Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you take your child out of MCPS if there was a private school voucher program so Montgomery County residents had school choice?

It would hollow out public education so that private would be the only option but the right loves to privatize everything.

This is such a facile argument. Let's see... number of students goes down, so yes, we don't need as many buildings (those will be sold to privates) and don't need as many teachers, so they'll have to compete for their jobs or go look elsewhere. But, the smaller number of students still has the right amount of buildings, teachers, buses, a proportionate amount of funding AND they have an administration and teachers who will actually try to meet their needs, so their parents don't pull them out next year. Yup, sounds hollowed out to me.

So what makes you think that firing a lot of people and closing a lot of buildings is going to "maintain the proportionate amount of funding" if you want to talk about facile arguments tell me how that's going to work

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great way to shift wealth towards the wealthy while reducing effectiveness for the rest by decimating economies of scale. It's a win-win for the self-centered, with the added bonuses of 1) being able to note the resulting degradation of public education as a support for the "need" to continue voucher programs and 2) being able to subsidize single-view religious teaching.

But, hey, there's always one or two edge cases from the rest to whom they can point as benefitting. "See, in America, anyone can get ahead. Let the invisible hand of the market do its thing!"

What a crock...

Ha ha! What are the "economies of scale" that provide benefits to MCPS consumers? The top notch curriculum generated by their Central Office? School lunches? Of, never mind, subsidized by the Feds. HR? Talk to the applicants who don't hear back for months. Etc. Your whole logic is disjointed. If public schools are left with fewer high needs students perhaps they can specialize.

I think it would be the opposite it would be most likely that the highest needs students will be the ones who don't get school choice because only a few select schools cater to students with IEPs and there aren't a lot of private schools with esol programs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you take your child out of MCPS if there was a private school voucher program so Montgomery County residents had school choice?

Sure, if you want to ruin any chance of an average family getting their kids a great education.

yeah, giving families MORE choice really ruins that

Again, please provide a list of secular private schools that will accept the voucher for the entire tuition.
Maybe add to that the number of available openings.
Are you really suggesting that if ALL families want private school choices, the options are there?

why would there be a list for something that does not yet exist?

How about this just give us a list of secular schools that have a tuition that is less than or equal to $16,000. Most private schools in the area are super expensive if they're not being subsidized by the Catholic church

This. And even the Catholic Church subsidized ones are in the 20-25k range. Also there is additional cost for lunch and transportation. Also tuition rises each year by about 3%(this year some rose 5-7%. While some privates address a range of special needs, many do not address much beyond mild ADHD and possibly dyslexia.

It be real interesting to watch even more families wade through the application and interview process for this small number of seats.

What will also be interesting will be what happens with the kids who have IEPs. Kids are guaranteed an appropriate public education that meets their needs. Only a few kids will be able to get spots at places like the Lab school. Do private schools have any legal requirement at all to fulfill IDEA services? I’m guessing that they don’t. So parents of special needs kids, including many who were mainstreamed with special services like speech and language or academic support or behavioral support, will all be fighting over a small number of slots, since many private schools will not have the resources— and may not want to have the resources — to accommodate all of these kids.

Exactly. The grass looks greener at private schools because it’s a specially selected small population, that can always be counseled out to another school or back to public. People also OVERestimate how much of a voice private school parents actually have in decisions made about the school. They also generally have a board, and not just anyone serves on it.

And if it's a parochial school, it's the priest with the final say.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you take your child out of MCPS if there was a private school voucher program so Montgomery County residents had school choice?

Sure, if you want to ruin any chance of an average family getting their kids a great education.

yeah, giving families MORE choice really ruins that

Again, please provide a list of secular private schools that will accept the voucher for the entire tuition.
Maybe add to that the number of available openings.
Are you really suggesting that if ALL families want private school choices, the options are there?

why would there be a list for something that does not yet exist?

How about this just give us a list of secular schools that have a tuition that is less than or equal to $16,000. Most private schools in the area are super expensive if they're not being subsidized by the Catholic church

This. And even the Catholic Church subsidized ones are in the 20-25k range. Also there is additional cost for lunch and transportation. Also tuition rises each year by about 3%(this year some rose 5-7%. While some privates address a range of special needs, many do not address much beyond mild ADHD and possibly dyslexia.

It be real interesting to watch even more families wade through the application and interview process for this small number of seats.

What will also be interesting will be what happens with the kids who have IEPs. Kids are guaranteed an appropriate public education that meets their needs. Only a few kids will be able to get spots at places like the Lab school. Do private schools have any legal requirement at all to fulfill IDEA services? I’m guessing that they don’t. So parents of special needs kids, including many who were mainstreamed with special services like speech and language or academic support or behavioral support, will all be fighting over a small number of slots, since many private schools will not have the resources— and may not want to have the resources — to accommodate all of these kids.

Exactly. The grass looks greener at private schools because it’s a specially selected small population, that can always be counseled out to another school or back to public. People also OVERestimate how much of a voice private school parents actually have in decisions made about the school. They also generally have a board, and not just anyone serves on it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you take your child out of MCPS if there was a private school voucher program so Montgomery County residents had school choice?

It would hollow out public education so that private would be the only option but the right loves to privatize everything.

This is such a facile argument. Let's see... number of students goes down, so yes, we don't need as many buildings (those will be sold to privates) and don't need as many teachers, so they'll have to compete for their jobs or go look elsewhere. But, the smaller number of students still has the right amount of buildings, teachers, buses, a proportionate amount of funding AND they have an administration and teachers who will actually try to meet their needs, so their parents don't pull them out next year. Yup, sounds hollowed out to me.

This is not how this works in reality because there is not necessarily large scale change equal numbers of places all at once it happens over time.

Say for instance five students leave next year. Well nothing about a public elementary school would change cost wise. There “might” be some smaller class sizes if all the students were in the same grade, but more than likely they’ll be across grades so you still need the same number of classes, the same building, same number of teachers, etc. In fact the only change is the school lost funding for 5 students. The second year, 10 students leave. Now you’ve lost funding for 15 students, and maybe can eliminate one or two teacher’s somewhere to save cost, but doing so will also mean class sizes are bigger. And the teacher’s gone doesn’t cover the lost of funding 15 students. Year three this continues, with the principal eliminating things and trying new strategies to allocate personnel and students, while improving academics and extracurriculars and dealing with losing funds.

Anonymous wrote:Econ 101: Give $10K vouchers to lots of people, privates will raise tuition since there's so much more money floating around.

+1

Most privates are full these days so vouchers wouldn't matter anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Boom.

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.

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).

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.

It’s interesting to read this and to skim through some of the comments in the thread about the Whittle School. I wonder how many parents will expect that the public schools will always be available as safety net options for their kids if their plans for subsidized private schools don’t work out well.

Anonymous wrote:Econ 101: Give $10K vouchers to lots of people, privates will raise tuition since there's so much more money floating around.

Law 101: The $16,000 estimated for each kid's public education DOES NOT belong to the parents. It belongs to the taxpayers - if the schools are closing, I want my money back. You can pay for your own private school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you take your child out of MCPS if there was a private school voucher program so Montgomery County residents had school choice?

Sure, if you want to ruin any chance of an average family getting their kids a great education.

yeah, giving families MORE choice really ruins that

Again, please provide a list of secular private schools that will accept the voucher for the entire tuition.
Maybe add to that the number of available openings.
Are you really suggesting that if ALL families want private school choices, the options are there?

why would there be a list for something that does not yet exist?

How about this just give us a list of secular schools that have a tuition that is less than or equal to $16,000. Most private schools in the area are super expensive if they're not being subsidized by the Catholic church

This. And even the Catholic Church subsidized ones are in the 20-25k range. Also there is additional cost for lunch and transportation. Also tuition rises each year by about 3%(this year some rose 5-7%. While some privates address a range of special needs, many do not address much beyond mild ADHD and possibly dyslexia.

It be real interesting to watch even more families wade through the application and interview process for this small number of seats.

What will also be interesting will be what happens with the kids who have IEPs. Kids are guaranteed an appropriate public education that meets their needs. Only a few kids will be able to get spots at places like the Lab school. Do private schools have any legal requirement at all to fulfill IDEA services? I’m guessing that they don’t. So parents of special needs kids, including many who were mainstreamed with special services like speech and language or academic support or behavioral support, will all be fighting over a small number of slots, since many private schools will not have the resources— and may not want to have the resources — to accommodate all of these kids.

Econ 101: Give $10K vouchers to lots of people, privates will raise tuition since there's so much more money floating around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Boom.

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.

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).

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

$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.

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?

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Boom.

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.

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).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

$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.

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?

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.