Admittingly, could be stirring up a hornets nest.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

yes- I used to think they are pointless, now I see the other side of the argument and support them

[Anonymous]

No. I've been for them since I was a kid in really horrible public school districts with parents struggling to afford parochial. Still for them.

[Anonymous]

What's an education voucher?

[Anonymous]

No. Still against them

[Anonymous]

Yes, I've always been a strong believer in public schools. I went to PS and got a very strong education that prepared me for college. We moved to a neighborhood with a strong ES for DD. Now as we sit down and wonder what to do for Fall 2021 go private $40k or a private teacher $60k or so but split between 3 or 4 families I'm thinking I wish I could get the money FCPS gets for my kid instead.

[Anonymous]

They still feel like giving up on public education to me, but yeah, I’ve had days where I wish the school district would just give me a check so I could use it to pay for in-person at a private. It wouldn’t solve the larger problems in the district, but it would solve my specific problem right now.

[Anonymous]

Yes, totally. I used to be strongly against them, now for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They still feel like giving up on public education to me, but yeah, I’ve had days where I wish the school district would just give me a check so I could use it to pay for in-person at a private. It wouldn’t solve the larger problems in the district, but it would solve my specific problem right now.

+1.

[Anonymous]

No, I don't think we should take funding from public schools, which just makes them even worse. But, education funding should be reformed to stop a lot of the waste.

[Anonymous]

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.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't think we should take funding from public schools, which just makes them even worse. But, education funding should be reformed to stop a lot of the waste.

+1

[Anonymous]

No. We need to fix our schools.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't think we should take funding from public schools, which just makes them even worse. But, education funding should be reformed to stop a lot of the waste.

+1

I haven't changed my opinion either which is what the PP above said. Vouchers will just make it worse.