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Not all parents have to be unburdened enough to motivate public schools to improve. Even if there's only a tiny minority of parents who are able to research an

Not all parents have to be unburdened enough to motivate public schools to improve. Even if there's only a tiny minority of parents who are able to research and move their kids to a better school, their experience will motivate others, word will spread and the public schools will feel the pressure to improve their environment and outcomes. Even the threat of competition can be motivating. I dare to believe that the majority of parents across the US do care about their kids and are willing to drive their kids to a different school if doing so means they'll achieve significantly better success in life.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago
Quite a lot of parents have to choose between driving their kids to school every day and working to keep their kids fed and sheltered. There's a real problem there, but it's not that they don't care about their kids.
jmye 3y ago
But if I have no idea which school to pick, I’m left with the choice of either my now-failing public school, or a random pick of for-profit schools that may or may not educate my child. You’re giving poor families appalling choices for no net benefit. And again, you’re assuming all parents can drive their child across town to that one school that took them with no additional fees and had space leftover. That’s just not reality for a lot of people in this country who depend on the country at least trying to provide equitable education instead of finding new ways to lower the income burden on rich people. When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, then sure, let’s talk about vouchers. Until then the only reason to advocate for them is to facilitate and speed up the creation of a permanent societal underclass.
- TimTheTinker 3y ago
  > my now-failing public school You're asserting vouchers would bankrupt public schools. How do you figure that? Maybe you're assuming that parents will move their kids to a better school, resulting in dwindling enrollment? If so, good! A public school that's not doing a great job should lose students. Let them feel the pain until they work to do better. > When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, let’s talk about vouchers. Your goalposts are unreasonable. Of course access and information will never be perfect. But they don't need to be. When I started school, my parents were very poor. When they went on a date, they split a Taco Bell bean burrito (seriously). They had to sell a lot of stuff on the front lawn one month to make ends meet. My dad had to ride the bus to work for a while, and had to borrow money from his brother. But they still somehow managed to send me to private school (probably with tuition assistance), because they believed doing so was the right thing. I understand a lot has changed since then; minimum wage is not a living wage anymore; many parents depend on free meals from public schools to make ends meet. But that doesn't mean the availability of other options is a bad thing or would be harmful.
  - TimTheTinker 3y ago
    My underlying assumption here is that public schools fail to educate kids primarily because they never feel the consequences of failure. If a private school fails, its attendance dwindles, funding drops, heads roll, and it closes if the problem isn't fixed. Not so for public schools -- the money just keeps on rolling in.
    - feoren 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - TimTheTinker 3y ago
        I've posited a reasonable mechanism that explains a phenomenon. We know stores fail if they don't provide competitive service - which means those that survive do a good enough job to survive... why shouldn't schools function similarly? No one (including school administrators) really tries hard to succeed if failure isn't a possibility. If you have an alternate explanation, I'm all ears.
      - dang 3y ago
        Yikes - posting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - jmye 3y ago
      The assumption that public schools fail to educate kids is already erroneous and baseless. That a public good, meant to ensure an equitable start for all children, regardless of their or their parents’ circumstance, is being treated like a free market asset is a bizarre failure to understand the fundamental difference between, say, Apple and your local elementary that must be prepared to educate kids ranging from G&T to barely able to read, and must often take the place of parents who are either incapable or unable to be present and continue the kids’ education outside school. Your comments are case in point why people who don’t know anything about education shouldn’t have any input into how it’s delivered. I can’t tell if it’s Dunning-Kruger, or just an assumption that educators are idiots, but I can assure you the latter isn’t true.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago

Quite a lot of parents have to choose between driving their kids to school every day and working to keep their kids fed and sheltered. There's a real problem there, but it's not that they don't care about their kids.

jmye 3y ago

But if I have no idea which school to pick, I’m left with the choice of either my now-failing public school, or a random pick of for-profit schools that may or may not educate my child. You’re giving poor families appalling choices for no net benefit. And again, you’re assuming all parents can drive their child across town to that one school that took them with no additional fees and had space leftover. That’s just not reality for a lot of people in this country who depend on the country at least trying to provide equitable education instead of finding new ways to lower the income burden on rich people. When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, then sure, let’s talk about vouchers. Until then the only reason to advocate for them is to facilitate and speed up the creation of a permanent societal underclass.

TimTheTinker 3y ago
> my now-failing public school You're asserting vouchers would bankrupt public schools. How do you figure that? Maybe you're assuming that parents will move their kids to a better school, resulting in dwindling enrollment? If so, good! A public school that's not doing a great job should lose students. Let them feel the pain until they work to do better. > When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, let’s talk about vouchers. Your goalposts are unreasonable. Of course access and information will never be perfect. But they don't need to be. When I started school, my parents were very poor. When they went on a date, they split a Taco Bell bean burrito (seriously). They had to sell a lot of stuff on the front lawn one month to make ends meet. My dad had to ride the bus to work for a while, and had to borrow money from his brother. But they still somehow managed to send me to private school (probably with tuition assistance), because they believed doing so was the right thing. I understand a lot has changed since then; minimum wage is not a living wage anymore; many parents depend on free meals from public schools to make ends meet. But that doesn't mean the availability of other options is a bad thing or would be harmful.
- TimTheTinker 3y ago
  My underlying assumption here is that public schools fail to educate kids primarily because they never feel the consequences of failure. If a private school fails, its attendance dwindles, funding drops, heads roll, and it closes if the problem isn't fixed. Not so for public schools -- the money just keeps on rolling in.
  - feoren 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - TimTheTinker 3y ago
      I've posited a reasonable mechanism that explains a phenomenon. We know stores fail if they don't provide competitive service - which means those that survive do a good enough job to survive... why shouldn't schools function similarly? No one (including school administrators) really tries hard to succeed if failure isn't a possibility. If you have an alternate explanation, I'm all ears.
    - dang 3y ago
      Yikes - posting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - jmye 3y ago
    The assumption that public schools fail to educate kids is already erroneous and baseless. That a public good, meant to ensure an equitable start for all children, regardless of their or their parents’ circumstance, is being treated like a free market asset is a bizarre failure to understand the fundamental difference between, say, Apple and your local elementary that must be prepared to educate kids ranging from G&T to barely able to read, and must often take the place of parents who are either incapable or unable to be present and continue the kids’ education outside school. Your comments are case in point why people who don’t know anything about education shouldn’t have any input into how it’s delivered. I can’t tell if it’s Dunning-Kruger, or just an assumption that educators are idiots, but I can assure you the latter isn’t true.