Obama/Dems - Unions before poor black people

There are approximately 45,000 in the DC public school system. Currently there are four application for every voucher offered. So only 4% of the DC children are being helped by this program. With many more that want help not getting it. I believe voucher are given out by lottery. So while the program may, and there is some argument about that depending who you talk to, it is only helping a small percentage of DC student. At a cost of $7,500 per student or over $14 million dollars there must be a better way to help more than 4%. Use the money to hire better teachers or fund charter schools that can help more students. Or better yet fixed the public schools crumbling infrastructure to benefit all the students. Michelle Rhee has some great ideas about how to reform the DCPS. Give it to her and let her do it. I have never been comfortable with the money going to help the few when the many need so much.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but that's probably comparable to what the DC public education system spends per child anyway. (Most states, last I checked, were in the ballpark of $6,000 and DC always runs high.) Assuming the numbers are about the same, one solution for helping more kids would be to expand the program rather than eliminate it.

How well do vouchers work? There seems to be mixed reviews on the program.

http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/summer99/mullen1.html

http://privateschool.about.com/od/sc...ucherswork.htm

http://privateschool.about.com/gi/o....riefs/pb35.htm

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Wouldn't it be great if this country could somehow manage to figure out a way to make the quality of education in all schools comparable so that a quality education is available for every kid in this country.

TheDCPS actually pays more than the $7,500. The average I saw was about $9,000. But the per student spending fluctuate based on how many students are enrolled as much of the costs are fixed. They have to spend it regardless. And actually the more students that are on the voucher program the higher their costs will be per student in the DCPS as children leave schools. It is not a fair comparison. Expanding the the voucher program does not get to the root cause of DCPS problems. It is a feel good program that does not help all the children in DC. If the federal government has to get involved at all it should be to fix the root causes in the public schools rather than just ship a few of the children to private schools.

But your argument does not take in account that the federal government, in addition to the vouchers, gave the DCPS a grant. So you are not only paying for the vouchers but DCPS not to have the children. So in reality the cost per child of the program just doubled.

But what is the bottom line beyond the fiscal costs? Voucher programs are supposed to stimulate compeitition in both public and private schools. Forcing both to improve services to retain students. However I have seen no evidence of this program helping the DCPS improve. In fact if you give grants to cover the loss of students there is no incentive to improve. And if you read the Department of Educations report on the voucher system there is some debate on the effectiveness of the voucher program. I feel for the parents in DC. I really do. The fact this voucher program and charter schools have a long waiting list is a symptom of a much broader problem in DC that need attention.

How are the students who receive the vochers chosen? Is the system fair to the thousands of kids who can't get the vouchers?

As a side note:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lo...-40200287.html

Sadly, when you become a party that opposes / criticizes everything the other party does or tries to do, this statement becomes much too believable.

Just as a minor point, the "party in opposition," sometimes called the "loyal opposition" in the UK, by nature opposes. The Democrats did it when they were in the minority. And that's only fair; that's why we don't have a 1-party system.

As to the voucher programs, I've heard both good and bad. The teachers unions oppose them, but keep in mind, there is nothing in the NEA's charter about education, only about teachers' jobs.

The real solution to education problems is the attitude at home. That's why Arkansas and New Hampshire can spend the same amount per student on education, but NH is at the top of achievement scores and AR is at the bottom.

There is some evidence that the real difference in the voucher students is that their parents got more involved in their education, even if it was just lobbying for the continuation of the program.

Now, if I were king, I would abolish large schools and put a small elementary school on every other corner, so each school served only the four blocks surrounding it. Then I'd put a middle school on every third block, so each school was only serving nine sqare blocks. And I would put a each high school only a mile apart, so no kid had to go more than half a mile to high school. Then I would limit PTA's to only local parents, and giving each school one member on the school board, and that member had to have a child in the school he/she represented.

The loss of local and parental interest in "their" school has been a serious erosion in our society.

Doesn't change the fact that there is some controversy on its effectiveness. To be fair you need to cite both sides not just a conservative think tank. Nor does it address the fact that only a small percentage is benefitting.

I think we can safely say that any study linked to the NEA is going to say it's bad, and any study linked to the Heritage Foundation is going to find it good. And they may both be right; it depends on what you want to measure.

The Cato Institute would probably only like it if the government had no money or say in the operation of the program!

I found many a citiations in mainstream media. Maybe it is because it affects my area and not the whole of the nation. So I find it a big discussion here. Below are a few of the many articles on the voucher program. To be fair it is a mix of for and against the program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050603852.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-vouchers-bid/

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/lo...ington_DC.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124148314511885437.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032201628.html

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-46455587.html

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/16/sch...ors-obama.html

Maybe for the children that won the lottery. But what do you say to the children that don't get a voucher? Tough luck? And this is not about politics. It is about the all 45,000 children in the DCPS system. If you look at what a voucher system is designed to do it is supposed to elevate not just the private schools but the public ones as well. By your own admission the public school system is horrible. How does this help the other 43,000 children?

I have never heard of this term when it comes to US government and I didn't know you could call the party that doesn't have the majority the party in opposition given the type of government we have in the US. Since we don't have a parliament or anything like it, and there is the whole system of checks and balances, it appears that in the US more than any other country with a parliament both the majority party and the party next to it participate in decision making, and in the US there are even candidates who vote against their party- something that's totally unheard of in parliamentary systems!! So it is a bit odd for me to think of it this way but it's a good point..

Take a look at Michelle Rhee as well. There are lots of problems in the DCPS that she is trying to address. The WSJ has a great article here that articulates why I think instead of the federal government putting more money in the voucher system the should support her more. Of course she is taking on the local teachers union.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...944927916.html

Not everything.

That's an interesting observation, and I'm sure parental attitudes have a great effect on education. However, I suspect this is only one of many factors.

For example, even if these states do spend the same amount of money per student, I'm pretty sure which state has the higher per capita income. In other words, parents in one state may themselves be better educated, may have better access to additional educational resources outside the school, etc.

As for the original post, I do feel that politicians who really cared about education would try harder to improve the system for all students, not just a fortunate few. I can see why some people favor vouchers, but they seem like little more than a band-aid to me.

This is where you lose me. I can understand debating the merits of the voucher program. There are good points for and against the program itself. But statements like this are beyond being able to debate against. The same has been said against Republican and I don't think that is fair either.

I would really like to see the data that support that statement and also a breakdown by county (if it exists). I suspect that NH did well as a small state because of the more densely populated areas like Nashua and Salem that have become a suburb of wealthy Boston with its large number of institutions of higher education. The less densely populated areas have abysmal school systems because the north is bascially a rural slum.

I agree completely that the single most important factor in whether kids do well at school is how involved and supportive their parents are. The intent of vouchers was to give parents a choice and foster competition among schools. The problem is though that the best teacher in the world can't make a difference if the kids aren't motivated to learn. As I used to tell the college kids I taught, "I can't learn it for you." Giving parents vouchers may give them the feeling that they have control over the system, but we as a country have forced the schools to do so much that has nothing to do with learning that it's no surprise that we have an educational crisis. The curricula have been dumbed down, the schools are teaching things that parents should be teaching, and this focus on test scores is providing a huge temptation to prep the kids for the test as opposed to teaching them. Also many schools have eliminated programs in music and sports that helped build community. Sending the kid to another school isn't the solution IMO. Teaching kids isn't like buying gasoline where you can just head over to the next station.

I wouldn't damn the teachers' union too quickly - it's sometimes the only protection a good teacher has from a slimy superintendent.

A quick google search will reveal most of the facts to you. Arkansas is definitely on the low end of student spending, but NH is not a lot above them. To assume that the cities have better achievement (which is not the same thing as "better schools") is to go against the evidence; smaller schools (the "little red school house effect"), while having less facilities and other shortcomings, traditionally have higher achievement. If I had children, I would move to the smallest town I could find that had its own schools. The best education I ever got was in a school that had only 60 students in the entire high school.

That same google search will show you that DC is the highest or second highest spender per student, with about $13,000 per student. If spending improved student achievement, it should be at the top of the heap. It's not. So, you have to ask, "Why not?" Some answers jump to mind, but most of them have to be eliminated. Are the students natively stupider? Not a chance. Are the teachers all worse? Probably not. Is too much being spent on non-instructional items? Possibly.

But the best bet is that there is not a "culture of learning" in the city's population.

I personally thought the best thing the President and First Lady could do would be to tell minority students that it is not "white" to study well and learn, it's just plain good sense and the surest way to escape poverty. I had hoped they would serve as good examples; so far, it hasn't happened.

As to the teacher's union, I find it, like most unions, more concerned about keeping on marginal or even incompetent employees than about actual learning. As long as they take the attitude that actual learning and achievement are controlled by the administration, they will not have my support.

The NH/AR comparison just doesn't work for me, and I still think that there's more to it than parental "attitudes". For one thing, parents with money are more likely to be educated themselves. That alone affects a child's learning, even before the kid actually gets to the public school system. I do strongly agree that education is the best way out of poverty, but not everyone gets the same opportunity.

I must be missing something because I did a quick google search and even an involved google search and was not able to find the data I was looking for. Perhaps you could post the links you are using for me after all.

I think you may have missed my point - I was not saying that cities have better achievement per se. If you look at NH you will see that the densely populated areas (and I use this term loosely) are in the south, which is considered by many to be within commuting range of Boston. Boston has a large number of colleges, universities, and thriving industry. The people who live there for the most part care about their kids and their kids' education because they are well educated themselves. Go further north in New England and you have economies that are based on welfare, tourism, thrift shops and yard sales. We have plenty of those little red schoolhouses in northern New England. Tourists like to come up and take pictures of them. Teachers don't like to teach in them unless they enjoy skiiing. It's the same problem we have with doctors - they don't want to live here. If you really want to choose a school using that method in northern New England, make sure you pick the smallest town you can find that is wealthy.

I did find statistics by the way for dropout rates in NH by school.
http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/...02007-2008.xls
Note that in future we are not supposed to call them "dropouts" anymore, they are "early exit non-graduates." If you look at the dropout rate, there isn't any support for the little red schoolhouse theory. Salem and Nashua do well at around 2%, while the smaller schools in the northern boondocks (like Colebrook and Pittsfield) are up as high as 7%.

Also I never said that spending makes for better schools. My husband does however like to tell the story of a school board meeting he went to here in town where the subject of whether a steel door for the gym should be replaced at a cost of $600 was discussed for 20 minutes (the door by the way was not replaced ). I think there is a correlation between spending and quality of education but it is not causal. People who are well off are able to afford expensive homes and pay high property taxes which fund schools. They are also more likely to be involved in matter of their children's education and less likely to be welfare bums who couldn't care less what their kids are up to, much less set a good example. Throwing money at a school whose kids aren't doing well would not make the kids do better.