School Choice II

https://amp.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article280359374.html

On the coattails of some Kentucky Republicans declaring their intention to file another “school choice” bill in the upcoming regular session, Gov. Andy Beshear on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to it.

“I’m opposed to any school choice amendment and any voucher program – anything that would take dollars from our public schools and send them to unaccountable private schools,” the Democrat said in a meeting with the Herald-Leader editorial board.


—————

Beshear’s children must be in public school, not one of those scary, unaccountable private schools, right? Wrong. School choice for me, not for thee.

It’s automatic at this point.

Ironic 57 started this second thread
 
https://reason.com/2023/10/27/test-scores-are-plummeting-despite-california-spending-wildly-on-education/

By contrast, state officials seem to delight in how much money they "invest" in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Sure, they sometimes pay lip service to results—but they don't care enough about them to actually change the way they provide public services. (They're not about to annoy the public-sector unions, which represent the people paid to provide those services.)

I'm not the only one to have noticed. State Sen. Steve Glazer (D–Orinda), in a July column about the $310-billion budget, complained that "we've already spent billions of dollars on the same problems—with very little to show for it." He called on his fellow Democrats to ensure that the spending "actually improving the lives of the people we say we are committed to helping." What a novel idea.



The state spends nearly $24,000 per student a year (including funding from all sources, including the feds). Consider the educational opportunities we would have if parents could spend that much money on private schools, which would compete for tuition. Each class of 25 students would have a budget of $600,000. The governor likes to blather about a re-imagined school system, but in a competitive system we wouldn't have to just imagine it.

By contrast, let's look at what we've actually accomplished after a decade of steadily increasing expenditures. The Public Policy Institute of California reported last year that "pandemic disruptions reversed nearly six years of academic progress." It found only 35 percent of low-income students met the state's English-language standards and only 21 percent met California's math proficiency standards. These are horrifying numbers.

Here's some other news: EdSource reports that nearly a third of the state's public school students are chronically absent. The Independent Institute reports that fewer than half of the state's students are functioning at their grade level and that 70 percent of incarcerated Californians lack even a high school diploma. There might be a connection between those dismal statistics.

But no matter how much the state "invests" in education, it's never enough for the public school establishment. The California Teachers' Association complains that California's per-student school funding lags behind other states—and it, of course, blames 1978's tax-limiting Proposition 13 for the problem and bemoans "our faulty tax structure, which is currently benefiting the wealthiest corporations over Californians themselves."

Does anyone really believe that if California, the highest-taxed state, dramatically increases its property taxes (through a "split roll" that denies Prop. 13 protections to corporations or other erosions of the 1978 tax measure) that California's education system will suddenly become America's finest? Name one instance where throwing more money at an encrusted, union-controlled bureaucracy has done anything other than fund the same old, same old.


—————

Just more of the same - http://www.chopcountry.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12001

All about intentions over results.

Rinse, repeat.
 
https://reason.com/2023/10/27/test-scores-are-plummeting-despite-california-spending-wildly-on-education/

By contrast, state officials seem to delight in how much money they "invest" in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Sure, they sometimes pay lip service to results—but they don't care enough about them to actually change the way they provide public services. (They're not about to annoy the public-sector unions, which represent the people paid to provide those services.)

I'm not the only one to have noticed. State Sen. Steve Glazer (D–Orinda), in a July column about the $310-billion budget, complained that "we've already spent billions of dollars on the same problems—with very little to show for it." He called on his fellow Democrats to ensure that the spending "actually improving the lives of the people we say we are committed to helping." What a novel idea.



The state spends nearly $24,000 per student a year (including funding from all sources, including the feds). Consider the educational opportunities we would have if parents could spend that much money on private schools, which would compete for tuition. Each class of 25 students would have a budget of $600,000. The governor likes to blather about a re-imagined school system, but in a competitive system we wouldn't have to just imagine it.

By contrast, let's look at what we've actually accomplished after a decade of steadily increasing expenditures. The Public Policy Institute of California reported last year that "pandemic disruptions reversed nearly six years of academic progress." It found only 35 percent of low-income students met the state's English-language standards and only 21 percent met California's math proficiency standards. These are horrifying numbers.

Here's some other news: EdSource reports that nearly a third of the state's public school students are chronically absent. The Independent Institute reports that fewer than half of the state's students are functioning at their grade level and that 70 percent of incarcerated Californians lack even a high school diploma. There might be a connection between those dismal statistics.

But no matter how much the state "invests" in education, it's never enough for the public school establishment. The California Teachers' Association complains that California's per-student school funding lags behind other states—and it, of course, blames 1978's tax-limiting Proposition 13 for the problem and bemoans "our faulty tax structure, which is currently benefiting the wealthiest corporations over Californians themselves."

Does anyone really believe that if California, the highest-taxed state, dramatically increases its property taxes (through a "split roll" that denies Prop. 13 protections to corporations or other erosions of the 1978 tax measure) that California's education system will suddenly become America's finest? Name one instance where throwing more money at an encrusted, union-controlled bureaucracy has done anything other than fund the same old, same old.


—————

Just more of the same - http://www.chopcountry.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12001

All about intentions over results.

Rinse, repeat.

It isn't really about intention.

It is a grift. They aren't dumb enough to think bumping funding would solve the problem. It is on purpose.
 
https://reason.com/2023/10/27/test-scores-are-plummeting-despite-california-spending-wildly-on-education/

By contrast, state officials seem to delight in how much money they "invest" in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Sure, they sometimes pay lip service to results—but they don't care enough about them to actually change the way they provide public services. (They're not about to annoy the public-sector unions, which represent the people paid to provide those services.)

I'm not the only one to have noticed. State Sen. Steve Glazer (D–Orinda), in a July column about the $310-billion budget, complained that "we've already spent billions of dollars on the same problems—with very little to show for it." He called on his fellow Democrats to ensure that the spending "actually improving the lives of the people we say we are committed to helping." What a novel idea.



The state spends nearly $24,000 per student a year (including funding from all sources, including the feds). Consider the educational opportunities we would have if parents could spend that much money on private schools, which would compete for tuition. Each class of 25 students would have a budget of $600,000. The governor likes to blather about a re-imagined school system, but in a competitive system we wouldn't have to just imagine it.

By contrast, let's look at what we've actually accomplished after a decade of steadily increasing expenditures. The Public Policy Institute of California reported last year that "pandemic disruptions reversed nearly six years of academic progress." It found only 35 percent of low-income students met the state's English-language standards and only 21 percent met California's math proficiency standards. These are horrifying numbers.

Here's some other news: EdSource reports that nearly a third of the state's public school students are chronically absent. The Independent Institute reports that fewer than half of the state's students are functioning at their grade level and that 70 percent of incarcerated Californians lack even a high school diploma. There might be a connection between those dismal statistics.

But no matter how much the state "invests" in education, it's never enough for the public school establishment. The California Teachers' Association complains that California's per-student school funding lags behind other states—and it, of course, blames 1978's tax-limiting Proposition 13 for the problem and bemoans "our faulty tax structure, which is currently benefiting the wealthiest corporations over Californians themselves."

Does anyone really believe that if California, the highest-taxed state, dramatically increases its property taxes (through a "split roll" that denies Prop. 13 protections to corporations or other erosions of the 1978 tax measure) that California's education system will suddenly become America's finest? Name one instance where throwing more money at an encrusted, union-controlled bureaucracy has done anything other than fund the same old, same old.


—————

Just more of the same - http://www.chopcountry.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12001

All about intentions over results.

Rinse, repeat.

I am.curious when the consistent trend of students not being able to meet basic standards began... and when the cou try will have to deal with the consequences of this failure
 
Jess Piper
@piper4missouri
·
3h
If “school choice” really is popular, why don’t lawmakers
put it on the ballot rather than sneak it in legislation?

Because it’s not popular. It always fails to pass. Most folks
need access to fully-funded public schools in their neighborhoods.

School choice is a scam.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/parents-private-school-vouchers-demand-exceeding-budgets-states-104270746

Parents like private school vouchers so much that demand is exceeding budgets in some states

At least four states that have made most children eligible for taxpayer-funded scholarships to private schools are seeing more families using the programs than planned

 
Over In guns you mentioned the politics of unions.
My thought is, now we are getting somewhere.

your main objective to public schools is unions ?
Mine is we don't support teachers unions sufficiently.
 
Over In guns you mentioned the politics of unions.
My thought is, now we are getting somewhere.

your main objective to public schools is unions ?
Mine is we don't support teachers unions sufficiently.

What is your explanation for why, despite spending more per student in US history, academic achievement is at an all time low?
 
Well they didn’t want to do their jobs during Covid.

Bring on scabs at that point- it couldn’t be much worse. Our local teachers are quitting on the kids that are ahead. Only option was private. Our public schools got massacred by Covid.
 
I have no X Y Z answer anymore than I did 40 years ago on the topic of welfare reform Where the options were to scrap it or throw more money at it.
Here we are at all but the same rhetorical point.
We can't scrap the public school system nor can we continue to throw good money after bad.

And like the welfare debate once reforms are agreed to, no one will like them.

School choice (privitization) to my mind if handled for all the right above board reasons would be only one small piece of the puzzle
It asks more questions than it answers.

How long before that system is looking down the same barrel public schools are facing ?

But saying school choice (privitization) good - public school bad is nothing more than a bumper sticker aimed at bumper sticker minds in place of an honest cards on the table discussion
 
an articulate overview



Jess Piper
@piper4missouri

School choice doesn’t promote “competition.”

Choice schools admit who they want

(kids who come from wealth, score high on tests, are great at sports, etc)

and leave the rest in defunded public schools.

That’s not competing.

That’s a system meant to grift and claim supremacy.

How are the public schools defunded if the private schools take who they want? They already do that anyways.

Where are the rejected students going to go? Oh, I don't know, maybe public schools? Seems like a wash.

Honestly must public schools are over crowded and under staffed in the first place. Perhaps less students would actually alleviate stress from the teachers and allow them to be more 1 and 1 with the students?
 
Jess Piper
@piper4missouri
·
3h
If “school choice” really is popular, why don’t lawmakers
put it on the ballot rather than sneak it in legislation?

Because it’s not popular. It always fails to pass. Most folks
need access to fully-funded public schools in their neighborhoods.

School choice is a scam.

It fails to pass because Congress is controlled by lobbyists, and in this case, union lobbyists. Teachers unions will never support this because there isn't an obvious benefit for them and they think it means less money (it doesn't).
 
I have no X Y Z answer anymore than I did 40 years ago on the topic of welfare reform Where the options were to scrap it or throw more money at it.
Here we are at all but the same rhetorical point.
We can't scrap the public school system nor can we continue to throw good money after bad.

And like the welfare debate once reforms are agreed to, no one will like them.

School choice (privitization) to my mind if handled for all the right above board reasons would be only one small piece of the puzzle
It asks more questions than it answers.

How long before that system is looking down the same barrel public schools are facing ?

But saying school choice (privitization) good - public school bad is nothing more than a bumper sticker aimed at bumper sticker minds in place of an honest cards on the table discussion


I have a solution for welfare. Anyone taking government assistance like welfare or food stamps can buy alcohol, cigarettes, pot, or lottery tickets. It's kind of like donating food to a country that spends a large amount on military. We aren't feeding them we are subsidizing their military. If you got 4 kids and cigarettes and beer is more important than your kids needs then they shouldn't be getting subsidized by the rest of us
 
Over In guns you mentioned the politics of unions.
My thought is, now we are getting somewhere.

your main objective to public schools is unions ?
Mine is we don't support teachers unions sufficiently.

My main objection to public schools isn’t unions…my main objection to public schools is their performance (generally).

In the guns thread, my point was (D) fights school choice because teachers unions don’t want competition and they’re obviously loyal to teachers unions.
 
James Talarico
@jamestalarico
·
10h
These pictures were taken at Cornerstone Christian School, where tuition is $27,000.

Abbott’s voucher is only $8,000 — not enough for working families
to get a “choice” but enough for rich families at Cornerstone
to get a 30% discount.

Vouchers are welfare for the wealthy.


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