<p>Strange, I didn’t even apply to Harvard. Thanks for letting me know I view myself as a complete and total failure! I’ll cry myself to sleep every night for being forced to end up at my non-Ivy trashbag of a university. And geez, I wonder how I’ll be able to reconcile my AON-type attitude with sending in a transfer application to my lower-ranked flagship state U.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad - Ah okay, I see what you’re saying. But even if they’re two separate issues, it just rubs me the wrong way when AA-opponents claim they’d rather address the root cause of the problem, but don’t actually put their money (or time) where their mouth is.</p>
<p>browninfall - Then it’s too bad people don’t seem to want to put the same amount of effort into pushing education reform re: school choice (or other suggestions) as they do into ending AA. I do have some misgivings about school choice based on what’s happened in New Zealand but then again it certainly can’t hurt to try something different. If the AA-debate being resolved would put more of a focus on those kinds of issues then I could get behind those calling for its immediate end.</p>
<p>Okay, I think you’re saying that the achievement gap at the college-level isn’t a problem? Most elite colleges have definitely done a decent job of recruiting minority applicants so I’m not sure you can say that an entire ethnic group aspires to a different set of colleges than another, unless everyone follows your restaurant model of college choice (i.e. going to the best place they can get into).</p>
<p>I’m also not entirely sure of what that has to do with closing the achievement gap at an early age (i.e. elementary school), which is what I’d like to get more attention from those on both sides of the AA-debate. Unless you don’t think that’s a problem either?</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying though. I’m getting a lot of uneccessary grief about my possible transfer to a “lesser” school. I just think you were misguided in applying that sentiment to me. I’ve gotten into enough of these arguments to know better than to single someone out when making generalizations or assumptions. :p</p>
The tax dollars are already going to those people as well as everyone else with kids in school - never mind the fact that it’s really their money anyway - they’re the ones who paid the taxes in the first place. The wealthy aren’t evil, I’m grateful for everyone who earns more money than me and who generally speaking, pay more taxes than I do. If the only way to make the vouchers work up front is to limit the distribution of them, then I suppose there could be an income cutoff for the benefit as there already is for many other tax benefits.</p>
<p>
Okay - so let the government set a required minimum of non-religiously related course hours in order receive voucher money. If they choose to do religious studies beyond these hours, that’d be outside of the purview of the government as it is now. Let it be required that the students at the schools must meet certain levels on state tests (like the ‘Star’ exam in California) or else that school can be cut off from being a voucher recipient.</p>
<p>I think the correct approach to this is to see how to make it work - not find any way possible to stop it. Let’s try it.</p>
<p>I think one suggested approach is a lottery distribution of vouchers with lower-income families having a higher chance of winning one. That is, assuming we can’t afford to extend the same degree of choice to everyone.</p>
<p>I was picturing more of a threshold so that anyone below a certain income level would get the voucher option. Preferably, the threshold would be raised as workable such that there would no longer be any threshold.</p>
<p>The reason I mentioned a lottery is that if cost is no longer an issue in choosing where you send your kids, some schools are inevitably going to be faced with an excess of hopeful students. I believe this is what happened in New Zealand, which is why some schools introduced a lottery system for which families were accepted. </p>
<p>Of course I’m basing this on a study I read over a year ago so my memory is a bit hazy, to say the least.</p>
<p>I think I mis-interpreted your earlier post. I thought you meant a lottery for the student receiving the voucher rather than the school accepting the voucher.</p>
<p>There wouldn’t be the infrastucture at first for all those wishing to switch from public to private but our fine capitalist system will soon fill that void.</p>
<p>I think the single biggest benefit will likely be introducing the concept of competition into the public school system and having them be held accountable. This alone will likely cause many school districts to re-think how they’ll be able to truly serve their customers. Let the money, in the hands of those who need it, talk.</p>
<p>“I suppose there could be an income cutoff for the benefit as there already is for many other tax benefits.”</p>
<p>This would go a long way toward making vouchers palatable to myself and other left-leaners. The rich people are not getting that money back right now, for the most part, because either they send their kids to private schools, or they live in little enclaves where they pay “property taxes” that are better labeled tuition. There are very few rich people sending their kids to public schools in the same districts where there are a lot of struggling schools, famous magnets such as Stuyvesant in NYC being the exception to the rule.</p>
<p>I’m all for introducing different incentives that teachers’ unions oppose, particularly hazard pay for those who volunteer to teach in deeply troubled neighborhoods. But I don’t necessarily buy that introducing competition, by itself, will bring about the benefits that it can in other industries. Most of those troubled schools are in such dire straits because of the chaos that kids go home to, which leads to burnout and lots of teacher turnover. Based on my limited experience as a volunteer in Chicago, it isn’t because the teachers don’t care or aren’t trying hard already. A 3d grader who’s crashing with his cousins because his mom’s on smack, and who’s going to bed at midnight and living on Pop-Tarts…there’s no way to “serve that customer” that will give you good results. Schools alone just can’t do it; not even if you sent the kid to Dalton.</p>