Comment by from-nibly

Comment by from-nibly 5 days ago

But those kids who are "being left behind" are good to have vouchers too. You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them?

I had a bunch of random teachers teach really dumb stuff while I was in public school. I don't believe those things, because I had parents who were involved in my education. It's never a good idea to leave your kids education to the whims of someone else.

Public school doesn't have some magic monopoly on good ideas. And private/voucher schools aren't going to have a monopoly on bad ones.

Why would the kids not be able to leave public schools? They will all have vouchers?

vel0city 5 days ago

> You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them?

Spending a second of logic on it and thinking critically, there won't. Why would a school empowered to be choosy and subject to profit motivations choose the pricier students to specialize that reduce their rankings?

And why do you think a flood of schools arguing germ theory is a lie be a public good?

I went to religious private school and too had teachers who taught some bullshit things. Dinosaurs were fakes buried in the soil by the devil to test believers. Evolution is a lie by the government. And yet by personal experience I'm more learned than the average public school peer I know. I'm a somewhat special person though; I know many in my class that still believe without question. It's not a good thing for society overall to have such "knowledge".

As for why kids wouldn't be able to leave the public schools, some schools will be required to provide transportation. Others won't. Some will be able to be choosy, some won't. You see where this goes? Those schools which are choosey and don't provide transportation will end up selecting the most well off while those unable to be choosy and/or forced to provide transportation will be forced to shoulder those who aren't good performers who don't get into the choosy schools with a transit scholarship.

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SV_BubbleTime 4 days ago

Ok, so… you went to some self-described example a school you are complaining about, turned out great, and are upset that kids might not keep going to known-failing schools?
Maybe… there is more to school than facts? Maybe it’s about order and discipline and shared values too?

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- lmm 4 days ago
  
  > Maybe… there is more to school than facts? Maybe it’s about order and discipline and shared values too?
  Maybe status-quo bias is so powerful that people will see an institution that fails at literally everything it tries to do and instead of concluding that it's a failing institution they will pick some other random thing and decide the institution must actually be about that, because the idea that the institution is actually pointless is too horrible to contemplate.
  
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ndriscoll 5 days ago

> I went to religious private school and too had teachers who taught some bullshit things... And yet by personal experience I'm more learned than the average public school peer I know.
Should that not give you pause about the general quality of the schools you're defending? Do you not see where parents might see you in fundie school learning about how man rode the dinosaurs alongside a public school kid that somehow knows even less than you about history or biology, and think "hmm maybe I'd like to find something else"?

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- vel0city 4 days ago
  
  > Should that not give you pause about the general quality of the schools you're defending?
  No, because I've seen the average of the extremist schools which will grow with the voucher program and they're far worse than the negatives I experienced. Education like Eve gives Adam two apples, how many apples does Adam have; it doesn't matter Jesus will come soon here's another chapter of the KJV.
  
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  ndriscoll 4 days ago
  
  Except there's no reason to believe extremist schools should grow significantly. Most people aren't extremists (pretty much by definition). In fact, good schools are a usual top tier concern when looking at housing. Your worry about fly-by-night schools extracting profits and fleeing is also not particularly hard to solve: hold them liable for damages/a return of n years of voucher funds if the school fails to meet standards and require them to carry insurance or post a bond to prove they can meet their liability. High performing schools or new schools associated to people/organizations with a previous success record will have cheap premiums. Dodgy schools will have expensive premiums or will be uninsurable. Your worry about special ed is also not that complex: give higher funds for those kids to offset their higher cost.
  
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