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]No.  I don't think that private schools are better than MCPS.

However, if there are private magnet schools under the supervision of MCPS and state education department, and if they can take MCPS kids who are magnet material but are rejected because they have a cohort in their home school, and MCPS can demonstrate quantitatively that they are top students  - I am all for the voucher for these students.

Also, if there is a private special ed school that is extremely good and under MCPS supervision and state education department, and MCPS can objectively demonstrate that some MCPS student will be well served in such a school - I am all for the voucher for these students too.

In the case of both kinds of students - there has to be also a high income threshold of perhaps 300K.  And a voucher of not more than 10K.

Each year, MCPS and MD dept of educatuon, must evaluate the student as well as the school to give out the voucher. [/quote]

If you’re capping the voucher at 10 k, you’re basically saying that no kids will be able to use vouchers unless there parent already have quirpte a bit of money to spend on their education.

Maybe the third time will be the charm:  My ask is for someone to tell me the names of a few secular private schools that cost the amount of whatever you imagine the vouchers will be. If you want to cap it at 10k, do you know of an actual, secular school that charges 10 k — all-inclusive?  If not, you’re just using the tax dollars — including dollars from poorer households and households without kids — to subsidize private education for wealthier families. And that is unconscionable.  [/quote]

Montgomery County ------------ $16,005

With changes in regulations, and no need to pay top dollar for public employees, parents could pool that money and create pods, so could churches, etc.  That's what charters are supposed to be, but of course Montgomery County shot down every attempt at creating a charter.[/quote]

$16,005 would be enough for our family to pull our special needs child out of MCPS. We would be able to make up the difference.

The alternative is taking MCPS to Due Process after two years of neglecting my child’s needs. MCPS does not have the staff the IEP requires. Because of regression during online learning, he now needs more than MCPS has on his IEP. MCPS would save the staffing expenses for the service providers. My son would get the service at a private who has the staffing. [/quote]

You are delusional or imaginary and it's probably cruel of me to say if it's the former.

If you can afford private school why did you sit on your ass for two years and let your child regress? Will be the question you will be asked. I suspect. To which you will respond, why doesn't MCPS have the staff he needs? Where is their magical staff summoning wand? Can't they borrow it from the magical private school that will admit your son and has all the resources it needs to admit 3,000 kids just like him? [/quote]
DP.. but I think the ^PP is saying that they could make up the difference, not that they had the $ to finance private school now without the voucher.

Even so, if more and more kids go to private school, they will be huge. You won't get the small class sizes and individualized attention.  They may hire more staff, but then have to raise tuition.  Your SN kid would get lost in the shuffle.    
Or, they would limit the number of acceptances, and so your kid wouldn't get in.

You would essentially end up in the same boat as in MCPS, expect at least in public schools are accountable, FOIA, teachers are credentialed. etc..  Private schools don't have any of that.
[/quote]

I know what they're saying. You're right... Sort of, but you're wrong about what will happen.i think.

Private schools will not magically expand to fill the niche needs of all the students who need services. Tell me, has sidwell opened new branches to admit thousands of qualified students? Bad example? Okay. Has Lab?

Are they waiting on vouchers to do so?

The thing about a free market is it doesn't have to meet a need it doesn't want to meet, or it is free to meet the need in a half-assed shoddy way that will collapse when its parking garage floods, because repairs were too expensive.

It also doesn't meet it overnight.

I'm not against charters. I did send my kid to one for a while and it wasn't terrible. But here's what I saw:

Waves and waves of churn. It's like real estate speculation, or venture capitalism. Small schools with one plan or another will open up with cheerful names like "the Hope School of Justice and Nice Unicorns." Some benevolent foundation will lend them money to build or refit a building. They will have brochures and slide shows and mailings. Success Academy used to blanket Brooklyn with mailings. Maybe that's illegal  in DC, but I've seen the bus ads. The school will hire staff with less security and fewer qualifications than public schools so. And a lot of those people will be wonderful and dedicated and wanting to make a change.

The school will be popular and succeed or it won't be. But there will be ten of them for every large public. All with their own spin. Some profit and some non-profit. Some with ideologies that favor one social class or another. In many places this will boil down to progressive schools for Larla and strict schools for Leroy.

Some people will note that it's easier to make money off Leroy. And they will do so.

Some kids will change schools like you change shoes. Some schools will close in a year or two leaving their families to struggle. Some schools will, as I said, be great places. And some of those might even do the right thing and expand. Some will make it. Some will not.

There will be fragmented continuity. Records of kids will be lost. (Ours was going from DCCPS to Moco. And no one ever told me until the year my kid graduated.)

It will be more expensive.

You think kids with problems are bounced from school to school now?

It will happen without a central office doing oversight.

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