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That’s a good case for vouchers. Instead, kids with engaged parents will flee to better schools. The other parents will either follow, growing the new school a

That’s a good case for vouchers. Instead, kids with engaged parents will flee to better schools. The other parents will either follow, growing the new school and model, or the other school will adapt in order to retain students. Engaged parents are your early adopters. Without vouchers, most people can’t even afford to enter the market.

xcxcx 3y ago
What if you launch convenience store-style mini schools with really terrible infrastructure and content but within five blocks from many buildings? You could literally rewrite history and language and program an entire generation of future voters. Imagine the possibilities
altcognito 3y ago
One of the purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society. In the US this has been forgotten despite guys like Jefferson talking about this exact thing. The free market can be good at optimizing for certain outcomes, but I don't think you're going to get a lot of buy in with the current political climate being what it is, and a lack of consensus around what kind of outcomes should be required. Furthermore, making schooling a purely financial transaction? Where do you think that leads?
- bamfly 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm OK paying taxes to get to live in a society with universally-available (mostly) fee-free primary and secondary education that aspires to some set of standards. I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School. Or kick in to rich parents' budget for Phillips Exeter. If we must have vouchers, let people keep their own tax money that would have gone to schools and use that for the vouchers. I'm not interested in handing people my cash to fund private education. I'm interested in having a public education system. That, I'll pay taxes for.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day School is assimilating those kids into their society at large and Jesus Is Lord Day School still needs to meet the curriculum and testing standards that any other school in the state has to. And more often than not those private schools are _exceeding_ the standard of the public education system. I spent years in both public and private schools. The worst part of public schooling was that everything was scaled down to the poorest-performing child's level. The worst part of private schooling was that a few underperforming kids were pushed/passed along with everyone else. The latter outcome is _significantly_ better for society than the former.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      > But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day School is assimilating those kids into their society at large No, I think you're missing the parent's point -- it's assimilating those students into a specific religious subculture whose beliefs and values may be at odds with civil society at large. (If you have trouble seeing this, try substituting "Jesus Is Lord Day School" in your head for some other implied religions.)
      - busterarm 3y ago
        But that's exactly my point. Would you deny this same right to kids that attend Jewish day schools? Could you even argue for that without sounding like a massive bigot? Religious people are part of your community and have the right to their religious identity and to be a member of your community. If they want a school just for them, you don't suffer for it. Religion is not at odds with society. We're not the USSR. Religious freedom is an enshrined right in this country.
        altcognito 3y ago
        At least in the US, The community is not religious by definition in the constitution. The whole gambit with vouchers is that you are laundering money for religious institutions by putting it under "personal" choice.
- okeuro49 3y ago
  > One of the purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society. From what I have observed of the US's education system, the problem is that the public education system is assimilating children into values that are _not_ shared by society nor their parents.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    I think that part of the problem is that I have no idea what values you are talking about that don't match society/parents. That is to say: I'm a leftist and I'm worried about schools indoctrinating kids into a whitewashed, anti-LGBTQ+, jingoistic understanding of the world. However, I'm sure there are Republican parents that are concerned about kids being indoctrinated into a "woke" understanding of the world. I don't know how you manage things when you have the country split down the middle with two completely separate worldviews.
    - okeuro49 3y ago
      I am from the UK, so view the issue impartially. The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor politics into schools, teaching children primarily to regard themselves as activists first, and students second. I can also see it is causing a mental health crisis in students, who increasingly are under pressure to identify as an oppressed minority, in order to be marked out as an oppressor; victimhood conferring social status.
      - nobody9999 3y ago
        >The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor politics into schools, teaching children primarily to regard themselves as activists first, and students second. Where is this being done? What school districts specifically? What are the specific topics that "introduce victim/oppressor politics into schools?" I'd really like to know, as I'm not aware of any of that stuff. Since you're obviously a "disinterested observer," without an agenda, I assume you've gathered actual evidence for your assertions. My view (as an American "with an agenda") is very different from yours. If I'm wrong, I'd like to adjust my view. As such, please provide me with specific examples of what you're asserting. Thanks!
- jejones3141 3y ago
  To schools that have motivation to actually educate children?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society Regulate voucher schools. Content requirements. Restrictions on religion. Maybe even standardized testing, or requirements that voucher students not be subject to extra fees. The public is paying, after all. It can attach strings to its money.
- chongli 3y ago
  assimilating children into the shared values of society The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many different sets of values that are all competing for survival. Schools have become the front line in this battlefield.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many different sets of values that are all competing for survival. Schools have become the front line in this battlefield. I disagree completely. Our shared values include belief in the rule of law, equality under that law, equality of opportunity and a whole bunch of other stuff that has always been the rhetoric, but much of which has only grudgingly been implemented for wider and wider swathes of Americans over the past 230+ years. That some folks are at odds some issues most certainly does not mean we don't have shared values. It means that we don't share all the same values/ideas. Which is exactly how it's been here since well before the founding of the US. Edit: Fixed prose.
hdior 3y ago
[flagged]
lizardking 3y ago
Or, unengaged parents will blame the school for their kid's poor performance and move their kids over, thus bringing down the metrics that gave everybody the impression that it was a good school in the first place.

xcxcx 3y ago

What if you launch convenience store-style mini schools with really terrible infrastructure and content but within five blocks from many buildings? You could literally rewrite history and language and program an entire generation of future voters. Imagine the possibilities

altcognito 3y ago

One of the purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society. In the US this has been forgotten despite guys like Jefferson talking about this exact thing. The free market can be good at optimizing for certain outcomes, but I don't think you're going to get a lot of buy in with the current political climate being what it is, and a lack of consensus around what kind of outcomes should be required. Furthermore, making schooling a purely financial transaction? Where do you think that leads?

bamfly 3y ago
Yeah, I'm OK paying taxes to get to live in a society with universally-available (mostly) fee-free primary and secondary education that aspires to some set of standards. I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School. Or kick in to rich parents' budget for Phillips Exeter. If we must have vouchers, let people keep their own tax money that would have gone to schools and use that for the vouchers. I'm not interested in handing people my cash to fund private education. I'm interested in having a public education system. That, I'll pay taxes for.
- busterarm 3y ago
  But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day School is assimilating those kids into their society at large and Jesus Is Lord Day School still needs to meet the curriculum and testing standards that any other school in the state has to. And more often than not those private schools are _exceeding_ the standard of the public education system. I spent years in both public and private schools. The worst part of public schooling was that everything was scaled down to the poorest-performing child's level. The worst part of private schooling was that a few underperforming kids were pushed/passed along with everyone else. The latter outcome is _significantly_ better for society than the former.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    > But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day School is assimilating those kids into their society at large No, I think you're missing the parent's point -- it's assimilating those students into a specific religious subculture whose beliefs and values may be at odds with civil society at large. (If you have trouble seeing this, try substituting "Jesus Is Lord Day School" in your head for some other implied religions.)
    - busterarm 3y ago
      But that's exactly my point. Would you deny this same right to kids that attend Jewish day schools? Could you even argue for that without sounding like a massive bigot? Religious people are part of your community and have the right to their religious identity and to be a member of your community. If they want a school just for them, you don't suffer for it. Religion is not at odds with society. We're not the USSR. Religious freedom is an enshrined right in this country.
      - altcognito 3y ago
        At least in the US, The community is not religious by definition in the constitution. The whole gambit with vouchers is that you are laundering money for religious institutions by putting it under "personal" choice.
okeuro49 3y ago
> One of the purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society. From what I have observed of the US's education system, the problem is that the public education system is assimilating children into values that are _not_ shared by society nor their parents.
- harimau777 3y ago
  I think that part of the problem is that I have no idea what values you are talking about that don't match society/parents. That is to say: I'm a leftist and I'm worried about schools indoctrinating kids into a whitewashed, anti-LGBTQ+, jingoistic understanding of the world. However, I'm sure there are Republican parents that are concerned about kids being indoctrinated into a "woke" understanding of the world. I don't know how you manage things when you have the country split down the middle with two completely separate worldviews.
  - okeuro49 3y ago
    I am from the UK, so view the issue impartially. The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor politics into schools, teaching children primarily to regard themselves as activists first, and students second. I can also see it is causing a mental health crisis in students, who increasingly are under pressure to identify as an oppressed minority, in order to be marked out as an oppressor; victimhood conferring social status.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor politics into schools, teaching children primarily to regard themselves as activists first, and students second. Where is this being done? What school districts specifically? What are the specific topics that "introduce victim/oppressor politics into schools?" I'd really like to know, as I'm not aware of any of that stuff. Since you're obviously a "disinterested observer," without an agenda, I assume you've gathered actual evidence for your assertions. My view (as an American "with an agenda") is very different from yours. If I'm wrong, I'd like to adjust my view. As such, please provide me with specific examples of what you're asserting. Thanks!
jejones3141 3y ago
To schools that have motivation to actually educate children?
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society Regulate voucher schools. Content requirements. Restrictions on religion. Maybe even standardized testing, or requirements that voucher students not be subject to extra fees. The public is paying, after all. It can attach strings to its money.
chongli 3y ago
assimilating children into the shared values of society The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many different sets of values that are all competing for survival. Schools have become the front line in this battlefield.
- nobody9999 3y ago
  >The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many different sets of values that are all competing for survival. Schools have become the front line in this battlefield. I disagree completely. Our shared values include belief in the rule of law, equality under that law, equality of opportunity and a whole bunch of other stuff that has always been the rhetoric, but much of which has only grudgingly been implemented for wider and wider swathes of Americans over the past 230+ years. That some folks are at odds some issues most certainly does not mean we don't have shared values. It means that we don't share all the same values/ideas. Which is exactly how it's been here since well before the founding of the US. Edit: Fixed prose.

hdior 3y ago

[flagged]

lizardking 3y ago

Or, unengaged parents will blame the school for their kid's poor performance and move their kids over, thus bringing down the metrics that gave everybody the impression that it was a good school in the first place.