way higher than for a public school - sure, give families the amount they threw into the common pot for education back to them to spend how they will, but it's not gonna get poor kids into anything better than what they left. it might make middle class families just capable of affording a posh school by throwing in extra on top of the voucher, but i doubt it.

 

But we're not necessarily talking about high-falutin' schools here. It's clear that there are schools like Lakeside, Phillips Exeter and there ilk that would never participate in a voucher program because their cost structure and their particular market niche for super-premium educational services sold to super-wealthy parents wouldn't permit it.

 

It's one thing to concede that point, it's another to argue that pedagogy, cost-structure, efficiency, discipline policies, etc are fixed in stone and that no school that only consumes as much money per-pupil as public schools do now could possibly deliver a better education. Somehow the folks operating private schools in Sweden, the Netherlands, and elsewhere have managed to get by with funding that's identical to what public schools get, and there's no reason to suggest that they couldn't do the same here.

 

A separate question is why any group should enjoy a monopoly control over funds that the public provides in a situation where it's impossible to argue that it's a technical monopoly that has to be left in the monopoly's hands. Moroever, if you are against vouchers in K-12, why allow them to persist in tertiary education?

 

 

[ivan]

I suspect that you're a great teacher that'd probably capture a premium, and take home a greater share of the tuition under a completely voucherized funding regime than you do now. Do you disagree?

i have no idea how the pay system would differ - will i be getting paid by how many students i attract? - if so, then i'm basically just gonna get paid for my services as an entertainer and awarder of easy grades, right? how many kids are gonna want to throw their money in to a hard-driving prick who makes you do homework and what not?

[JayB]

The real benefit of vouchers accrues to those who are born into families who are too poor to dream of sending their children to private schools.

 

i don't see this at all - the price tag for a high-faluting private school is way higher than for a public school - sure, give families the amount they threw into the common pot for education back to them to spend how they will, but it's not gonna get poor kids into anything better than what they left. it might make middle class families just capable of affording a posh school by throwing in extra on top of the voucher, but i doubt it.

 

The utopian vision at work here as with other privatization schemes is that with all of this money sloshing around in parents' pockets, saavy capitalist educators will meet the need by building private schools in the areas where they're needed. It didn't happen. Never mind that the failure rate for private schools approaches those for new restaurants. Hey, if that kid from Compton can't find a school in his area, he can always walk to Beverly Hills or Brentwood and cash in his coupons there.

 

You mean like food stamps? Section 8 housing vouchers? Clearly the people who use these public resources would be better off if they were forced to live in homes, and buy food from, monopolies administered by the government.

[tanstaafl]

YES! Our bold new toothbrush designs, counting beans for the corporations and creating the next revolution in making old men's wieners hard again will bury our enemies FOREVER!

 

Where do you think our medicines, and our doctors and nurses come from? Sociology majors? Communications?

 

Keep telling yourself you are studying something important Prole. But be sure you can afford to pay your loans back while flipping burgers.

 

Well, actually, a good friend of mine who went on to become an MD/PhD and is now a genetics researcher at the NIH majored in English Literature in college. And another former English major friend is just finishing up her nursing degree.

[ivan]

as i said, i'm not radically opposed to vouchers, but i don't think they're going to solve any of the basic problems of educating the children of 300 million americans

 

what about economies of scale? seems like tearing down the big old factory to build a whole bunch of smaller ones increases waste/inefficiency?

[JayB]

I suspect that you're a great teacher that'd probably capture a premium, and take home a greater share of the tuition under a completely voucherized funding regime than you do now. Do you disagree?

i have no idea how the pay system would differ - will i be getting paid by how many students i attract? - if so, then i'm basically just gonna get paid for my services as an entertainer and awarder of easy grades, right? how many kids are gonna want to throw their money in to a hard-driving prick who makes you do homework and what not?

 

Oh, c'mon - let's not pretend that students would be the ones driving this train.

 

Schools that want to attract more students will compete for the best teachers, which would likely translate into any variety of incentives that the best teachers responded to. The teachers would determine what those are through their choices.

 

Seems like total spending on admin and other non-essential staff would offer some low-hanging fruit in terms of resources that could be diverted into teacher compensation, but that could well take many other forms. Not being a teacher, it's not clear to me what people working in the field would value most in an environment where the number of competitors for their services increased dramatically.

[tvashtarkatena]

So would you support vouchers on the condition that they couldn't have a specific religious charter to advance as part of their mission?

 

Are you sure that there's still a first amendment problem if the parents, rather than the government, determine who gets their money? What differentiates these from tax deductions for donations to churches, in your mind?

 

yes to the first question

 

as to the second question, i don't like any of the tax exemption bullshit that churches get, though i know the court has upheld it. tax exempt donations to charities is fine, but not charities who wrap it up in buddha/jeebus/mohammed whatever. it's probably just my angry atheism talking

 

i don't know anything of sweden or norway's voucher experiment - enlighten me, if you can in a 1000 words or less - is comparing our giant heterogenous nation to a tiny homogenous one sound?

 

wouldn't the transition to a voucher system dangerously destabilize the current public schools? schools and the infrastructure already built were designed for large populations which could only decline. future planning would be harder w/ potentially giant #'s of students coming in and out of the system.

 

 

Denying tax exemptions to religious versus secular non-profits would violate both the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses. The problem with many churches is that they are pretty clearly for profit organizations, yet their tax exempt status remains unchallenged for because we enjoy a heavy pro-kristian political bias in this country.

 

Vouchers are a side show, invented by the Right as both a smoke screen issue and a way to defund and dismantle the public school system rather than fix it. Anyone who claims to believe otherwise is either an idiot or a liar.

 

As I understand it from talking with teachers, isn't one of the main problems with the public school system that an inordinate amount of funding goes towards supporting the huge administrative/peripheral personnel (rather than teachers) that have managed to attach their suckers into the system? It's not a matter of gross funding; it's a matter of skimming.

[JayB]

as i said, i'm not radically opposed to vouchers, but i don't think they're going to solve any of the basic problems of educating the children of 300 million americans

 

what about economies of scale? seems like tearing down the big old factory to build a whole bunch of smaller ones increases waste/inefficiency?

 

I'd argue that the proper analogy is continuing to operate the 60's era Vega factory with outdated production processes, bloated and ineffectual management, etc that only stays in business because the regulations are structured to grant them a monopoly.

 

Everything that's useful in the present system, from teachers to administrators, to buildings, would be available for whomever was running the schools to use, and those who did the best job of it would expand to whatever scale was appropriate. Might not be a place for a five layers worth of HR specialists in that regime, but it's not clear that the kids will be worse off as a result.

[tvashtarkatena]

YES! Our bold new toothbrush designs, counting beans for the corporations and creating the next revolution in making old men's wieners hard again will bury our enemies FOREVER!

 

Where do you think our medicines, and our doctors and nurses come from? Sociology majors? Communications?

 

Keep telling yourself you are studying something important Prole. But be sure you can afford to pay your loans back while flipping burgers.

 

Well, actually, a good friend of mine who went on to become an MD/PhD and is now a genetics researcher at the NIH majored in English Literature in college. And another former English major friend is just finishing up her nursing degree.

 

Add to that several successful business folks, attorneys, and, are you ready for this? SOFTWARE ENGINEERS that I know.

 

You're a moron, KKK.

[JayB]

So would you support vouchers on the condition that they couldn't have a specific religious charter to advance as part of their mission?

 

Are you sure that there's still a first amendment problem if the parents, rather than the government, determine who gets their money? What differentiates these from tax deductions for donations to churches, in your mind?

 

yes to the first question

 

as to the second question, i don't like any of the tax exemption bullshit that churches get, though i know the court has upheld it. tax exempt donations to charities is fine, but not charities who wrap it up in buddha/jeebus/mohammed whatever. it's probably just my angry atheism talking

 

i don't know anything of sweden or norway's voucher experiment - enlighten me, if you can in a 1000 words or less - is comparing our giant heterogenous nation to a tiny homogenous one sound?

 

wouldn't the transition to a voucher system dangerously destabilize the current public schools? schools and the infrastructure already built were designed for large populations which could only decline. future planning would be harder w/ potentially giant #'s of students coming in and out of the system.

 

 

Denying tax exemptions to religious versus secular non-profits would violate both the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses. The problem with many churches is that they are pretty clearly for profit organizations, yet their tax exempt status remains unchallenged for because we enjoy a heavy pro-kristian political bias in this country.

 

Vouchers are a side show, invented by the Right as both a smoke screen issue and a way to defund and dismantle the public school system rather than fix it. Anyone who claims to believe otherwise is either an idiot or a liar.

 

As I understand it from talking with teachers, isn't one of the main problems with the public school system that an inordinate amount of funding goes towards supporting the huge administrative/peripheral personnel (rather than teachers) that have managed to attach their suckers into the system? It's not a matter of gross funding; it's a matter of skimming.

 

 

Any examples of public school systems where the net take by admin/peripheral staff have been permanently reduced by reforms of the systems that they oversee and control?

[ivan]

 

Oh, c'mon - let's not pretend that students would be the ones driving this train.

 

Schools that want to attract more students will compete for the best teachers, which would likely translate into any variety of incentives that the best teachers responded to. The teachers would determine what those are through their choices.

 

Seems like total spending on admin and other non-essential staff would offer some low-hanging fruit in terms of resources that could be diverted into teacher compensation, but that could well take many other forms. Not being a teacher, it's not clear to me what people working in the field would value most in an environment where the number of competitors for their services increased dramatically.

my experience after a decade is that kids, via their parents, run a hell of a lot already

 

hey, i'm a survivalist creature - whatever changes come, i'll adapt and overcome - i don't think most folks have a clear idea of what makes a "good teacher" or has a sensible way of measuring one, but then i also think teaching is far more an art than science - i do know that most private schools offer total crap for pay and benefits though, so am not really very hopeful that suddenly having a lot more out there would improve the finanicial part of my life

 

christ i'm tired - it's naptime!

[CollinWoods]

The school systems suck. Trust me, I would know.

[tvashtarkatena]

Of course, in my day, all the overhead I just spoke of didn't yet exist...and the public schools in our area still sucked.

 

Some don't, however, and it's usually because of a core of individual teachers and admins who won't except mediocrity as an end product. Productive parent involvement (I hear that there is an overabundance of the other kind these days) also seems to help. How to make that happen, however, well...how do you hire anyone who is a cut above the rest, hmmm? How do you recognize that june a se qua, joonisaykwa, as I said, I went to public highscool, special something in someone: a friend, an artist, a woman, a proctologist...well, that is the mystery of being human, or a unicorn, isn't it?

[prole]

The school systems suck. Trust me, I would know.

 

'Cause you've been spraying from there all day?

[YocumRidge]

As I understand it from talking with teachers, isn't one of the main problems with the public school system that an inordinate amount of funding goes towards supporting the huge administrative/peripheral personnel (rather than teachers) that have managed to attach their suckers into the system? It's not a matter of gross funding; it's a matter of skimming.

 

Same applies to the medical field: feeding suckers of the administrative personnel from the so hard to get federal funding on top of the so-called "overhead costs" which are 30%!

Could somebody enlighten me on this one? The money that no one sees?

[Jim]

One of the other challenges of public schools is they have to take everyone, as it should be. My wife's classes of 32 (up from last year)has "mainstreamed" Aesberger Syndrome kids, kids with some language challenges, and a range from kids who excell to kids who really struggle.

 

I help tutor these kids and there is no way they can get the attention they need without volunteer help. Private schools pay crap and can say "no thanks" to the problem kids or those with special needs.

[JayB]

Given that there's nothing in a voucher scheme that would diminish spending per pupil, it's not clear that pay for teachers would necessarily decrease, unless the administrative/overhead costs increased.

 

That's certainly possible, but the balance of incentives would tend to mitigate against that, unless parents evinced an tendency to send there kids to schools where the schools were likely to spend fewer of their resources on teachers than the public school system currently does. Possible - yes. Likely - no.

 

If non-public schools got the same amount of money per-pupil, and couldn't match the compensation offered by public schools, that'd certainly be interesting, and might prompt an interesting dialogue about the manner in which they're accounting for (and intend to finance) future pension and healthcare obligations relative to non-public schools.

 

[j_b]

teachers do need unions - the history of the profession shows a clear need - as a union member of a teachers union, i disagree w/ the notion that the union is there to protect shitty teachers

 

Seems like the problem for teachers is monopsony, which is the opposite of monopoly. Eg, monopsony = one and only one buyer, which distorts prices and suffocates competition just as effectively as having a single seller.

 

Monopsony is a problem for centralized education but public education doesn’t have to be centralized to the extent it is, and education like healthcare cannot be run sustainably for profit if the goal is to provide the highest quality service to everyone (there is a lot more to education than prices and competition).

 

 

[j_b]

Just to get things back on topic.

 

"Cash-short county inks raises for unions."

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/410379_county22.html

 

If you're tempted to claim that public employees with equivalent qualifications are undercompensated (wages plus benefits, including the costs of their pensions and health-care in retirement) to their private sector counterparts, I hope that you'll furnish the data that supports that contention.

 

 

Non-union employees make less than unionized employees? Tell us something we don’t already know. It seems to argue the case for unions pretty well unless you are arguing that people shouldn’t get cost of living increases (especially since the CPI basket is fixed to minimize inflation).

 

Budget deficits due to less sales tax revenues and capped property taxes? That’s what happens with regressive taxes. Aren’t you one of those who wanted to drown government in a bathtub? So, where is the news?

 

[tomtom]

(there is a lot more to education than prices and competition).

 

My God, you are brilliant!

 

Did you learn this in school?

[j_b]

It is indeed testimony to the dimwitted economic reductionism of neoliberals that such blatant truism has to be repeated on a constant basis.

[JayB]

Just to get things back on topic.

 

"Cash-short county inks raises for unions."

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/410379_county22.html

 

If you're tempted to claim that public employees with equivalent qualifications are undercompensated (wages plus benefits, including the costs of their pensions and health-care in retirement) to their private sector counterparts, I hope that you'll furnish the data that supports that contention.

 

 

Non-union employees make less than unionized employees? Tell us something we don’t already know. It seems to argue the case for unions pretty well unless you are arguing that people shouldn’t get cost of living increases (especially since the CPI basket is fixed to minimize inflation).

 

Budget deficits due to less sales tax revenues and capped property taxes? That’s what happens with regressive taxes. Aren’t you one of those who wanted to drown government in a bathtub? So, where is the news?

 

It's very difficult for union employees to make more than non-Union employees with the same skill-set unless they've managed to secure regulations that insulate themselves from competition, and thereby enable their employers to transfer their excess labor costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

 

Since the consumers in this case are taxpayers, it's not clear to me why you think that forcing them to pay artificially inflated prices for services that they have to obtain from the government is a good thing for society. Particularly when in practices that means that a given level of taxes results in fewer public services - ranging from providing beds in local shelters to fixing potholes - delivered per dollar spent. This is true no matter what the level of taxation.

 

Strange thing to argue for.