It's morning in Wisconsin

[MadImmortalMan]

The best we can probably hope for is to get the best situation possible for as many kids as possible. There will always be some schools that suck. I don't care about vouchers or whatever mechanism is used. I think the problem schools are not that way primarily because they lack money. The stuff Jake mentioned matters far more. Although, I will say I think the money could do a better job of getting to the classroom. You can't make up for all of the externalities by throwing more cash at it.

[Berkut]

Why would the worst students stay in the underperforming schools though, rather than switch to a better school?

Because the better school wouldn't want them.  Unless schools are compelled to take every student who wants to go there somehow but that would not be physically possible...

Hmmm, I have never seen this happen so far - the entire point of creating vouchers is to allow private schools to compete with public schools for students.

I don't see why we would assume that no private schools willing to take at risk kids would ever be formed, when they have a pool of potential students (and hence potential vouchers) to draw on.

[DGuller]

There is definitely a potential for cream skimming, and that's something that needs to be considered.  Hypothetically speaking, let's say that half the public school students are cream, and the other half crap.  The cream requires $5,000 of spending per year, while crap requires $15,000. 

On average, $10,000 is spent per student.  If that's the worth of the voucher, then private schools would try to identify the cream students, get their $10,000 vouchers, and leave the crap to public schools.  Public schools would now have $10,000 worth of funding and $15,000 worth of need per student, whereas previously the two numbers were balanced on average.  It's pretty much identical to adverse selection problem in insurance.

One way to get around that would be to adjust the size of the voucher to the expected statistical quality of the student, but that's a mine field with nuclear mines.

[Valmy]

Don't get me wrong I am pro-vouchers.  I just have some skepticism about them.

I guess if the outcome is creating elite schools, middling schools, and bottom feeder schools that wouldn't be too terrible.  Most of the countries who kick our ass in educating their kids have a system like that anyway.

[MadImmortalMan]

A lot of them I've seen use a lottery to decide which kids to take. That would make it hard to skim for the best ones, wouldn't it?

[Neil]

Oh boy.  One group of Republicans and another group of Republicans.  That sounds like lots of fun.

Except it wouldn't work that way.  The splinters would have to cater to the same interests that used to support the Democrats.  Because somebody is going to get those votes....

Nope. All Dems will forcibly convert or emigrate.

That is why we are next door to Canada. 

Please leave your guns at the border.

[DGuller]

A lot of them I've seen use a lottery to decide which kids to take. That would make it hard to skim for the best ones, wouldn't it?

Yes, adverse selection is only a problem when there is actual selection going on.

[The Brain]

According to Wiki in Sweden voucher schools can only select among students if they have more applicants than capacity and then only by looking at siblings already at the school, queue time and how close they live to the school.

[DGuller]

According to Wiki in Sweden voucher schools can only select among students if they have more applicants than capacity and then only by looking at siblings already at the school, queue time and how close they live to the school.

That's a smart way to do it.  Unfortunately, I don't have trust in Americans do it like that.

[alfred russel]

That's a smart way to do it.  Unfortunately, I don't have trust in Americans do it like that.

A lot of schools already use entrance exams. An effective way to keep your test scores above public schools while paying your teachers less.

[CountDeMoney]

Isn't the issue that some student demographics tend to drag down overall school performance, rather than terrible teachers and administrators?

I mean, I know that that's a discussion that's pretty landmine filled and all, but if there's something to that - if the social circumstances of the student body makes it harder for them to achieve good results compared to other student bodies - it seems that shuffling those students around (or depriving them of resources because their school is under performing) would do little to address the quality of education.

It's not a guaranteed outcome of course, but it seems to me that one of the risks of such a system is that the students who need the least resources to excel will get the most resources showered on them, while the weakest students in need of the most support will get the least resources. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but I think it's a real risk that any solution should at least attempt to address.

Well, duh, Jake.  It's been happening for decades, this will just accelerate the problem exponentially.

Because of the way our public education systems are funded, and ever since San Antonio v Rodriquez decided that an education is not a fundamental right in America, the voucher concept is a fantastic Libertarian-fuck-em-if-they're-poor-niggers approach to maintaining institutionalized inequality in certain areas and demographics. 

Sure, a poor kid in an inner city cesspool neighborhood can get a voucher and go to another school out in the 'burbs 28 miles away--but how he gets there is his problem, lulz.  But at least he can, right?  A rather convenient way of Pilate hand-washing.  A voucher gets you to rationalize away racism, and dance around that nasty Brown v Board of Ed.

Blaming teachers because they have pensions just happens to be a way cool bonus.

[CountDeMoney]

In the Swedish system all schools (that are in the voucher system, there are still private schools for the rich with tuition and they don't get voucher money) get the same amount of money per student.

Unfortunately, we call that "socialism" here.

[Valmy]

Because of the way our public education systems are funded, and ever since San Antonio v Rodriquez decided that an education is not a fundamental right in America, the voucher concept is a fantastic Libertarian-fuck-em-if-they're-poor-niggers approach to maintaining institutionalized inequality in certain areas and demographics.

I don't see how vouchers help or do not help maintaining the inequality.  We have been doing a great job of that awhile I don't see anything changing that.

[garbon]

Isn't the issue that some student demographics tend to drag down overall school performance, rather than terrible teachers and administrators?

I mean, I know that that's a discussion that's pretty landmine filled and all, but if there's something to that - if the social circumstances of the student body makes it harder for them to achieve good results compared to other student bodies - it seems that shuffling those students around (or depriving them of resources because their school is under performing) would do little to address the quality of education.

It's not a guaranteed outcome of course, but it seems to me that one of the risks of such a system is that the students who need the least resources to excel will get the most resources showered on them, while the weakest students in need of the most support will get the least resources. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but I think it's a real risk that any solution should at least attempt to address.

Well, duh, Jake.  It's been happening for decades, this will just accelerate the problem exponentially.

Because of the way our public education systems are funded, and ever since San Antonio v Rodriquez decided that an education is not a fundamental right in America, the voucher concept is a fantastic Libertarian-fuck-em-if-they're-poor-niggers approach to maintaining institutionalized inequality in certain areas and demographics. 

Sure, a poor kid in an inner city cesspool neighborhood can get a voucher and go to another school out in the 'burbs 28 miles away--but how he gets there is his problem, lulz.  But at least he can, right?  A rather convenient way of Pilate hand-washing.  A voucher gets you to rationalize away racism, and dance around that nasty Brown v Board of Ed.

Blaming teachers because they have pensions just happens to be a way cool bonus.

I love how you throw in racism again when that seems largely irrelevant here.

[Admiral Yi]

Seedy has foresworn sleep while this thread is alive.