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[StrikeNinja24]

Hey, some good news with Congress working together to overcome the hurdle of denying Devos' agenda for the second year in a row.

https://www.salon.com/2018/03/22/in...ongress-rejects-betsy-devos-education-agenda/

"DeVos had planned to slash the Department of Education's budget by $3.6 billion (5 percent), but on Wednesday night, Congress included a $3.9 billion increase to the department in the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. "

"There was no funding included for the school-choice proposals made by DeVos."

 

[Blood Borne]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice. How can CHOICE be a bad thing. Shackling a kid's education to his zip code is awful.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice. How can CHOICE be a bad thing. Shackling a kid's education to his zip code is awful.

You're not sure why people think gentrification is bad?

 

[Autoignition]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice.

Because I live in Nevada. We tried "school choice" here. We're now ranked 48 out of 50 in education quality.

I was born in New Jersey and lived there til I was 25. It's frankly shocking talking to Nevada natives sometimes. They lack the ability to do simple math, they have no concept of geography, their vocabulary is extremely limited, their knowledge of world history (aka anything that happened outside of the US) is limited at best, they have absolutely NO idea how the government functions, etc etc. Before I moved to NV, I was almost never asked to stop and define a word and/or explain what the hell I was talking about. It's almost a weekly occurrence now, because Nevada public schools have gone to complete shit and charter schools are even worse. The only way to get a decent education out here is, surprisingly, going to Catholic school.

I'm sure that you can see how this is a problem if you're a non-Catholic.

 

[Vicetrailia]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice. How can CHOICE be a bad thing. Shackling a kid's education to his zip code is awful.

Kids who rely on public schools will get bent. Private school vouchers don't cut it. Only people in the business want it.

 

[StrikeNinja24]

Because I live in Nevada. We tried "school choice" here. We're now ranked 48 out of 50 in education quality.

I was born in New Jersey and lived there til I was 25. It's frankly shocking talking to Nevada natives sometimes. They lack the ability to do simple math, they have no concept of geography, their vocabulary is extremely limited, their knowledge of world history (aka anything that happened outside of the US) is limited at best, they have absolutely NO idea how the government functions, etc etc. Before I moved to NV, I was almost never asked to stop and define a word and/or explain what the hell I was talking about. It's almost a weekly occurrence now, because Nevada public schools have gone to complete shit and charter schools are even worse. The only way to get a decent education out here is, surprisingly, going to Catholic school.

I'm sure that you can see how this is a problem if you're a non-Catholic.

Oh hey, I did the same thing. I was raised in NJ, and moved out to NV for a job.

However, I wanted to continue my education, and if you aren't planning in working hotel management, most degrees out in NV are worthless. So I moved back to NJ where they actually treat schooling like it means something. Though they really could do with narrowing the number of schools here. Eats up a lot of the tax dollars and none of it trickles down to the teachers.

 

[Autoignition]

Oh hey, I did the same thing. I was raised in NJ, and moved out to NV for a job.

However, I wanted to continue my education, and if you aren't planning in working hotel management, most degrees out in NV are worthless. So I moved back to NJ where they actually treat schooling like it means something. Though they really could do with narrowing the number of schools here. Eats up a lot of the tax dollars and none of it trickles down to the teachers.

This is the problem I've run into, too. I make enough money to live, but not enough to move back (and I desperately want to), and it's really demoralizing that I'm working the same job as high school drop-outs who only have a GED.

 

[Sàmban]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice. How can CHOICE be a bad thing. Shackling a kid's education to his zip code is awful.

Because "choice" is a political ruse. It's a nice patriotic word like "freedom" meant to mask the idea that it is actually pretty terrible and has nothing to do with choice:

1. It relies heavily on voucher programs. The way these work is that tax dollars that will go to public schools instead get turned into vouchers so parents can choose where to send their kids. This is bad because it sucks money from public schools, many of which are not even well funded. The money is also not usually enough to cover private/charter schools which are way more expensive. So it ends up benefiting the rich by acting as a discount since they just have to pay less for their private schools, and hurting the poor who still cannot afford private schools even with the voucher - except now public schools are fucked because money is being diverted away from them, leaving poor people with no viable options.

2. Charter schools can pick and choose what students they accept. Public schools take everyone.

3. Charter schools can kick anyone out for whatever reason they see fit and parents can't do anything about it because parents cannot make voting decisions in charter schools.

4. Some charter schools promote class segregation

5. There is no evidence that charter schools are actually better overall than public schools. Some are good, some are bad - just like public schools.

This isn't about choice. This is about rich people wanting another tax break - this time for sending their children to a private school while fucking over the poor; basically America in a nutshell. It's why clueless billionaire Betsy DeVos who fucking annihilated public education in her state with these same policies is pushing for it.

This shit is so fucking transparent that it amazes me that people still say silly things like "bu whas wong with choiicceee!!!??"

 

[StrikeNinja24]

This is the problem I've run into, too. I make enough money to live, but not enough to move back (and I desperately want to), and it's really demoralizing that I'm working the same job as high school drop-outs who only have a GED.

Cost of living Nevada is soooo much lower than it is in NJ, by far. And in general, people out there are nice.

They just make bad life choices at every possible moment. It's almost amazing to watch.

 

[Blood Borne]

Because "choice" is a political ruse. It's a nice patriotic word like "freedom" meant to mask the idea that it is actually pretty terrible and has nothing to do with choice:

1. It relies heavily on voucher programs. The way these work is that tax dollars that will go to public schools instead get turned into vouchers so parents can choose where to send their kids. This is bad because it sucks money from public schools, many of which are not even well funded. The money is also not usually enough to cover private/charter schools which are way more expensive. So it ends up benefiting the rich by acting as a discount since they just have to pay less for their private schools, and hurting the poor who still cannot afford private schools even with the voucher - except now public schools are fucked because money is being diverted away from them, leaving poor people with no viable options.

2. Charter schools can pick and choose what students they accept. Public schools take everyone.

3. Charter schools can kick anyone out for whatever reason they see fit and parents can't do anything about it because parents cannot make voting decisions in charter schools.

4. Some charter schools promote class segregation

5. There is no evidence that charter schools are actually better overall than public schools. Some are good, some are bad - just like public schools.

This isn't about choice. This is about rich people wanting another tax break - this time for sending their children to a private school while fucking over the poor; basically America in a nutshell. It's why clueless billionaire Betsy DeVos who fucking annihilated public education in her state with these same policies is pushing for it.

This shit is so fucking transparent that it amazes me that people still say silly things like "bu whas wong with choiicceee!!!??"

So what incentive is there for the school to improve, if it pretty much has monopoly in a zip code?

More so, the government is subsidising the school to fail. Schools with shitty grades get more funding because they need it more. In other words, the more students fail, the more funding they get. This is obviously a good thing for the school administration, unions and other bureaucrats.

No one can convince me that choice is a bad thing, because competition is and will forever remain the best regulator.

 

[Sinfamy]

So what incentive is there for the school to improve, if it pretty much has monopoly in a zip code?

More so, the government is subsidising the school to fail. Schools with shitty grades get more funding because they need it more. In other words, the more students fail, the more funding they get. This is obviously a good thing for the school administration, unions and other bureaucrats.

No one can convince me that choice is a bad thing, because competition is and will forever remain the best regulator.

Finland literally banned private schools and they're number one in the word.

 

[Blood Borne]

Finland literally banned private schools and they're number one in the word.

Number one in the world in what exactly?

 

[Westbahnhof]

Number one in the world in what exactly?

School System Rankings.

 

[RokkanStoned]

Finland literally banned private schools and they're number one in the word.

Have they? Thought they just regulated the few there are very harshly.
More so, you're making some scary causation attempts here. There are probably also examples of countries with no private schools that are below the US in PISA rankings. More so, Singapore is at the top, not Finland, in terms of PISA rankings - and from what I gather they have a lot of private schools.

On "school choice", as presented in the topic, I'm fully in the camp for it. It's not without its negatives as presented, but it's something that should be available. For a lot of families restrictive schooling has a great impact on the family as a whole. It has worked more or less well in Norway - some of the caveats generally don't make sense because of socio-economic differences in terms of geography which always gives the richer zones more funds either way for public schools (and socio-economic status also segregating students either way). It seems the problem is more with the system of financing.

 

[Relativ9]

I never understood the concept of school vouchers for private schools. Surely the school being privatized should mean that it has to stand on its own to feet in a free market, receiving government funds clearly goes against that. I mean I get that parents who send their kids to private schools think it's a waste that their tax dollars go to a system (public education) that they're not utilizing. But this is true of so many things, half of the systems that keep a society afloat are funded by public taxes, without each individual necessarily directly benefiting from said systems. If you're going to send your kid to a private school you're going to have to pay for it, it's up to you if you think that price is worth it, and it's up to said private school market that how it is.

 

[Blood Borne]

School System Rankings.

I genuinely don't understand what "school system rankings" mean. Please expound or give me a link.

Also, whenever they did a poll within the black community, black always voted for school choice, but as usual, white leftists knows what's best for us.

 

[RokkanStoned]

I never understood the concept of school vouchers for private schools. Surely the school being privatized should mean that it has to stand on its own to feet in a free market, receiving government funds clearly goes against that. I mean I get that parents who send their kids to private schools think it's a waste that their tax dollars go to a system (public education) that they're not utilizing. But this is true of so many things, half of the systems that keep a society afloat are funded by public taxes, without each individual necessarily directly benefiting from said systems. If you're going to send your kid to a private school you're going to have to pay for it, it's up to you if you think that price is worth it, and it's up to said private school market that how it is.

I guess it's to allow for equal treatment of education cost and allows you to deduct the cost of your child going to school in helping with the tuition in a private school. Problem is that it doesn't discriminate on the basis of economics, meaning that instead of saving money on wealthy parents' choice to use a private school, that cost doesn't disappear and the money is just redistributed to a private school.
It's a system that makes sense in some manner, but I feel the better system would be one that's limited by either percentage of tuition to use it or that's limited by your parents' earnings. That way it would be a sort of support for parents in lower socioeconomic standings to seek out a better school for their child.
I imagine the system working well for charter schools is one thing, but the voucher system should have restriction in term of private schools as mentioned.

 

[llien]

The following (from WP) helped me understand what "choice" thing is about:

Choice supporters say:

• All parents should have a right to choose the school that their students attend.
• Many traditional public schools, especially in cities, are failing kids, especially students of color, and can’t be saved.
• Poor and middle-class parents should have the right to escape failing neighborhood schools in the same way that wealthy people do by paying for private schools.
• Public schools should be run as if they are businesses, subject to competition from other educational institutions and subject to closure if they don’t work.

Critics of school choice say:

• The public education system cannot be run like a business because students are not products.
• Traditional schools must accept all children but choice options don’t, and traditional systems are hurt when financial resources are diverted from districts that are chronically underfunded.
• Choice schools are not accountable to the public the same way traditional public schools are and oversight is lax in many states, leading to financial and other scandals.
• Some choice options violate the fundamental constitutional principle of separation between church and state.

Charter schools

Charters are schools that are publicly funded but independently operated. That means they aren’t part of the traditional school system in which they are located, and they are not subject to the same rules of transparency that apply to traditional public schools. There are individual charters as well as charter networks.

Today there are more than 6,900 charter schools in 43 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling some 3 million students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. California has the most charter schools and students enrolled in them.

Some charter schools outperform the traditional public schools and districts near them, though the largest studies show that that is not the case on average, according to standardized test scores, the metric that school reformers have long cited as the primary accountability measure.


More to it (Washington Post)

 

[llien]

Finland literally banned private schools and they're number one in the word.

Finland didn't ban private schools (however, those that are there must admit pupils based on the same merits, as public schools, etc)

Can't find a non-politically loaded article with that information, but as far as I know, decades ago Finland made a massive investment in education system, it paid off later on.

From USA perspective you could think of Finland's education system as "free". Schools up to universities are government funded. (as in most European countries, with notable exception: UK) Germans perform notably worse than Finns.

School System Rankings.

Finland ranked top in PISA tests years ago, but now Asians took over.
Finland has a curious issue of a downward trend for boys over the last decade.

 

[Vicetrailia]

The following (from WP) helped me understand what "choice" thing is about:

Choice supporters say:

• All parents should have a right to choose the school that their students attend.
• Many traditional public schools, especially in cities, are failing kids, especially students of color, and can’t be saved.
• Poor and middle-class parents should have the right to escape failing neighborhood schools in the same way that wealthy people do by paying for private schools.
• Public schools should be run as if they are businesses, subject to competition from other educational institutions and subject to closure if they don’t work.

Critics of school choice say:

• The public education system cannot be run like a business because students are not products.
• Traditional schools must accept all children but choice options don’t, and traditional systems are hurt when financial resources are diverted from districts that are chronically underfunded.
• Choice schools are not accountable to the public the same way traditional public schools are and oversight is lax in many states, leading to financial and other scandals.
• Some choice options violate the fundamental constitutional principle of separation between church and state.

Charter schools

Charters are schools that are publicly funded but independently operated. That means they aren’t part of the traditional school system in which they are located, and they are not subject to the same rules of transparency that apply to traditional public schools. There are individual charters as well as charter networks.

Today there are more than 6,900 charter schools in 43 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling some 3 million students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. California has the most charter schools and students enrolled in them.

Some charter schools outperform the traditional public schools and districts near them, though the largest studies show that that is not the case on average, according to standardized test scores, the metric that school reformers have long cited as the primary accountability measure.


More to it (Washington Post)

Here's an anti-voucher advocate, but still has good political points.

The Case Against Vouchers

The Educational Case Against Vouchers
Student achievement ought to be the driving force behind any education reform initiative. See what research says about the relationship between vouchers and student achievement.

Americans want consistent standards for students. Where vouchers are in place -- Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Florida -- a two-tiered system has been set up that holds students in public and private schools to different standards.

NEA and its affiliates support direct efforts to improve public schools. There is no need to set up new threats to schools for not performing. What is needed is help for the students, teachers, and schools who are struggling.

The Social Case Against Vouchers

A voucher lottery is a terrible way to determine access to an education. True equity means the ability for every child to attend a good school in the neighborhood.

Vouchers were not designed to help low-income children. Milton Friedman, the "grandfather" of vouchers, dismissed the notion that vouchers could help low-income families, saying "it is essential that no conditions be attached to the acceptance of vouchers that interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment."

A pure voucher system would only encourage economic, racial, ethnic, and religious stratification in our society. America’s success has been built on our ability to unify our diverse populations.
The Legal Case Against Vouchers
About 85 percent of private schools are religious. Vouchers tend to be a means of circumventing the Constitutional prohibitions against subsidizing religious practice and instruction.

The Political Landscape

Each year, about $65 million dollars is spent by foundations and individuals to promote vouchers. In election years, voucher advocates spend even more on ballot measures and in support of pro-voucher candidates.

In the words of political strategist, Grover Norquist, "We win just by debating school choice, because the alternative is to discuss the need to spend more money..."
Despite desperate efforts to make the voucher debate about "school choice" and improving opportunities for low-income students, vouchers remain an elitist strategy. From Milton Friedman's first proposals, through the tuition tax credit proposals of Ronald Reagan, through the voucher proposals on ballots in California, Colorado, and elsewhere, privatization strategies are about subsidizing tuition for students in private schools, not expanding opportunities for low-income children.

http://www.nea.org/home/19133.htm

Low-income students make up the majority of our education system, so vouchers aren't looking good.

 

[Rest]

I'll still never understand why people are against school choice. How can CHOICE be a bad thing. Shackling a kid's education to his zip code is awful.

Because her plan is not to give people choices, unless you're a rich white person who wants to choose to send you kids to a school with no minorities in it. Her plan is to strip funding from public schools and give it to private for profit schools to line the pockets of the upper class, with some paperwork requirements and a good intentions spiel to make it look legit to people who aren't paying attention.

 

[gohepcat]

Number one in the world in what exactly?

Really dude?

Do you really not understand that it behooves you to educate your citizens equally? The people left behind become a huge drag on the economy, and unless you plan on rounding up and exterminating the bottom 10% you end up fucking yourself.
Libertarians are fucking AWFUL at basic economics.

 

[KINGMOKU]

Choice is good and if given the choice my kids will go to the best of schools. If I can receive my own tax dollars to help pay for a good private school ill do it. Something as fundamental as education for your child means parents should have a right to be as involved as they want to be, and certainly have the right to choose.

What this comes down to(as with most things)is money. Some people believe(as I do)that they should have some say in how their tax dollars are used, while others don't.

If a school is terrible(maybe bullies, bad teachers, horrible neighborhood you name it) and the parents cannot afford to move, vouchers may enable them to make sure their kids get the best education they can get.

I'm sure as hell not going to send my kids to a crap school just so the public school system gets the money it needs. If the school is crap and my kids are not getting the education I feel they deserve you better bet I'm taking the voucher and searching for a suitable school.

 

[Relativ9]

I guess it's to allow for equal treatment of education cost and allows you to deduct the cost of your child going to school in helping with the tuition in a private school. Problem is that it doesn't discriminate on the basis of economics, meaning that instead of saving money on wealthy parents' choice to use a private school, that cost doesn't disappear and the money is just redistributed to a private school.
It's a system that makes sense in some manner, but I feel the better system would be one that's limited by either percentage of tuition to use it or that's limited by your parents' earnings. That way it would be a sort of support for parents in lower socioeconomic standings to seek out a better school for their child.
I imagine the system working well for charter schools is one thing, but the voucher system should have restriction in term of private schools as mentioned.

So wait, I might be misunderstanding you, is the voucher amount a percentage of your income? Or taxes paid? Is it not a flat amount? Surely that can't be, right?

If so that's a bit shortsighted, the top 15% wealthiest people in the states pay 70% of the taxes in the country. That would be a massive loss of tax revenue far-far exceeding whatever these people would spend on private schooling for their children.

Choice is good and if given the choice my kids will go to the best of schools. If I can receive my own tax dollars to help pay for a good private school ill do it. Something as fundamental as education for your child means parents should have a right to be as involved as they want to be, and certainly have the right to choose.

What this comes down to(as with most things)is money. Some people believe(as I do)that they should have some say in how their tax dollars are used, while others don't.

If a school is terrible(maybe bullies, bad teachers, horrible neighborhood you name it) and the parents cannot afford to move, vouchers may enable them to make sure their kids get the best education they can get.

I'm sure as hell not going to send my kids to a crap school just so the public school system gets the money it needs. If the school is crap and my kids are not getting the education I feel they deserve you better bet I'm taking the voucher and searching for a suitable school.

From an individual perspective I agree and sympathize with this. I have friends who sent their daughter to a private school (Montessori) here in Norway, mostly because the strict "treat everyone the same" routine public schools in Norway use didn't challenge her enough and she was becoming disaffected and bored.

But I think the solution then is to improve public schools and give more options and freedom on how to be involved in your child's education within public schools. Really the whole public school system and teaching methods used within them...in the entire west, needs a radical revolution. And the revolution needs to have a look at what's happening in Montessori schools and in the subject-free pilot schools in Finland.

It might be best for your child to attend private school, it might be best for most children. But a private enterprise should remain private and be able to stand on its own two feet without government interference. If they can't lower tuition enough that its worth it or feasible for parents to send their children there, then they will eventually be outcompeted by schools who can. Artificially injecting them with government funds stifles this essential competition, and might just be the reason private school tuitions are as high as they are.

Lastly, just to prove that I'm not all the way libertarian Living in a well-functioning democracy means sometimes your tax money has to be spent on things you'd rather not spend that money on, or that you don't yourself utilize. There are probably some obscenely rich fuckers out there who exclusively drinks, cooks, showers and even pops using bottled water from the glaciers of Iceland...part of their taxes still goes to ensuring everyone else has clean tap water. The public schools could really use that tax money to improve and better educate the general public, thus investing in a better more stable and prosperous society for your children to live in. It's in your best interest that your childrens contemporaries are smart, well educated and stable adults who will be productive members of society.

If you want to send your children to private school and give them the best possible start at life you can, then that's your choice and I applaud you for that, I'm probably going to do the same when the time comes in fact. But part of that choice should be to shoulder the burden of the extra cost, if you think it's worth it and if you're able.

 

[RokkanStoned]

So wait, I might be misunderstanding you, is the voucher amount a percentage of your income? Or taxes paid? Is it not a flat amount? Surely that can't be, right?

If so that's a bit shortsighted, the top 15% wealthiest people in the states pay 70% of the taxes in the country. That would be a massive loss of tax revenue far-far exceeding whatever these people would spend on private schooling for their children.

No, it's flat, everyone has a voucher of a flat sum, which on the surface is at least fair (basically just moving money around), but one can easily imagine that the effect of it is undesirable, with people not needing the financial reduction also getting it and thus sucking resources out of the public school.

Edit: Norsk og Narvik? Ikke langt unna meg det.

 

[Relativ9]

No, it's flat, everyone has a voucher of a flat sum, which on the surface is at least fair (basically just moving money around), but one can easily imagine that the effect of it is undesirable, with people not needing the financial reduction also getting it and thus sucking resources out of the public school.

Edit: Norsk og Narvik? Ikke langt unna meg det.

Cool, yeah would've been absurd if it was a percentage. And yeah, while it is just moving money around, paying taxes for public schooling isn't just about providing schooling for your kids, just like paying for clean drinking water and safe roads isn't just about your needs. And while I agree that it'd certainly be better if people who don't need the value the voucher provides don't get it, I'd much rather no one got it at all. It's an ideological/principle thing with me: private enterprises should live and die by their own merit.

Hyggelig er Narvikværing ja, men bor og jobber for tiden i Irland. Hvor er det du stammer fra?

 

[RokkanStoned]

Cool, yeah would've been absurd if it was a percentage. And yeah, while it is just moving money around, paying taxes for public schooling isn't just about providing schooling for your kids, just like paying for clean drinking water and safe roads isn't just about your kids. And while I agree that it'd certainly be better if people who don't need the value the voucher provides don't get it, I'd much rather no one got it. It's an ideological/principle thing with me private enterprises should live and die by their own merit.

The thing is that in theory it allows for lower socioeconomic families to easier choose a private school or move their kids into a new public school or a charter school. Since part of the financing in the public school that accounts for your child is transferred over to another school. I wouldn't view it as necessarily relevant to "private enterprises living and dying on their own merit", rather as a means for school choice and punishing the families for attempting to climb the socioeconomic ladder through private school less. The problem is however with implementation and perhaps that the effect that's desired isn't met, in terms of private schools especially where one can imagine public money being sucked out, while still not many families of lower socioeconomic standing (in the wider sense) choosing a private option.

Er Narvikværing ja, men bor og jobber for tiden i Irland. Hvor er det du stammer fra?

Harstad. Irland var jo unikt sted for en Narvikværing å dra. Håper været generelt er bedre der nede, selv om jeg må si at vi har hatt en satans god vinter i år med nesten konstant minusgrader.

 

[Blackie]

Thank god. Devos is an ideological disaster and Americas school system is mediocre/disappointing/poor so it needs tons more money pumped in (among other changes).