Admittingly, could be stirring up a hornets nest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers give tax dollars to MC and UMC families to have a tuition break, and won't help those who most need it, because they still won't be able to afford private. Just drains money from our public schools.

This.

[Anonymous]

I am a public school teacher and I've always supported vouchers as well as charters. Free market competition is a good thing.

Public schools will be better run if they have competition either in the form of charters or because of vouchers. From my 20+ years of teaching I have observed that there isn't much difference between charters & public in the classrooms because I know teachers who have bounced back and forth between charters and public; a good teacher is going to be a good teacher in either environment once the door is closed and the crazy admin are locked out.

My school system in the DMV area would greatly benefit (because they would be forced to get better at the administrative level) from vouchers or charter schools because then poor parents had a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers give tax dollars to MC and UMC families to have a tuition break, and won't help those who most need it, because they still won't be able to afford private. Just drains money from our public schools.

This.

Not necessarily true, it depends how the program is structured. In Ohio, a private school cannot charge a student more than the voucher cost if the student's family earns less than 200% of poverty level. So for those lowest income families, the vouchers make participating private schools free.

Incidentally, the very fancy expensive private schools typically do not participate in the Ohio voucher program. I suspect it is for this reason.

[Anonymous]

No, government shouldn't pay for private. You can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a public school teacher and I've always supported vouchers as well as charters. Free market competition is a good thing.

Public schools will be better run if they have competition either in the form of charters or because of vouchers. From my 20+ years of teaching I have observed that there isn't much difference between charters & public in the classrooms because I know teachers who have bounced back and forth between charters and public; a good teacher is going to be a good teacher in either environment once the door is closed and the crazy admin are locked out.

My school system in the DMV area would greatly benefit (because they would be forced to get better at the administrative level) from vouchers or charter schools because then poor parents had a choice.

Agree with you.

[Anonymous]

Yes and no... I would support a voucher program that could act as a true alternative to public schools. But not a voucher program that's just a hand-out to UMC/UC families.

So, that means a voucher would have to be accepted as the full tuition cost and there would have to be some expectation that the private schools would teach special needs kids to the extent possible.

[Anonymous]

100%


I was against them because public schools were supposed to be an equal footing for ALL.

Now I'm 100% in favor of them -- this is the ONLY way forward and the ONLY reason I was considering supporting Trump.

We need school open for students and if the only ones that are open are private, open them!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100%


I was against them because public schools were supposed to be an equal footing for ALL.

Now I'm 100% in favor of them -- this is the ONLY way forward and the ONLY reason I was considering supporting Trump.

We need school open for students and if the only ones that are open are private, open them!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious if the current situation has changed your mind on education vouchers?

Having taught at Teach for America before grad school and now studying private/parochial schools with uniforms, discipline and high expectations in inner cities, I think vouchers are absolutely the way to go for poorly performing and average students - which is the bulk of the students. The top 20% also need to be challenged, but in very different ways.

Public teachers' unions love the money, lobbying power and zero competition they have. No other country in the world has a K-12 public teachers union, let alone one that raises and diverts billions of $$$ around annually for political puppets. Only in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, government shouldn't pay for private. You can.

taxpayers shouldn't pay for poor educations, incompetent teachers, and incohesive "curricula" (talking about MCPC C2.0 for 8 dismal years) and political junkie teacher unions.

[Anonymous]

I'm more in favor of charters. I don't think that vouchers will expand the supply of good private education. I do think that Catholic schools probably deserve some financial support after this, though. Maybe more like a direct block grant. They have proven they have the ability and mission to educate, so it would make sense to support them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the end of this pandemic, most public schools will have been mostly or completely closed to in-person learning for a year or more. Vouchers aren't killing public education, the pandemic already did that.

In our globalized worlds, there will be more pandemics to come. Education is changing fundamentally, and permanently, right before our eyes. The haves will find a way for their children to learn and succeed. The have nots will beg their government for vouchers, and get shot down.

1000s of township public schools districts around the country OPENED in August and September 5 days a week, in person with precautions.

The top 10 largest COUNTY public school districts around the country (with most powerful and lucrative unions) did NOT OPEN in person, and most continue to not be open in person for any grade, ESOL, IEP or even K-5 kids. Except a couple states like Florida where everyone barring a medical diagnosis/dr note was order to teach or attend school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm more in favor of charters. I don't think that vouchers will expand the supply of good private education. I do think that Catholic schools probably deserve some financial support after this, though. Maybe more like a direct block grant. They have proven they have the ability and mission to educate, so it would make sense to support them.

Better alignment too: the teachers really wanted to teach and educate the kids! Great partnership with the parents. Textbooks, tests, homework, reading the classics.
And these were schools that were full-up and waitlist before COVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with vouchers is that people think for example that if a district spends on average $10,000 per child that parents should get that amount of money. In actuality in public schools educating over half of kids takes only $5,000 because many kids take 15,000 or 20,000 or even 100,000 to educate every year. It isn't fair when charter schools or schools with vouchers take all the students who are easy to educate and leave public neighborhood schools with the most difficult and costly students to educate. Charter schools and private schools that accept vouchers in other parts of the country don't take emotionally disturbed kids who need one to one aides or residential care, they don't take newcomers who just immigrated, they don't take a student with autism who is nonverbal, they won't take a deaf student who needs an adult to provide translation services for every class (that is about 50- 75,000 a year once you factor in benefits.)

This, plus the public schools' infrastructure portfolio (buildings, busses, etc.) then are divided out across a smaller pool of students, taking money away from teachers, resource specialists, and technology because you can't just close down schools/shuffle kids around in short order as enrollment changes.[/quote]

Yes, you can.

And since charter schools are simply public schools with different governance, you can transfer empty buildings to them.

[Anonymous]

Not at all in favor of our Catholic school receiving any money from the government. Our parish does absolutely fine providing a Catholic values-based education to our parish’s children. Appreciate the thought but give that money to the publics.