I just don't see how this works.

A great school with only 500 slots might be able to squeeze in 600 kids but they're not going to be able to take everyone who wants to go there. That still leaves kids going to the other schools.

In addition, we know that having kids go to neighborhood schools has secondary effects like neighbors knowing each other better, thus looking out for each other and reducing crime.

Not to mention the logisitical nightmare when your kids don't all get into the same school, and all have to get up early but at different times to catch different busses to different schools.

It's such a dangerous idea -- dangerous to the hold teachers' unions have over students and education dollars. The dangerous idea is the idea of school choice: that dollars follow students to their parents' choice of education for them, rather than the students following the dollars to public schools.

By "dollars" you mean "taxpayer funds."

"School choice" is a focus group misnomer. You might as well call food stamp programs "meal choice" and give recipients the right to spend them at five-star restaurants.

Parents and guardians already have "school choice," and are able to send the kids to public school, parochial school, private school or whatever school. That's their right. If they can't afford Montessori, St. Swithens or Snootingham Pre-K, that's unfortunate, but they still get free school and most likely free breakfast and lunch along with it.

Why do parents think they have the exclusive right to use our tax dollars for private services?

"Why do parents think they have the exclusive right to use our tax dollars for private services?"

Because they aren't getting anything for their tax dollar at the public school.

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention?

If they can't afford Montessori, St. Swithens or Snootingham Pre-K, that's unfortunate, but they still get free school and most likely free breakfast and lunch along with it. ~ Kevin at October 8, 2020 11:22 PM

Free? Ain't nothin' free about it. The US spends, on average $11,392 per student. The average private school tuition in the US is $11,004 per year.

Not to mention, a free education ain't necessarily a quality education. Government agencies operate on the "good enough" principle. Government schools process students, they don't educate them.

40-60% of incoming college freshmen in the US require remedial math and/or English instruction, having been graduated by their public education institution deficient in one or both.

80% of the incoming freshmen at CUNY, graduates of the NYC public school system, require remedial mathematics and English instruction. In fact, CUNY was so overwhelmed with remedial math students, it is no longer requiring remedial math instruction, arguing that most students choose majors that don't require math proficiency.

The government should get out of the schooling business. The federal Dept. of Education can set standards for all schools to meet in terms of skills and knowledge their students are expected to have at each grade level in order to continue to receive funding.

Implement that and we can turn the private sector loose to innovate the delivery of education, something the teachers' unions have resisted in favor of the a larger unionized labor force in the in-person model left over from the turn of the last century - a model that holds students to the pace of the slowest student in the classroom.

Why do parents think they have the exclusive right to use our tax dollars for private services? ~ Kevin at October 8, 2020 11:22 PM

Why do teachers' unions think they have "the exclusive right to use our tax dollars" for their own agenda?

Why do people think that, if it's the government's responsibility to ensure access to education for all, that the government has to be the one delivering it, instead of simply facilitating that delivery through private channels?

"Why do parents think they have the exclusive right to use our tax dollars for private services?" ~Kevin

Now do medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc., etc. Can't have old people picking out their own doctors. Can't have poor people using our tax dollars for their private groceries. Meh.

Kevin, just be honest. You just want the schools closed period. How the money is spent doesn't really matter to you. If it did you wouldn't use such foolish arguments over and over again.

Conan, that might be a factor of too many people going to college. Maybe not everyone should be getting a college degree.

Since many colleges and universities seem to have taken over some amount of trade training and accreditation, perhaps they should just admit it and have separate entrance requirements.

Since many colleges and universities seem to have taken over some amount of trade training and accreditation, perhaps they should just admit it and have separate entrance requirements. ~ NicoleK at October 9, 2020 8:16 AM

The former junior colleges, now "community" colleges, are the ones doing trades training. I doubt there's a plumbing curriculum at Harvard, or even at the local land-grant universities - which were originally created for trades training. Besides, colleges are post-secondary schooling - when we've already lost many of the non-college-bound students. Let's capture them earlier, before they become drop-outs.

For those who worry that a trades track will lock disadvantaged or minority students into a manual labor job, even someone who goes through a trades track can later study on an academic track. The important thing is not to leave them with nothing but a lie, a certificate that says they're ready to enter the adult world when they are not.

With government (taxpayer) funding of primary and secondary private education instead of government schools, we could have students who won't or can't go on to college enter apprenticeship programs. These could be sponsored by private industry - sort of a work-study arrangement.

We wouldn't be wasting $11,392 per year on sending a student through a college-prep curriculum who isn't going to college. And we could keep him/her from dropping out when he/she realizes that a college-prep curriculum is not going to do anything for him/her as adults. Instead of having 18-year-old drop-outs trying to enter the labor force with no skills or education, we could have 18-year-old apprentices working in the trades.

Government schools, with the assistance of teacher unions, have all but ended any manual arts teaching and instead focus on goosing the graduation rates. Is this how we want our tax dollars to be spent?

Of course, any government funding of private education would need strict supervision - lest we get into the same morass Ted Kennedy put the student loan program into when he pushed the for it to be expanded to fund fly-by-night proprietary trade schools (cough, scams!, cough).

I have a friend who went to DeVry to become an MRI repairman. He makes boatloads of money. Far more than my husband, the Civil Engineer.

Desired skill sets will earn you the big bucks.

Those dollars are supporting the teacher's union. If the children appear on the union's agenda in the top-10 they're lucky. Also, there's the corruption portion of the program, were the union gives union dues back to the candidates they favor, along with "in kind" donations of volunteer labor.

And then those candidates - if elected - will be negotiating on behalf of the district with that union on new contracts, as well as running interference in regards to new charter schools.

Now do medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc., etc. Can't have old people picking out their own doctors. Can't have poor people using our tax dollars for their private groceries. Meh.

I think the better analog is public parks. You're welcome to use public parks paid for with tax dollars. You're welcome to spend your own money to build your own park if you object to "government parks." But I would have a problem with "park choice," where people got vouchers to build their own parks.

Kevin, just be honest. You just want the schools closed period. How the money is spent doesn't really matter to you.

Of course it does or I wouldn't object. I have no idea how you extrapolate that into wanting schools closed.

The long-standing crime is the opposition of teacher's unions to charter schools, magnet schools and similar situations such as Catholic schools. These alternatives have proven to be a huge benefit to minorities but the unions want to close them. It clearly shows that students are not their first priority.
Of course good neighborhood schools are the best option because you can walk there and the kids make friends in the neighborhood. But if the public schools cannot deliver good education, parents should be able to take that tax money they paid and go elsewhere with it.

No Kevin public parks are not a better analog. With food stamps people are given cash on a card that they can only spend on specific products in specific stores. It is a voucher program. It is everything you complain about in the school system.

So why do I think you are dishonest? Because your arguments are just plain terrible. What you complain about is common in federal and state government spending. Yet you only care about it when schools are mentioned. You are only a spending hawk when schools are mentioned.

Look, I don't have an issue with you not liking kids. They aren't for everyone. I do have a problem with blatant dishonesty.

instead focus on goosing the graduation rates

This stood out to me. This is happening. There was a young man, I think he was 18 but not out of high school. He'd ended up getting murdered, and in the news reporting, it was said he was being home schooled.

Much to the surprise of his mother, who was not homeschooling him. Seems he had actually dropped out. That counts against the graduation rate, so he got transferred into the home school column first, which doesn't count against the graduation rate regardless of outcome.

So why do I think you are dishonest? Because your arguments are just plain terrible. What you complain about is common in federal and state government spending. Yet you only care about it when schools are mentioned. You are only a spending hawk when schools are mentioned.

Hardly. I'm also against "free college" as well. I simply don't believe that public tax dollars should be distributed to private schools.

> I simply don't believe that
> public tax dollars should be
> distributed to private schools.

Can you say why? If they do a better job, aren't you grateful for not wasting your money?

> Because they aren't getting
> anything for their tax dollar
> at the public school.

Exactly. In inner cities and other distressed realms, those dollars are being captured, stolen even, by entrenched bureaucracies backed by the irresistible force of law and regulation.

I can't understand how they've earned Kevin's loyalty.

Two

favorite

charts.

Can you say why? If they do a better job, aren't you grateful for not wasting your money?

It has nothing to do with a "better job," which is debatable anyway; some surely would be better, others would not.

I simply don't want public funds spent on private schools, any more than I want public library funds spent on private libraries.

Also, there's a lot to, as the kids say, 'unpack here'…

> Why do parents think they have
> the exclusive right to use our
> tax dollars for private services?

1. Parents think all sorts of fine and goofy things. Wanting to get their kids educated, having already paid for the service, ought not be mysterious.

2. What's 'exclusive' about the right? Government checks for a lot of things flow into American households...

3. …Funds thence to be dispensed for "private" (by which I assume you mean for-profit) goods and services. Healthcare and food come to mind. If you get food stamps, you're not required to spend them at a government kitchen.

I meen, why are so eager to tell Americans, in this most vital-yet-hidebound context, where the best value is? Do you really, sincerely believe you know better than each and ALL OF THE PARENTS what should be done with money taken from them at gunpoint? That is, after all, how taxation works.

What do you say "our tax dollars" when you characterize the parents as presumptuous, when they are, in fact, taxPAYERs?

Money which flows into government coffers isn't magically cleansed into a pristine instrument for civilization's virtuous refinement. If it were, the IRS would be operating out of a seven-room set of offices in a Cleveland, 50 employees in two shifts, and everything would be going great… People would sent returns in good order with the money attached.

But no.

> I simply don't want…

This ain't simple. There's something hidden in your reasoning, or you'd apply it in other contexts.

Sailer often describes the many difficulties which are congregating at the gates of academe.

One Size Fits All is probably not going to get us out of this.

But 'One Size Fits All' is probably my second favorite Zappa album. Headphones recommended.

Crid, I don't care what anyone else says. If you like Zappa, you're ok in my book.

Evelyn, is FZ the best guitarist and rock/jazz/fusion composer ever? Arf, she said.

"I simply don't believe that public tax dollars should be distributed to private schools."

A great example of that old saw, "Every man has a simple plan that will not work."

Public school costs are per student. If you don't have a student, you have no expenses.

Now, the entire premise of public schooling was to produce an educated public capable of contributing to it. Property taxes are the revenue source of choice because that determines the population to be educated. There's no entitlement to those funds other than by arrogant assumption.

But go ahead. Send your tax money to the public school - where the police have an office to control violence.