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Is that a surprise? This is part of the reason I’m very much pro school choice. Give a credit to each family to do with what they wish. It’ll drive down costs

• saagarjha 5y ago
  Families and students are not the only people exposed to COVID. Why shouldn’t teachers have a say in the risk they are asked to deal with?
  • colordrops 5y ago
    Because no one else has a say. Seems like all groups should have a say, including teachers, students, and parents.
    • jounker 5y ago
      Well that’s bullshit.
      • britch 5y ago
        Can you elaborate a bit?
    • britch 5y ago
      Seems like some parents are heard pretty loudly. High Schoolers have staged walkouts in response to omicron in some cities. Seems disingenuous to say only teachers have been heard.
    • Pulcinella 5y ago
      You do have a say! School board meetings are usually public and the board elections are democratic (usually. Some districts, usually in the south still have some at-large boards seats for racism reasons). When I was a teacher and blamed for things by parents I had no power over (e.g. standardized tests mandated by the state) I wished parents would direct their (justified & righteous) rage at the school board and state politicians instead. “School choice” isn’t school choice unless I’m free choose to send my kids to the rich district across town or the private school the politicians and elites send their kids to.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • another_story 5y ago
        You won't be able to, though, because admissions will be full at those schools.
        • Pulcinella 5y ago
          Yep so it’s not really a choice, is it? People shouldn’t have to choose between “good schools” and “bad schools.” The idea of trying to find a home “with good schools” should be a thing of the past. All schools should good schools. I think that is the goal to work towards, not having parents fight for the too few remaining life-rafts.
          • lettergram 5y ago
            So give every kid $15k/year and be done with it. Schools will open in neighborhoods that have 8 students and one stellar teacher. You’ll have all the parents coming by and seeing the kids and joining in the education process. Other parents might want their kid to have a classical education. Other parents might want a traditional Islamic education. Others may want a massive university style education, with half online. All of these styles can be possible with school choice. I don’t really understand the vitriol. Its better for everyone if everyone is more involved and has a more tailored approach. Even those with special needs, it’s not unreasonable to double the credit. Have them get help. I think there’s plenty of ways to improve this.
    • lmm 5y ago
      All workers should have a say in dangerous working practices. Everyone needs a union.
      • nradov 5y ago
        Public employees don't need unions. If they want better working conditions then they should ask their elected political leaders, just like every other citizen. And teaching isn't dangerous. Everyone will be exposed to the virus so it hardly matters whether that happens in a classroom or some other setting. The teachers who want to get vaccinated have been for months now. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646
        • lmm 5y ago
          > Public employees don't need unions. If they want better working conditions then they should ask their elected political leaders, just like every other citizen. Workers anywhere need to be able to negotiate with organisational management on roughly equal terms, which means a comparable level of organisational backing. Most civil service management is not elected and nor should it be; making every superintendent or subject head an elected position would cause bigger problems. > And teaching isn't dangerous. Everyone will be exposed to the virus so it hardly matters whether that happens in a classroom or some other setting. The teachers who want to get vaccinated have been for months now. That's easy to say when you're not the one having to do it. Not everyone can safely be vaccinated, and not everyone has the same judgement of the risks. If there really is compelling medical evidence to support the position of those who want to return to in-person schooling, then they have nothing to fear from negotiating with the union on equal terms.
          • SllX 5y ago
            At the point where you are both a voter and paid out of public money, you shouldn’t get to also have a union. This is a choose two situation, and since I’m not going to tell anyone to give up their voting rights, this is more of a choose one situation.
  • camhart 5y ago
    As with many jobs, its take on the risk the job requires or find a new job. I'm not saying they shouldn't have a voice. But it shouldn't be an excuse.
    • anon9384929 5y ago
      And who, exactly, do you suggest take their space? Is there a surplus of quality teachers in the US?
      • x3n0ph3n3 5y ago
        There would be if we shifted funds from administrators to teachers. Like in healthcare, administrators are hoarding most of the funds and driving up the cost.
      • rootusrootus 5y ago
        > Is there a surplus of quality teachers in the US? There must be a surplus, at least of qualified teachers, if not quality ones. Otherwise how do we find enough people with a master's degree willing to take 45K a year to teach 25-30 rambunctious kids all day long? It baffles me that we still manage to find people willing to enter the career field, frankly.
        • zdragnar 5y ago
          I imagine ot varies by region, but there are definitely more people looking for teaching jobs than there are jobs available where I live (my sister in law is a teacher and getting a new job is a very long process indeed).
        • HarryHirsch 5y ago
          Rural school districts have begun importing teachers from the Philippines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSmtbSYE8pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSmtbSYE8pg Over there you can find educated people who are willing to work in Seely, MT for 30 kUSD/year. On a J-1 visa, with no possibility to settle permanently in the US. Good luck to all of us.
• google234123 5y ago
  For those in California, there is a School Choice intuitive currently at the petition phase so order a form online if you support this: https://www.californiaschoolchoice.org/ https://www.californiaschoolchoice.org/
• einpoklum 5y ago
  > This is part of the reason I’m very much pro school choice. Give a credit to each family to do with what they wish. Sure thing, if the federal "defense" budget would also be split up into credits, and each family could decide whether it wants to fund the various wars or do something else with the money. > decrease cost. What's not to like? Everything's not to like - not the least of which being your desire to cut salaries (or perhaps just shove children into shabbier schools? Who knows how you want to cut costs).
• anon9384929 5y ago
  Can you elaborate? The general negative sentiment towards teachers is confusing to me. It seems you trust them enough to take a very major part in raising your child, but not enough to make a decision about what’s best? I’d like you to elaborate because this view makes it seem like parents view teachers as nannies (who, by the way, should also have a say in whether they want to get exposed to a virus or take it home to their own family).
  • refurb 5y ago
    I mean the teachers unions in CA are exempt from the vaccine mandate. One of the few public workers who are. What does that tell you?
    • nostromo 5y ago
      In my state, Washington, the teachers union got teachers to the front of the line for vaccines, right behind healthcare workers. We were told it was to get schools back open. Once they were all vaccinated, they decided not to re-open schools.
      • refurb 5y ago
        Same thing is CA. Teachers were one of the first to be vaccinated (while resisting any vaccine mandate), yet immediately put up roadblocks to reopening. It’s about teachers, not students.
        • swasheck 5y ago
          > It’s about teachers, not students. this is a false dichotomy and reeks of political rhetoric. it’s honestly both. teachers desire a safe working environment for themselves AND want to do the best they can to educate students under the circumstances.
          • refurb 5y ago
            It’s not a false dichotomy if you just look at the union’s actions. How does opposing a vaccine mandate help students? The answer is it doesn’t, its just the union flexing its politics muscle by using the mandate as a bargaining chip.
• camhart 5y ago
  How do you handle everyone from multiple school districts all wanting to go to one that appears better but isnt equipped to handle that many? Also, it brings competition to teaching... which drives people to work hard(er). To be clear, I'm in favor of school choice. Just some thoughts.
  • a2tech 5y ago
    Or the school drumming out dumb kids, or underperforming kids of any sort, or mentally handicapped kids? Because charter schools do that.
    • nradov 5y ago
      Private schools can expel (or refuse to admit) underperforming or problematic students. But in most states, charter schools have to follow the same admissions and disciplinary policies as any other public school. That includes taking special education kids. They don't get to pick and choose.
      • asoneth 5y ago
        Given the large difference in cost between average students and expensive students (ESL, special needs, behavioral issues, ADHD) I expect that charter schools will find creative ways to ensure they minimize the latter. (Similar to how health insurance companies compete for young, healthy participants.)
  • throwaway27727 5y ago
    Applications, some form of interview and or testing, and rejections. Same as a university system - let students compete for spots and let schools compete for students. I admit that there would have to be a system that forces schools to take "undesirables" who can't get accepted anywhere, which is the hard part.
  • JCharante 5y ago
    My charter school held a lottery to see who gets admitted. This way they avoid the whole elitism via only accepting through test scores. And its standardized results were near the top of the state despite the lottery system. Now it's a different matter of what are the demographics of the applicants.
• tomrod 5y ago
  > If it’s designed correctly it should increase aptitude and decrease cost. What’s not to like? Is this right? I thought this point was debated, outside the re-introduction of segregation into the school system.
  • zdragnar 5y ago
    Ironically, a school-choice-ish program was tried in a metro area near me- the idea was to get some inner city kids out to the burbs, and some suburban kids into the city, to increase diversity. The opposite happened- almost all of the kids from the city choosing the program were white, and all the kids from the burbs in the program to go to the city schools were black or Latino. The end result (Which killed the program) was that kids and their families chose an increase in segregation, rather than diversity.
    • tomrod 5y ago
      I expect it is almost certainly tied to socioeconomics here -- wealthier people can afford the hidden costs of the vouchers such as travel time, control of schedule, after-school fees and such, etc.
• britch 5y ago
  Can I ask, what do you see as the big cost for education that needs to be driven down? My sense is that education budgets are pretty variable by the taxes in a region.
• dboreham 5y ago
  Could do this for police and fire fighting too.
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    Not sure if any place is doing it for police, but there absolutely do exist private fire services. You can choose to buy a subscription to their service, or not.
    • zdragnar 5y ago
      Pretty much anyone who hires private security (most large businesses, celebrities, etc) or a private investigator is effectively hiring private police. They won't be able to fine, arrest, jail, or recommend charges to a prosecutor, but outside of that they can do pretty much anything police would (and many things police would not, depending on how busy the department is). Many event venues will even require hiring an off duty police officer as security when serving alcohol, for example.
• another_story 5y ago
  I won't deny the school system has issues, but school choice in many cases is funneling tax dollars to religious schools or allowing other private companies to bilk tax dollars while providing substandard education. I've worked at public, private and charter schools, and all have issues.
  • SllX 5y ago
    If we’re going to be taking tax dollars anyway to pay for education, I honestly don’t care what type of school they go to as long as the family gets to make that choice. My bet is it probably would be a funnel for religious schools initially and controversially, but it would also open up opportunities for secular private schools to enter the market down the line.
    • another_story 5y ago
      I think many people would have issues with their money going to fund schools with extremist views.
      • SllX 5y ago
        Given that I have no idea what definition of extremism you’re using, I’m going to sidestep that one. But I can put this out there: I’m not particularly happy about my money going towards religious schools either, but I have known many people in my life who have gone to such schools who I am happy to have known and their educational upbringing has not been to their detriment to the point that I consider it a non-factor in my view of them so: money follows the child (or some variation thereof) and family picks the schooling. If my money is going to be taken from me to fund any amount of schooling, I am a lot happier with that compromise than I am with my money being used to continue the same kind of public schools I attended in a diminished and uncompetitive educational market.
• panzagl 5y ago
  Know any kids with any type of disability? They're screwed. Know any people of color? They're screwed. Know any working poor who can't make the drive to the rich neighborhood school? They're screwed. But I guess I don't know what you like.
  • macinjosh 5y ago
    Big claims to make with zero evidence.
    • geoduck14 5y ago
      I have evidence. In Texas we just received our school's scorecards. They show, at an aggregate, how my school (and district and state) performed at the annual exams for 2019 and 2021. The scores are broken out by some different demographics, such as: race, poverty, and disability. As GP mentioned, the standard scores for black people, disabled people, and poor people dropped by more than the average. I had my eye on disabled people - and I was disappointed in the change!
      • LudwigNagasena 5y ago
        Race in that case seems to be a confounded variable.
      • macinjosh 5y ago
        So the current system is failing minorities and your response is let’s give this system more money, not I wish I could have my children educated by a more capable organization? We should fund kids not systems.
    • refurb 5y ago
      Happening in SF. The wealthier parents hired private teachers and the kids didn’t miss a beat. Even the middle class parents just split the cost across 5 kids and they did class in the park (to align with restrictions). The poor parents? Well they can’t take time off their jobs or work from home. So they scrambled to find someone willing to watch their kids do online learning. It started with a couple hours per day and now those kids are at least a year behind while their middle-upper class peers and right on track.
• anothernewdude 5y ago
  > It lets the parents and community decide what’s best I'm a parent and the idea that other parents will vote on education worries me. They're too stupid to make good education decisions.
  • lettergram 5y ago
    The current system is vote based. You (and lots of people without kids) vote on some random person for school board. 99% probably don’t even research this person. What I described let’s the parents take the money and decide which school is best positioned to educate their children.
    • rootusrootus 5y ago
      I can't imagine how the busses would be organized in order to make that level of choice work. Do you intend that we should eliminate regional schools with supporting bus networks and just have parents drive their kids to school?
• olliej 5y ago
  [edit: I was incorrect on the fee matters, so have removed that] Charter schools are absolutely for-profit businesses, they scam it by having the "non-profit" running the charter school employ a management company that obviously is a for-profit entity. See https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chartered-for-Profit.pdf https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/202... All the evidence also shows that charter schools do not produce better outcomes than regular public schools. The real reason certain groups want charter schools (aside from grift) is a desire to indoctrinate and teach nonsense as fact.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Every “charter” school that actually makes a profit is simply passing on the subsidies to their owners: they get to charge both the government and parents to provide the same service. No, they don't. Charter schools operate as non-default schools within the public school system, they don't get to charge parents at all. > Here’s an idea: let charter schools make a profit by “being efficient”: they get exactly the same amount of money as a public school That would be an increase, charter schools typically only get a reduced amount of the per-pupil funding that the default public school would get, with the remainder retained by the host district even though the charter school itself provides for itself the services the district would provide for public schools. >
    • rootusrootus 5y ago
      > Charter schools operate as non-default schools within the public school system, they don't get to charge parents at all. You need a great big asterisk on that statement. There's a well regarded charter school about a mile from my house, we considered sending our kids there. They may not actually charge parents money, but you know what they do? They require parents to spend one day a week volunteering. Technically that isn't a charge, but effectively it's exactly that.
      • zdragnar 5y ago
        Sounds like they are selecting for families who are heavily invested in their kids' education. Great way to bump the test numbers and have focused classrooms, but it definitely isn't for everyone.
• analog31 5y ago
  It could be modeled after hospital choice. How's the health care system done for increasing aptitude and decreasing costs? What's to like?
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    Is there hospital choice? In my area anyone who wants to open a new hospital has to get approval from the other hospitals in the area. I don't think this is unique, I believe it's a fairly common practice across the US.
    • SamBam 5y ago
      Perhaps, but there's plenty of choice in many places. I'm in a Boston suburb, and there are at least five different hospitals with 25 minutes of me, and way more than that if I were planning something ahead of time and could go further. They all advertise on the sides of buses. They advertise on the highway. In the pages of the New Yorker hospitals far from me advertise their brain surgeons, or that they have cyberknife or all sorts of things. It's insane how many ads for hospitals you see if you look. Meanwhile, our public school system is very good. The teachers are paid well. And a lot of work is done to ensure equity between the schools, so there isn't a "good school" and a school for all the poor kids.
      • rootusrootus 5y ago
        I wish we had the same selection here. I'm in a suburb of Portland and I probably have 5 hospitals within 25 minutes (no traffic) as well, but at least half of those are religious hospitals which do not offer all services. E.g. you hope your pregnancy is smooth if you're planning to get your tubes tied after your C-section, because if you have to go the hospital with a NICU, they won't do the sterilization because they are religiously opposed to it.
  • LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    Sounds like a uniquely American issue. In many countries hospitals work like that and it’s fine. So maybe this arrangement is not the reason?
• pwr-electronics 5y ago
  You're conflating different things. People can already choose between public, private, and homeschool. The "credit" is a public resource allocated for a certain purpose under certain conditions. A union doesn't unilaterally decide anything. You're entitled to choose a non-public school, to want to divert a public resource to yourself with fewer strings attached, and to want more leverage to disregard teachers' stakes in delivering education. Not everyone would agree with your conclusion that it "should" make things better, or that it's even necessary to make improvements.
  • 300bps 5y ago
    You're entitled to choose a non-public school, to want to divert that public resource to yourself How is that? In the US schools are paid for via property tax. You pay the same property tax to the school whether you have 0 kids in the public school system or 100. If you choose to pay for private school, you still pay the same amount of tax to the public school system even though you aren’t using it. Only some states have a “voucher” system that lets you have your student’s fees redirects from public school to a private school. About 70% of states don’t have any voucher system so there’s no way to redirect your public school funds to a private school.
    • pwr-electronics 5y ago
      Typo. Fixed it now.
  • macinjosh 5y ago
    Most people’s entire education budget is taken up by their taxes that go to public schools. So unless you are giving people their tax money back in vouchers for school this is an elitist and privileged argument.
    • pwr-electronics 5y ago
      It's not, because I never argued against doing it. Oc asked "what's not to like?", and I gave an opposing perspective. Successful negotiation usually requires understanding what you're asking the other side to compromise on.
• pkulak 5y ago
  If you want free education, you can go to your neighborhood school. Not everyone _can_ go to whatever school they feel like (feel free to guess which kids can't attend school 30 miles away on a whim). Opt out if you like (there are always private schools), but not with my taxes.