<p>I am a person of great faith. All of my children have attended Lutheran schools at one time or another, and two will graduate from Catholic High Schools (God willing). We all contribute time and money to faith based organizations. However, I still don’t want my tax dollars to pay for it. I just don’t think that’s appropriate.</p>
<p>Jonri,
I thought I read that the step daughter is 15, but I’m on my phone so will have to check later.</p>
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<p>It probably means something to Damon. In the anti-reform community charters are seen as removing resources and involved families from the “real” public schools, so I doubt he would even consider enrolling a kid there. </p>
<p>Presumably there are real public schools in his area as well, but chances are they are constrained by required testing and text book marketers’ impacts on curriculum that he would not support.</p>
<p>Given what a huge moral dilemma it apparently was for him to send his kids private in LA, it sounds like they went public in NY. Presumably to schools that were “progressive enough” and, I’m guessing, weren’t charters.</p>
<p>Good for you that you can afford to send your kids to good schools. What about poor kids that are trapped in bad public schools? Why not give them vouchers so they have a choice of going to better schools? If public schools are so good, they shouldn’t fear competition.</p>
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If you parent your kids well and value education, they will succeed anywhere. One of my daughters graduated from a public high school in the ghetto. My other child graduated from an economically and racially diverse middle school.</p>
<p>I could support vouchers to send “poor kids trapped in bad public schools” to a better public school in a more affluent neighborhood.</p>
<p>Have you seen the graduation rates or reading levels for inner city public schools? Obviously a lot of kids are not succeeding.</p>
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<p>…as long as they were equally available to all “poor kids trapped in bad public schools” who want to get out. And I’d delete the phrase “in a more affluent neighborhood.” But, yes, I could be more supportive of a model that gave families greater choice among secular, public schools.</p>
<p>I am totally fine with vouchers. As long as they are privately funded. If you want to adopt a kid and pay his tuition, then God bless you.
Also, remember that reading volunteers in the younger grades can change lives for absolutely no money.</p>
<p>If you haven’t read it, here’s the Save Our Schools" text. From what he says, complains about, “should” he send his kids to any public he feels is off track?
<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>“I could support vouchers to send “poor kids trapped in bad public schools” to a better public school in a more affluent neighborhood.”</p>
<p>They tried that with busing and the people who abandoned the public schools after that for religious schools (most of which popped up overnight) are the same ones who now want tax payer funded vouchers for parochial schools.</p>
<p>Matt Damon is not asking anyone to pay for his kids’ private school tuition. He earns his money and it is the business of the parents of the children to decide how to educate them and how to spend their money.</p>
<p>Just a note: what a sweet idea to have vouchers in Los Angeles! When last I heard Notre Dame, a Catholic high school in the valley was $15,0000 a year. That was a LONG time ago. Most of the schools I mentioned are $35,000 plus. And let us not forget the voluntary contributions. So, the voucher for…10,000 a year? Even taking tuition down that much…seriously? I find it amusing that I of all people am saying seriously? Very few families can afford that. Really cute.</p>
<p>Textbooks? Did I mention that my youngest child had David Schwimmer’s text book? He graduated 30 years ago? I do imagine that sooner rather than later all textbooks will be online.</p>
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And that is a complicated situation for which vouchers are at best a weak solution. My wife was a teacher, and I know people who went to some appalling inner city schools. Many of those kids have abandoned education as a solution to their problems, and have embraced drugs, crime, violence, or nihilism instead. Teachers at those schools are forced to address or at least contain these issues, which eats into their ability to teach (and therefore turns off teachers who really WANT to teach!).</p>
<p>Vouchers do not help those kids one iota. Vouchers gives a way for “good” kids to be separated from “bad” kids. This would be fine if both groups were then helped in the areas in which they need help, but that is not the case. With vouchers, good kids are helped (a little: see later on) but the bad kids are all but abandoned. I do not call that a solution.</p>
<p>Another issue is the way that private schools work. Private schools, lacking a mandate to accept everyone, often apply screens that artificially inflate their performance. That is, by only accepting the “good” kids, they can appear superior not by raising the performance but simply by eliminating/abandoning the worst performers.</p>
<p>Private schools CAN do great things, and many do, but the norm is no better than public schools, and often at greater cost.</p>
<p>I have an issue for giving vouchers to religious schools I don’t philosophically agree with. For the separation of church and state to exist, my tax money can’t be used to fund an expansion of religious beliefs. Vouchers for elite public schools lead to a flight of the existing children into private schools. Thus, a quagmire that leaves only one good solution, either improve existing schools or outsource. I am not saying I have all of the answers, just expressing my disagreement with funding religious schools.</p>
<p>Matt Damon isn’t a hypocrite. What may be good for society isn’t always good for every individual. Since he has the money, he is free to have options.</p>
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<p>yes. As far as I can tell, the folks behind the whole voucher idea ultimately want to do away with public education altogether and this is just a step in that direction. Then the “poor” kids have no option.</p>
<p>Z, my kids went to a high performing racially and economically diverse inner city Catholic school for elementary/middle school.</p>
<p>Many of those, like Damon, who can afford to send their kids to $35,000 a year private schools live in areas where the public schools are excellent. Some of my neighbors are in that category. But there’s a cachet in going to a private. When I said my kids went to our public schools, I’d get that pained look, as if, poor dear. It is a status thing.</p>
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It’s not fair to use other people’s children for one’s political statement either (referring to my point below about vouchers, etc.).</p>
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This is a good point. The ‘better schools’ almost invariably follow the money since there’s more money available to the schools, the chances are better than one or both parents graduated college, the chances are good the kid got an earlier start in education both at home and formally in a pre-school type setting, and that the parents put more emphasis on education and are more involved in the education (generalizing here). It’s hard to imagine that the public schools are horrible wherever Damon lives but I haven’t checked them out or compared their API with others (plus - I don’t know where he lives).</p>
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I didn’t take this to mean politically left as the article implied. I don’t know what Damon meant by the use of this term but I assume there’s a possibility he meant educationally progressive in a non-political sense. It’d be interesting to know what he meant.</p>
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Everyone ‘supports’ public schools financially whether they want to or not as long as they’re not homeless and either own a home or pay rent. I agree though that if one sends their kids to private they’re effectively paying more money into the public system because the system gets the money yet doesn’t have the cost of the seat. ‘Supporting’ the public school system financially through an involuntary tax system is not the same as emotionally supporting the public school system or contributing additional funds to that system voluntarily.
A better word here is ‘advocate’ which is apparently what Damon’s done - i.e. advocate for the public school system and using his celeb status as a pulpit. </p>
<p>I agree that there may be a certain hypocrisy here depending on exactly what Damon was advocating but I don’t know what that is so I can’t conclude for certain whether I think he’s hypocritical in this area or not and don’t know why anyone here would say he was one way or the other unless you have a lot more info about what he advocates. For example, if he’s simply advocating more money for teachers, more money for buildings, a more ‘progressive’ education (whatever that is in his mind), then I don’t think he’s hypocritical in sending his kids to private. However, if he’s advocating that others keep ‘their kids’ in public due to some philosophical view yet isn’t willing to do the same with his own kids then he’s being hypocritical. Some would say that advocating to ‘not’ have a voucher system in place amounts to sticking others’ kids in the public school system, i.e. those too poor to have a choice like him. I don’t know Damon’s thoughts on a voucher system which could help poorer families have more choice.</p>
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<p>Why is that a problem? There are lots of things we don’t have vouchers for. We don’t have vouchers for most consumer goods; there’s no voucher that would have enabled me to afford a BMW instead of the Ford I just bought. And when we do have vouchers–as we do for food with WIC, and for public housing–it’s usually only for stuff that’s pretty utilitarian, not for upgrades.</p>