When Rahm's Temper Made a Comeback

[rlg94086]

A voucher system would definitely make the worst schools worser.

The worst schools would shut down entirely. That’s a good thing!

And you must admit that far more people pay the purchase price for their home in installments than pay for private schooling in the same manner.

My point, as I’m sure you know, is that the vouchers are not necessarily expected to pay for private school outright. They may, in some cases, but what they do is allow people to choose. They can stay with their local public school, if it is yielding good results. They can use the vouchers to get their kids out of a failing public school, even if they have to use some of their own funds, or other scholarship monies, to do it.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

The worst schools would shut down entirely. That’s a good thing!

Probably not. The worst schools would be populated by children with the least involved parents. Do you think any parent can take their child to a grammar school far from their home? Do you expect those big yellow buses to do that in an urban environment?

 

[lao_tzu]

Both the question of the voucher/tuition amounts and the isolated school that keeps being brought up have been answered, but I will add this…

What answer? Thousands of dollars they didn’t need to attend a public school are suddenly required. An answer requires an accounting. The numbers don’t add up. Show me how this works. Where does the rest of the money come from?

As part of the stimulus packages, the government offered an $7,500 tax credit to first-time homebuyers. I don’t know of any houses that were available for $7,500, so I don’t see how it helped people buy their first home.

Are you seriously trying to compare the education of children with home ownership?

We don’t have a standard of universal home ownership, and the stimulus money didn’t attempt to create one. We do have a standard of universal education. Universal education is important to our entire society. It’s part of our social pact. We take care of children. We educate all of them. Not just the ones with parents who can pay for it.

Let me suggest that you haven’t thought this through.

As ever, Jesse

 

[rlg94086]

What answer? Thousands of dollars they didn’t need to attend a public school are suddenly required. An answer requires an accounting. The numbers don’t add up. Show me how this works. Where does the rest of the money come from?

Read the rest of my responses. I’ve been clear.

Are you seriously trying to compare the education of children with home ownership?

We don’t have a standard of universal home ownership, and the stimulus money didn’t attempt to create one. We do have a standard of universal education. Universal education is important to our entire society. It’s part of our social pact.** We take care of children. We educate all of them. Not just the ones with parents who can pay for it.**

Let me suggest that you haven’t thought this through.

As ever, Jesse

I didn’t say home ownership is the same as the education of children. I agree with the bolded section. This happens with or without a voucher program, so it is a moot point.

 

[rlg94086]

Probably not. The worst schools would be populated by children with the least involved parents. Do you think any parent can take their child to a grammar school far from their home? Do you expect those big yellow buses to do that in an urban environment?

If the schools numbers dwindle down to a small number because other families have pulled out, the school will be unsustainable and will close. A private or charter school will replace it. There are many people who care about education and will make it happen. Those people aren’t generally in the school that is failing.

Besides, you were defending the Chicago public school system earlier to estesbob, so you don’t have any of those schools, right?

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

If the schools numbers dwindle down to a small number because other families have pulled out, the school will be unsustainable and will close. A private or charter school will replace it. There are many people who care about education and will make it happen. Those people aren’t generally in the school that is failing.

Parents in those failing schools who care about education are generally unable to make charter schools happen. There are a number of charter schools in Chicago, however.

Besides, you were defending the Chicago public school system earlier to estesbob, so you don’t have any of those schools, right?

I pointed out that, despite contentions to the contrary, a permanent educational underclass had not occurred in the Chicago Public schools.

 

[SamH]

I pointed out that, despite contentions to the contrary, a permanent educational underclass had not occurred in the Chicago Public schools.

I guess you haven’t been paying attention.

160 out of 600 Chicago public schools did not have libraries for their children. There is a general perception that Chicago’s public schools have been gradually improving over time. However, recent dramatic gains in the reported number of CPS elementary students who meet standards on State assessments appear to be due to changes in the tests made by the Illinois State Board of Education, rather than real improvements in student learning.

The performance of Chicago’s high schools is abysmal – with about half the students
dropping out of the non-selective-enrollment schools, and more than 70% of 11th
grade students failing to meet State standards.The relatively high-performing students are concentrated in a few magnet/selective enrollment high schools. In the regular neighborhood high schools, which serve the vast preponderance of students, almost no students are prepared to succeed in college.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

I guess you haven’t been paying attention.

Oh, but I have. There is much room for improvement.

In the regular neighborhood high schools, which serve the vast preponderance of students, almost no students are prepared to succeed in college.

That happens to be false. I could give you examples but they are not particularly accepted here. Many students in the non-magnet Chicago public high schools are not prepared for college. ‘Almost no students are prepared’? No, that’s false.

 

[manualman]

It amazes me how unchallenged the assertion “vouchers will create a permanent education underclass” goes. It’s really OUT THERE! First off, this is the model used through much of Europe, that backwards land of right wing extremism… So it’s not like it’s an untried model or anything.

Second, every discussion I’ve ever read on the topic jumps right to a voucher large enough to cover the entire private tuition ($7k+). Yes, I can see problems with a voucher amount in which the new private school kids win and the remaining public kids lose. But who says the voucher has to cover the whole cost?

What Rahm, and every other voucher opponent studiously ignores is the win/win potential for a modest reimbursement voucher program. Let’s take my own public school district, U-46 (centered on Elgin, IL). It’s the second largest school district in Illinois and (last I checked) the third worst IL district in performance (i.e. gasp, test scores). Total dollars spent divided by total students is about $14,500 per year!!!

Now let’s simplify the numbers a bit. Say there are 100,000 public students in this district and currently 10,000 private school kids (probably a high estimate for conservative number results). Right now, if every catholic and other private school in the district went to full capacity, they could handle almost 5,000 more students. Let’s look at the financial impact of a $1,000 per year reimbursement voucher. The school district would have to send checks to 15,000 students for a total cost of $15 million. Manualman, you just bankrupted the district!!! Except that the district USED to spend $72.5 million on those 5,000 kids that transferred to the private school system. Yeah, they’ll need to spend much of that remaining $57.5 million initially on shutting down some un-needed schools and shrinking the district staff a bit. But the savings are forever. After the initial costs, all that excess revenue can be used to restore lost things like art, teacher aids, music, auto shop and the other type of things that have been slashed over the years in the name of budget. It is truly a WIN-WIN scenario for both public and private students.

The only losers are empire-building school district bureacrats and teacher’s unions. Make no mistake, folks. Those SELF interested people are the only reason we don’t see modest school vouchers enacted. And guys like Rahm either know it and prefer to avoid the political firestorm that POing the teacher’s union would mean or he’s too dumb to see it in which case he shouldn’t be mayor.

There is no objective rational reason to oppose modest voucher levels to encourage more people to choose private schools. Private schools do a better job educating kids. Obama knows it, Rahm knows it, EVERYBODY knows it.

The ominous part is that the reverse is true too. Catholic schools are closing all over the place. What happens when the tax base remains the same and the number of public school students increases after a catholic school closes? You guessed it, the school district grabs more taxes from everybody to make up the difference.

So what’ll it be folks, the same path we’re on in which taxes will continue to go up as private schools close or enact a voucher program and allow more school choice AND a greater budget per remaining student in the public district?

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

There is no objective rational reason to oppose modest voucher levels to encourage more people to choose private schools. Private schools do a better job educating kids. Obama knows it, Rahm knows it, EVERYBODY knows it.

Sure there is a rational reason. Instead of fostering a move to private education, maybe school districts should concentrate more on improving public education.

 

[SamH]

That happens to be false. I could give you examples but they are not particularly accepted here. Many students in the non-magnet Chicago public high schools are not prepared for college. ‘Almost no students are prepared’? No, that’s false.

Eight of 10 public high school juniors in Illinois weren’t considered ready for college classes in all subjects based on ACT testing last spring — and many students missed the mark even at posh suburban Chicago schools that graduate some of the state’s brightest kids.

At Lake Forest, Deerfield, Northbrook and Hinsdale high schools, more than 40 percent of students didn’t meet all four “college readiness benchmarks” — ACT scores indicating they could do at least average in key freshman classes.

articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-11/news/ct-met-school-report-college-ready-20101111_1_college-readiness-act-scores-benchmarks

Yeah baby, 20% is a mark I’d be proud of…

 

[manualman]

Sure there is a rational reason. Instead of fostering a move to private education, maybe school districts should concentrate more on improving public education.

So your contention is that right now public school district employee don’t try hard enough? What’s your suggestion for motivating them to improve?

 

[SamH]

Sure there is a rational reason. Instead of fostering a move to private education, maybe school districts should concentrate more on improving public education.

The same public schools that have failed in their duty to maintain basic levels should be entrusted to improve? Apparently logic shouldn’t be weighed in that consideration.

 

[lao_tzu]

Read the rest of my responses. I’ve been clear.

Handwaving is no substitute for accounting. Where is the rest of this money supposed to come from? Your responses have been along the lines of “Well, they’ll be closer to being able to afford it.” Try selling that at the grocery store. You’ll find they don’t want just part of the money, they want all of it.

Scholarships? Again, that money has to come from somewhere, too. I guarantee it’s not going to come from teachers handing back salary, or book publishers discounting their texts, or construction workers donating labor and building materials.

By the time you’ve actually made school choice affordable, you’re looking at publicly funded education, just as it was before. The only real question is who gets that money. There are plenty of areas in our society where for-profit makes sense. Education isn’t one of them. I’m an adjunct at one public college, and two for-profit colleges. Both of the for-profit colleges charge far more for inferior courses with generally inferior instructors. One of them made me sign a stipulation that I wouldn’t bad-mouth it. Think for a moment what factors caused them to include that in my contract? This is what happens when the focus moves away from education in favor of profits.

Certainly there are issues with public education. But every email I get from the public college has a sunshine clause added on the end. The private colleges erase all emails more than 6 months old, and add a clause that it’s illegal to share them. Moving from the public sphere to the corporate sphere only serves to reduce accountability.

I didn’t say home ownership is the same as the education of children. I agree with the bolded section. This happens with or without a voucher program, so it is a moot point.

You certainly used home ownership as a point of comparison, though it’s reassuring to see you back away from it when presented with its consequences. And, now that you’ve equated voucher-supported and voucher-less education, it seems your entire argument is standing on air.

With apologies to Victor Laszlo, let me say, “Welcome back to the fight.”

As ever, Jesse

 

[rlg94086]

Handwaving is no substitute for accounting. Where is the rest of this money supposed to come from? Your responses have been along the lines of “Well, they’ll be closer to being able to afford it.” Try selling that at the grocery store. You’ll find they don’t want just part of the money, they want all of it.

Scholarships? Again, that money has to come from somewhere, too. I guarantee it’s not going to come from teachers handing back salary, or book publishers discounting their texts, or construction workers donating labor and building materials.

By the time you’ve actually made school choice affordable, you’re looking at publicly funded education, just as it was before. The only real question is who gets that money. There are plenty of areas in our society where for-profit makes sense. Education isn’t one of them. I’m an adjunct at one public college, and two for-profit colleges. Both of the for-profit colleges charge far more for inferior courses with generally inferior instructors. One of them made me sign a stipulation that I wouldn’t bad-mouth it. Think for a moment what factors caused them to include that in my contract? This is what happens when the focus moves away from education in favor of profits.

Certainly there are issues with public education. But every email I get from the public college has a sunshine clause added on the end. The private colleges erase all emails more than 6 months old, and add a clause that it’s illegal to share them. Moving from the public sphere to the corporate sphere only serves to reduce accountability.

You certainly used home ownership as a point of comparison, though it’s reassuring to see you back away from it when presented with its consequences. And, now that you’ve equated voucher-supported and voucher-less education, it seems your entire argument is standing on air.

With apologies to Victor Laszlo, let me say, “Welcome back to the fight.”

As ever, Jesse

I would answer your rant, which is apparently also “standing on air,” since you’ve done nothing but “hand waving;” but manualman has done a great job of outlining the argument further.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8160306&postcount=69

I’m sorry you missed the point of my comparison and wish to claim it is something it is not. I don’t know how to help you there.

 

[estesbob]

Handwaving is no substitute for accounting. Where is the rest of this money supposed to come from? Your responses have been along the lines of “Well, they’ll be closer to being able to afford it.” Try selling that at the grocery store. You’ll find they don’t want just part of the money, they want all of it.

In areas where vouchers are use quality schools have sprung up providing a quality education for whatever the voucher amount is. That is the way the free market system works. . Businesses starting up to fulfill a need. if they don’t do a good job or chargemuch. their customers go elsewhere. The reason the current public school system fails so miserably is education is not the goal, job security and financial renumeration of the bloated bureaucracy and teachers is all they care about’ . And since they have a monopoly over all but people like RonEmaunel’children there is no incentive for them to do better

 

[lao_tzu]

I would answer your rant, which is apparently also “standing on air,” since you’ve done nothing but “hand waving;” but manualman has done a great job of outlining the argument further.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8160306&postcount=69

I’m sorry you missed the point of my comparison and wish to claim it is something it is not. I don’t know how to help you there.

One can fairly judge rants by the usage of all caps, as is apparent in the post you linked, and apparently absent in my own. I suspect you are engaging in projection, having had your actual argument exposed as vacuous by its lack of an answer to the basic question, “Where is the money?”

I have pointed out the difference, this “difference” being the description of a mathematical expression, between $8000 and $4000. Responses that do not tell us where this extra money is coming from are “hand-waving.”

Please do not think that the pressure you feel at having this omission noted is anything beyond self-inflicted. I’d imagine you do feel uncomfortable about this, but to me, it’s just someone else who can’t do arithmetic on the internet. I’ve got 150 flesh and blood, face-to-face students this term, the majority of whom are in the same position. It doesn’t make you special.

As ever, Jesse

 

[lao_tzu]

In areas where vouchers are use quality schools have sprung up providing a quality education for whatever the voucher amount is. That is the way the free market system works. . Businesses starting up to fulfill a need. if they don’t do a good job or chargemuch. their customers go elsewhere. The reason the current public school system fails so miserably is education is not the goal, job security and financial renumeration of the bloated bureaucracy and teachers is all they care about’ . And since they have a monopoly over all but people like RonEmaunel’children there is no incentive for them to do better

To some extent, I agree. Voucher programs have indeed allowed better schools to emerge, though more often by cherry-picking out the better students rather than by actually improving curricula. But they’ve also opened the doors to unaccountable organizations shielded from the review we’re able to give public institutions. I’m unaware of any voucher program that covers the full tuition of such an organization, however. I believe in this you are mistaken. In addition, the suggestion that “consumers” are on a level playing field in attempting to judge a “business” while hamstrung by lowered accountability standards is unreasonable on its face.

I’m speaking here as something of a devil’s advocate. Students are not interchangeable, and it’s simply a fact that some students will benefit more from increased resources than others. If we’re only interested in increasing overall excellence, our public funds should be directed to these students, where the resources will do the most good. This goal, as I believe I’ve illustrated, runs counter to our interest in maintaining an egalitarian society.

As ever, Jesse

 

[rlg94086]

One can fairly judge rants by the usage of all caps, as is apparent in the post you linked, and apparently absent in my own. I suspect you are engaging in projection, having had your actual argument exposed as vacuous by its lack of an answer to the basic question, “Where is the money?”

I have pointed out the difference, this “difference” being the description of a mathematical expression, between $8000 and $4000. Responses that do not tell us where this extra money is coming from are "hand-waving."

Please do not think that the pressure you feel at having this omission noted is anything beyond self-inflicted. I’d imagine you do feel uncomfortable about this, but to me, it’s just someone else who can’t do arithmetic on the internet. I’ve got 150 flesh and blood, face-to-face students this term, the majority of whom are in the same position. It doesn’t make you special.

As ever, Jesse

From the individual families’ budgets, as I made that clear in previous posts. There are people of lesser means who make great financial sacrifice to have their kids attend a better, private school. Vouchers would ease that sacrifice and allow others who couldn’t budget it to accomplish the same task.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

In areas where vouchers are use quality schools have sprung up providing a quality education for whatever the voucher amount is. That is the way the free market system works.

The fact is that there are already high-quality magnet schools and charter schools in Chicago. Vouchers would not change that. Those present high quality schools are tuition free, also.

What vouchers would do is to allow tax dollars to go to private schools like the infamous ‘segregation academies’. There are schools in Chicago which teach that Jews began the Persian Gulf War. Now, their curriculum is their business, but I don’t favor tax dollars going for that type of instruction. Others don’t mind at all.