It's morning in Wisconsin

[The Brain]

Just use the Swedish system. Even die-hard Socialists like Americans should find it in their hearts to accept it.

I suspect one difference between the US and Swedish system is that the US does not pay the full cost of tuition, it's a set amount.  So Ms. Crackhead is going to keep her 8 kids in POS Public High Shool regardless of vouchers and enrollment rules.

Wouldn't US private operators be able to run schools with the same budget that public schools have?

Why should they?  Private schools can charge whatever they like;  public schools rely on local property taxes and redirected state funding.

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

[MadImmortalMan]

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

I think it's probably like that most places in the US too. We don't do everything wrong.

[CountDeMoney]

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

Well, that's just super;  I'm sure the Burroughs School will be more than willing to accept vouchers in the same amount as the $4,902 the St Louis public school system receives per student. 

[The Brain]

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

Well, that's just super;  I'm sure the Burroughs School will be more than willing to accept vouchers in the same amount as the $4,902 the St Louis public school system receives per student. 

Elaborate.

[CountDeMoney]

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

Well, that's just super;  I'm sure the Burroughs School will be more than willing to accept vouchers in the same amount as the $4,902 the St Louis public school system receives per student. 

Elaborate.

Private schools here will never accept vouchers equal to what the public schools get, because the tuition they charge is always substantially higher.  Your universal all-schools-get-the-same-amount-in-Sweden voucher model would never be accepted here. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Take an exclusive school where Richy Rich gets an education and his rich dad has to pay for it at an exorbitant cost; and ask if they will take the voucher instead. Clearly, the answer is no, and Richy's dad will still have to pay his tuition. I'm pretty sure Burroughs would operate exactly the same way in Sweden as it does here. Except with, you know, more Swedes.

[Admiral Yi]

My understanding is that tuition at charter schools is lower than spending per capita at public schools, and tuition at parochial schools substantially less.

I don't think anyone is proposing that inner city kids all go to the Deerfield Academy.

[Jacob]

Two points here:

1. The voucher system will not solve the problem of demographics and cultural problems with education. At least, I don't think it is inteded to do that.

2. I would say the current system has failed to address your second point, so I don't see why changing it should be a problem. It's not like right now the educational system solves that problem, so why should the inability of a different system to solve that problem be held against it, as long as it is designed to solve another problem (that in many cases public schools are not performing well even when adjusted for their demographic challenges).

Fair enough on point 1. I'm not sure point 2 follows, though.

I think that if you're concerned about such things (as I think you are, and as I think derSpiess is not) then the correct thing to do is to make sure that changing the system does not make things worse. Yes, the current system has not solved all those problems, true. But to what extent does changing the system to a voucher system risk making the problem worse?

Like I said, I'm not inherently opposed to a voucher system. I expect that depending on the details of implementation, it could make things worse or improve them. If your intention is for it to help rather than abandon low resource students I think the plan needs to look at the risks that the program might leave them in the lurch and address those. Because I'm pretty sure that if it's just "well, they get a voucher so they can just go to a school where the teachers and administrators don't suck" it's not going to improve things for very many low resource students.

[The Brain]

In Sweden private schools can either take vouchers (which are the same amount that the public schools get) or charge tuition (which can be any amount). They cannot do both.

Well, that's just super;  I'm sure the Burroughs School will be more than willing to accept vouchers in the same amount as the $4,902 the St Louis public school system receives per student. 

Elaborate.

Private schools here will never accept vouchers equal to what the public schools get, because the tuition they charge is always substantially higher.  Your universal all-schools-get-the-same-amount-in-Sweden voucher model would never be accepted here.

I don't follow. People who don't want to run voucher schools wouldn't be forced to do so (at least no one in Sweden is).

[MadImmortalMan]

The biggest question is the balance:

1: Kids with potential to do much better in a different school, other factors notwithstanding.

2: Kids for whom terrible home/family/social environments are the primary factor in their (lack of) educational success.


Okay, is it better for society to remove the kids in category 1 and let category 2 rot, or is it better to keep them as-is and hope the 1s help the 2s (even if that causes a lot of wasted potential for the 1s)?


Which helps minorities more?

[Admiral Yi]

Excellent point MIM.  I wish I could have thought of that.

[Jacob]

Well that is the thing.  The voucher system may not be a magical silver bullet but it seems crazy not to try it.  What we are doing is certainly never going to work.

Personally, I think if you have a big problem and you want to attempt radical change to fix it, you only have a chance of succeeding of you identify the cause of the problem so you can shape your solution accordingly. Trying different things just because you're unhappy with how things are isn't particularly constructive; you may still make things worse.

I'm not super familiar with the US education systems (there are more than one, right?), so please let me know if there's anything I've misunderstood or have misrepresented. Having said that, I'd be interested in having the problem(s) set out.

1. Is the problem that kids from high resource families* are having their education quality dragged down when they're going to school with too many kids from low resource families? If so, the voucher system is a great solution in that it allows the kids from high resource families to be moved away from the low resource kids.

I mean, I'm pretty sympathetic to the viewpoint. When I have kids, I'm definitely going to do my best to get them the best education they can, and that includes avoiding schools with "big social problems" or "a troubled student body" or whatever the best euphemism is.

2. Is the problem that kids from low resource families tend to do less well in school? If so, the obvious answer is to solve all the social problems that lead to low resource families, but that's probably a pretty tall order. Given that, probably the best we can aim for is a school system and programs that mitigate the problems that kids from low resource families as best as possible.

Apparently that's not the present system, and agreed we shouldn't throw good money after bad. But is there anything that suggests that kids from low resource families will gain any benefit from switching schools? Is there anything that suggests that they have the resources to make the best of that kind of choice? I mean, if the kid is a poor student because he's not eating properly and there's nobody to hang out with after school except troublemakers and gang-bangers I'd think providing school lunches and good after school activities would have a much better chance of having a positive impact than allowing him the choice of going to a school half way across town that he has no reasonable way of getting to anyhow.

... maybe the problem is both (and more besides), but I think it's worthwhile to look at the impact a proposed solution will have on each of defined problems. Saying "it can't be worse than what we've got" suggests that it probably will be for at least some of the people affected. In the case of vouchers, especially combined with fewer resources for lower performing schools, I think it's pretty clear that low resource kids are going to be even worse off since they're likely to be staying put in the schools they're already in, in a self perpetuating cycle of poor performance and ever diminishing resources (at least unless there's some sort of plan for preventing that outcome).

[CountDeMoney]

Which helps minorities more?

You're asking the wrong crowd, man.

[Jacob]

I actually think the best argument against vochers is this:

The current system is not nearly so broken as people make it out to be, and in fact in most cases where people complain about "failed schools" the failure is not on the part of the schools at all, but on the community, society, and cultures that created the disadvantaged groups that habitually fail when it comes to education - whether that be inner city black kids or rural America white trash."

I'm not trying to defend the current system - I don't know enough about to be honest - but it seems to me that any attempt to improve the school system should take into account that the schools in many cases are in the front lines of dealing with social problems, and that any fix should attempt to mitigate rather than amplify those problems.

[The Brain]

I am confident that a semi-free market like the one in Sweden is better at meeting society's school needs than a Socialist system.