I don’t disagree that there are many, many problems in public education. I have seen them firsthand as a teacher and a parent who had three kids in MCPS. That said, vouchers will never be a positive thing for our country. I would have liked a voucher for one of mine who we needed to pull out of public because it did not work for her and it was hard financially. But....and it’s a big but...if we take money away from public education the kids who have parents that aren’t savvy or who do not speak English, they will just attend a worse institution. The long term impacts on society would be huge. We would have an even larger equity gap. Maybe the me first generation doesn’t care about those other kids but I do. They will be my kids coworkers and my kids will have to pay when they aren’t properly educated. What we need is to reevaluate the entire system. Find the inequities that are built into the system and fix them. We can’t just let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Maybe I feel so strongly because I am a first generation college grad that made more money at 22 than my dad did at retirement. If it weren’t for public school, I would still be in my small town and super poor. Instead, I actually made it. There are millions of kids just like me in our schools today. Let’s at least give them a chance.

Anonymous wrote: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.

As a former special ed teacher in a private school, who also worked in public, I agree.

I wish the money that the public schools were given for dual enrolled children (those the public school tested, identified and wrote an IEP for, but the parent chose to pay for private school instead) could be transferred to the parent to offset the cost of the private school tuition or for the services like OT/PT/Speech, that the parents then have to pay for out of pocket. Instead, the public school keeps the funding associated with those children, and calls every quarter to say, "what should I put for progress, private school teacher?".

The private school should have that $$ to pay for training, supplies, or hourly services like OG tutors, speech or counselors. The school system gets to keep the child on the roster, but is not obligated to actually provide bus service, books, and their class sizes are smaller.

There should be vouchers for special services 1st.

Anonymous wrote:Unions protect workers, because big companies won't do it. In places where unions are strong, wages are strong and there is less income inequality. The GOP has been gutting them for years, whittling away at union strongholds (looking at you Scott Walker/Wisconsin).

Stop these unnecessary potshots - do you really think Jack Smith, with his cockamamie plan was ever going to open schools this year? Or that Marc Elrich or Dr Gayles would have let him? NO

Unions aren’t even that effective at addressing income inequality. We’ve seen plenty of strong unions being perfectly happy to throw new/young workers under the bus. You see that in education, too, where there’s no good reason to have teachers getting paid hugely different amounts to do the same jobs, with the same level of responsibility, efficiency, and efficacy.

Unions protect workers, because big companies won't do it. In places where unions are strong, wages are strong and there is less income inequality. The GOP has been gutting them for years, whittling away at union strongholds (looking at you Scott Walker/Wisconsin).

Stop these unnecessary potshots - do you really think Jack Smith, with his cockamamie plan was ever going to open schools this year? Or that Marc Elrich or Dr Gayles would have let him? NO

Totally changed my mind on vouchers. FCPS has failed miserably. They have no incentive to provide a good education. They get all the $ anyway.

Fairfax county should definitely provide vouchers for families who want a choice.

No, if anything I am against them more.

I've long been in favor of vouchers. My kids went through MCPS and the curriculum was hideous (even before 2.0). Giving public schools more money won't fix the problem when the problem is the system. While I disagree that MCPS is "one of the best school districts in the nation", I think it is probably one of the best-funded school systems in the nation, which enabled them to develop that abomination of a curriculum.

MCPS does offer some fabulous opportunities. My kids took advantage of these, and I'm grateful. However, a kid who doesn't master basic arithmetic in elementary isn't going to be able to tackle magnet math, and a child who can't read well is going to struggle through a basic education, let alone tackle AP/IB classes.

My kids did very well, but I taught them how to read, how to hold a pencil, how to write (print and cursive), basic grammar, how to use a dictionary, restricted calculator use at home, and other miscellaneous topics along the way. If a charter school had been available that offered a strong, content rich curriculum, I would have jumped at it.

I was on a curriculum committee for the curriculum that preceded 2.0. I saw firsthand not only how bad the curriculum was, but how bad the process was. The developers were driven by dogma.

I am firmly convinced that much of the success MCPS loves to brag about is either individual teachers going around the curriculum (one of DD's teachers used the grammar curriculum from her daughter's private school to teach her class) or from well-educated parents who fill in gaps either at home like I did, or at one of the multitude of tutoring centers. Not all parents have the educational background, time, and/or money to recognize the gaps and address them. Charters would have given them an opportunity to provide their children a strong education, and might have provided MCPS an incentive to chang its own practices. Since MCPS has consistently blocked charters, vouchers would have made private alternatives more accessible.

Yes, but more in favor of non-profit charters now. Public schools are a failure and unions have too much power. I’m happy Biden won for lots of reasons, but he’s probably going to throw money at teachers unions and not change k-12 for the better. I know people are not only not catholic, but not christian, in parochial schools this year because of public schools failings.

No, absolutely not. I rather pay more taxes to specifically fund a better quality education in public school.

Anonymous wrote:No. I’m still strongly opposed to him. We don’t need to hollow out our public schools further in response to what is a temporary situation. If anything we should double down on funding public schools.

Get rid of teachers unions and tenure and I'd agree with you. It's hard to support public schools right now when the teachers are so committed to the failure of the students.

No. I’m still strongly opposed to him. We don’t need to hollow out our public schools further in response to what is a temporary situation. If anything we should double down on funding public schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The latter is what people on this board don't get. They think a voucher will make their coveted $50K school cost $40K -- but they still won't get in, and they'll still be charged $50K. Vouchers come with strings attached and the fancy schools don't need that money and don't want to be beholden. They also will then have to prove the voucher is being put to good use -- usually by standardized testing of the states' choosing -- another testing company boondoggle that eats up all the benefit of the voucher from the school's point of view.

DP. Stop being so condescending. I have always understood that aspect of vouchers. I used to be opposed to them, and I still think they have significant problems. But after watching how terribly public schools and the unions have handled this, and how happy they are to abandon the education of kids, probably for years, I have had enough. Vouchers can't be any worse at this point. Let's give them a try. Put a family income cap on them. But let's give vulnerable kids and families better options.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Private schools have always existed. The competition you speak of has always been there. Public service entities to do not compete in the free marker the way for profit entities do. That isn't what they exist for and that is not how they will ever operate.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The latter is what people on this board don't get. They think a voucher will make their coveted $50K school cost $40K -- but they still won't get in, and they'll still be charged $50K. Vouchers come with strings attached and the fancy schools don't need that money and don't want to be beholden. They also will then have to prove the voucher is being put to good use -- usually by standardized testing of the states' choosing -- another testing company boondoggle that eats up all the benefit of the voucher from the school's point of view.

Raising a child with an IEP did it for me - but glad with the pandemic the majority are now seeing it. What’s not to like - focuses the money on the child — where it always should have been. MCPS and FCPS could care less about your kid.

Public schools are utterly failing - and have been for 50 years. Cram schools in my W district are much, much better. I will take AoPS over curriculum 2.0, thank you very much. Most catholic schools give a GREAT education for the cost of an average voucher. (Let alone the 14,000 supposedly Maryland spends per child to have them rank 31st in Reading and 34th in math on NAEP)

Let’s follow the Netherlands - certainly the most right wing nation that ever was formed with their universal healthcare. There is a public option if you want to choose it - but much, much smaller and has to compete.