Reply to Is it time for private school vouchers in Montgomery County?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This topic always  makes me laugh.  What is the most liberal place on the planet?  Many would say the Netherlands.  Legalized pot.  Prostitution, legal.  Free needles for addicts.  And yep - direct pay (vouchers) for parents to choose their schools.  The takoma Park crowd never takes liberalism to its logical conclusion with education.  If you simply voucher the 16,000 per student MCPS supposedly pays to educate our kids in a supersized, filthy school (here’s looking at you Wootton) kids would largely be better off.  But it proves MCPS is a Democratic Party jobs program more than an education system.  Hard to fathom 3 billion a year to fund such a poor excuse of an education system but here we are.  Public schools need to exist but be much smaller and more responsive.  Never going to happen with powers that be in the county.[/quote]

Boom.[/quote]

This is not the own you think it is. For so many reasons.

The Netherlands heavily subsidize and regulate their "private" schools . It's hardly a capitalist paradise. True of every well-run European country.

I know that you, Kenny-the-Intern-at-the-Federalist think $16,000 per kid is a lot of money for those greedy schools, but schools in the 1980s were routinely getting 10k or more in many places and there's been some wee inflation since then.

How will you hire qualified teachers? How will you pay them? What oversight will any of these schools have? None? And magically the free market will erase all grift and abuses from the system? No private school coaches will ever molest students. No private school students will ever bring guns or knives to school. No private schools will ever be without their trusty resource officers, because there is also an infinite number of THEM who are willing to work for a small hourly fee on a contract basis so you don't have to worry about benefits....

It must be so comforting to believe in such a magic universe, Kenny.

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Kenny here.  Listen you fail to realize the innovation that would happen when MCPS teachers could leave, start her own school and actually follow science-based curricula.  They could do a lot better than your average MCPS school on Curriculum 2.0 drivel.  So Netherlands subsidizes schools?  So what?  Can’t be to the tune of 3 billion a year and 1.6 operating.  The US taxes nearly as much as Western Europe for a lot less benefits….if I’m Kenny then you are Dr. Monifa McNight leading a ship (Titanic) that’s hit an iceberg (COVID).[/quote]

Dear Kenny,

I actually know some public school teachers who left and started their own private school. Twas all rainbows and sunshine for the first four years or so, for the 90 kids they had enrolled (I think that was the max.) Then their lack of an endowment or financing caught up with them and they had to close the school because they couldn't pay the rent. I wasn't privy to how or why they went broke, but I know they did.

Obviously, as you suggest, the thing to do is for the government to pay their expenses, they collect their 16,000 per kid, and suddenly, like magic, that is apparently a "private school." And not a government one. Even if... Oh, please. Just give up. You can't win. [/quote]

You seem like a nice person who actually considered my argument.  Thank you.  Let’s explore the narrative so far.  All I am saying is we have a failing system that put its staff ahead of its customers.  The customers right now are behind and suffered real consequences for substandard product for past two years.  I know I can’t convince you or anyone who is making bank on MCPS as an employee or a consultant but schools can offer a great education on far less than 16,000 a year with clear child focused plan.  Catholic schools do it every day.  I just think a lot of innovation is being ignored by a failed monopoly.  Also, your size is making you a target for the very multinational corporations you rage against in other contexts (Pearson).  Vouchers actually improve the product for all children because that’s how humans work - on fear and greed.  Right now MCPS needs a kick in the teeth and vouchers would do it better then giving them another billion to hire more PR firms at 500000.  (Other thread) — Love, Kenny[/quote]

DP: True, It’s definitely possible to offer a great education on far less than 16,000 a year. It helps to have a clear, child focused plan.  It also helps to have financial support from other sources (Are the buildings and maintenance and extracurriculars really coming out of that 16,000?), people who will work for incredibly low pay, an involved parent body that will provide additional volunteer hours and fund raising, and, above all, the ability to pick and choose the kids they take and keep.  Many of the less expensive Catholic schools aren’t really dealing with the needs of kids with more than very mild learning issues, or behavioral issues, or even inordinately gifted kids.  I don’t say this as a criticism — but to point out that their populations are often very different, their missions are often very different, and there resources are often very different compared to most public school populations.

I’m willing to entertain your argument, but I don’t see that you’ve really made one yet.  HOW do you see vouchers actually “improve the product for all children”?  I think that they don’t. So, what’s your case — beyond rewarding fear and greed and selfishness, and perhaps wanting to blow up something just because you, like Bannon, want to see the dust and hear the boom?  
    
Underlying this, too, is that from teachers to parent volunteers, the Catholic schools that I’m most familiar with rely on underpaid labor and unpaid labor — primarily from women.  There’s quite a lot that your “far less than 16,000” is overlooking and undervaluing in ways that hardly make it a sustainable secular model.

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