Can't seem to get the kids off my mind this week.
We've observed the critical importance of education and educational opportunities here in inner city Dallas over the past 12 years. Children who receive encouragement, attention, mentoring and affirmation in connection with their schooling tend to find hope and a reason to really learn and to explore.
Whenever a conversation turns to public education, someone always asks about or champions "school choice vouchers" as an option that we all should consider. I try my best to listen to folks with this opinion. Most of the time I am able to be civil at least. But, I must admit it is getting harder and harder for me.
I think that is true because in many cases, not all I am sure, but in many cases the hidden agenda is not about the impact of vouchers on educational outcomes. There is a social ideology underneath most of these discussions. I suspect the hidden agenda is about race, class, perceptions around safety and even moral norms and mores as defined and conceived by those who push vouchers.
I've noticed that one simple observation, couched in a question, seems to turn these conversations upside down.
Recently, I was having such a discussion with a school leader from another county. The subject of vouchers came up. So, I asked my question.
"How many private school desks are in your county today?"
My new friend pondered for a moment and then he replied, "Probably 500 or less."
"And, how many students in the county who need an education today?" I followed up.
"Something over 20,000," he quickly replied.
"So, given these numbers, why are we even having a conversation about vouchers?"
There is an answer to that question, but it has nothing to do with educating our children, not all of them, not even a good percentage of them.
Jeremy Gregg, Director of Development here at CDM, did a bit of research on this matter for us. You may have seen his comments on an earlier post this week. It is more good, reality-based information to keep in mind.
Check this out:http://www.dallasrelo.com/privateschools.html
Dallas has a MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT of 21,570 in the private school system.
The DISD reports here that its Elementary School Enrollment Projections Fall 2005 stand at 98,146. This does not include middle schools or high schools.
There is no question: vouchers are not a solution if the challenge is the education of all of our children.
No, vouchers take us somewhere else. They provide "solutions" to other "problems" and they answer other questions, often unspoken questions.
Can we just be honest?
13 comments:
I hadn't really thought that way about vouchers before. Thanks for opening my eyes to this possible dark side.
But what do you think about another popularly touted educational reform plan -- school choice, to encourage competition among schools. Do you think something like this would benefit minorities? I'd like to have more of a clue than I do now.
All good posts. Thanks!
Please understand, when we speak of "school choice" and vouchers, we are speaking of two different things. Sorry for any confusion my post may have created.
Vouchers represent public funds that can be used to pay tuition in a private school--like a church school, etc., as Ivan pointed out. My main point was that there aren't enough slots available to make the voucher route viable, plus I think there is something else up with all of that besides concern for high quality education.
Choice is the freedom a student has to attend any public school in a school district.
Larry,
One question on school choice - how do we handle safety? If we stay in our current home, our kids will attend schools that are substantially less safe statistically. I'm OK taking risks myself, but I have trouble sending children into a school that has a significant chance of harming them.
Just curious as to your thoughts.
Charles
Great question, Charles.
To begin with, I am not completely opposed to school choice in a public school district--I just don't think vouchers should be issued to allow students to leave public schools for the private route. Choice might be an option for your children.
Having said that, I can almost guarantee that if you stay and are involved in the school where your kids attend, things will improve there as you band together with other partents, etc.
How would you use a voucher to attend anything but a private school? Do you mean a voucher could be used to pay to go to a public school district where you did not reside? I was not aware of such arrangements. I am not sure that such exists in Texas, but I could definitely be wrong.
I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of vouchers are used to pay for private education.
The way I understand things right now is that if a child is attending a school classified as low-performing, they do have the option of going to a different school. However, many parents (as Ivan mentioned) do not have the transportation and means to go back and forth to a school that is somewhere away from the community. Though the outside/private schools may be "better" in terms of education, parents like having their children close where they can get to them if they need to. To me, vouchers seem to be a way of taking money out of the community. Instead, why don't they focus on making the schools within our communities better resourced, higher quality, etc?
dallasfan: " Is it a problem with monies or is there something else that is the root of the problem."
Schools do not have problems. They have messes, which are bundles of many problems.
That being said, the lack of money is one of the largest problems. Imagine a for-profit company that is in the business of building widgets.
- To build a high-quality widget (i.e. a kid that can go to college), it costs $1.
- To build a widget that won't break (i.e. a kid that graduates), it costs $.50.
- To build a widget that might break, but which probably won't (i.e. a kid that just drops out), it costs $.10.
They have $1,000 starting capital.
The demand is 100,000 widgets.
What should they do?
p.s. a bad answer would be "buy 1,000 lottery tickets"
O, wait a minute, isn't that the exact solution that our state has for school funding?
Actually I don't think the lottery money has gone to education (except as an incentive to learn probability), but it sounds good in election years.
I believe he said "the lack of money is one of the largest problems," not THE problem.
Your point is well taken, those girls should have been suspended. But his point is also well taken: one of the primary drivers behind the mess is the lack of appropriate funding. I think this is more significant a problem than blaming administrators, which is an excellent smoke-screen for disguising an arugment for decreasing funding of public schools.
When will we understand that simply throwing more money at a problem will no solve it?
A big step in the right direction would be to completely reform or do away with the N.E.A.
Beyond that, bring choice and competition in. When you have choice and competition, prices go down and quality goes up.
It's the American way.
--
All or nothing, huh, Jeff? Sort of like WalMart and its impact on wages. Real quality improvement there, huh? Come on, man.
You are right that there is an underlying agenda. Education is one of the primary services which private companies are trying to pry away from governments all over the world. The idea of vouchers has been misused (this coming from a former voucher nut) to lull people into thinking that they could get their kids into that private school using government money, especially that good catholic school where they are not afraid to talk about God. The problem is that most private schools perform better because of selective enrollment, and can use price descrimination to maintain this advantage in the presence of vouchers. But there is probably some corporation (or soon will be) which will provide the lowest cost education solution to children all over the world. Call it the Walmart School. It wont be any better than what we get now, it may very well be worse, it will be as buerocratic as the cable company is when a parent has a problem, and it most definitely will not have much religious diversity, as it will be designed to be portable to any country in the world with just a metal shed and some computers. If only we could do what England, Canada, Australia, and just about every other country in the world does, and allow public money to fund religious schools who meet certain fundamental education provision criteria.
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