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Vouchers 2

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Mike Oliker

Vouchers 2

Thanks Cez,

The largest effect of vouchers would be in providing competition to the
public schools. They are charged with educating everyone, but they fail to
do this on a regular and massive scale. Huge numbers drop out.

With vouchers in place, the public schools would regain the right to expel
anyone not working towards the goal of learning. Those who would be tracked
to "mass detention hall" in your friend's proposal could instead seek an
education which actually works for them. They could learn in their own way,
something they find useful, instead of disrupting an education they find
unsuitable.

I would favor making the vouchers equal the per capita spending on
education. I would normalize this separately for elementary school and high
school, since the latter is more expensive to provide. Perhaps $4-6 k/year
elementary, and $6-8 k/yr for high school, assuming a mean of $6k, which is
low nationally, I believe.

The flood of inexpensive private schools is an accurate prediction. With a
$5k voucher, a class of 20 students brings in $100k/yr for 180 days of work.
A lot of tiny schools, especially in K-6 will spring up giving personal
tailored care to a small group of students. Some of them will do a poor
job, and go out of business. A lot of schools do a poor job now -- but they
can't go out of business.

I expect that a voucher system would produce a lot of adaptivity, with a
highly fractal system of schools of all sizes and kinds. The public schools
would have the advantage of being familiar, and already established, but
they would have to hustle for their piece of the huge education pie. Much
like colleges do now.

-Mike Oliker

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:58:52 -0600
> From: "cez" <cezacher at sfedi.org>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] School Vouchers
> To: "Friam" <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <mailman.6.1129219205.8570.friam_redfish.com at redfish.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I shared Mike's comments (anonymously) below with a friend
> who has been involved with the public schools for years and
> thought you might be interested in his anonymous comments below:
>
> "I think the big difference is that in our land of "equal
> opportunity" public schools are forced to teach to the lowest
> common denominator'
>
> Higher ed isn't forced to take students who don't want to be
> there. It can concentrate more on making the best students
> world class.
>
> Our kids got a pretty good education because they did what it
> took to get the very best teachers. But if we'd had the
> money, we might have opted for expensive private schooling.
>
> I worry that vouchers will produce a flood of inexpensive
> private schools, with low standards, wanting to take
> advantage of the available money. In Gov. Johnson's voucher
> plan, the voucher amounts would have been less than the
> public schools spend on students, and only a fraction of what
> really good private schools charge. And it would have been an
> opportunity for expensive private schools to up their tuition
> even more.
>
> The best answer is to track good students and those who want
> to learn in one direction and have a mass detention hall for
> the rest. But it'll never happen here."
>
> Cathie
> Catherine E. Zacher
> President
> Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
> 505.984.2842
> www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org>
>
> "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much
> room....."
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Mike Oliker
> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:22 PM
> To: Friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] School Vouchers
>
> Re: Vouchers
> One curious point to me about the education debate is that we
> have two broad educational systems in the US: K-12 schools
> and our system of colleges and universities.
>
> The former is a global disaster, ranking below most third
> world countries. Even our best 10% do very poorly in
> international comparisons.
>
> The latter is a global model. People come from all over the
> world to partcipate in it. It takes American kids and pulls
> them from ~last place in international comparisons to
> something closer to first place.
>
> The college system is simply ignored in discussions of
> educational reform. Isn't that odd? What qualities does it
> have that could make K-12 work, and do alternatives like
> vouchers obtain those benefits?
>
> -Mike Oliker
> ========================================================

Robert Holmes-2

Vouchers 2

Having spent too many years in the UK under Generalissimo Thatcher, I'm
always a bit wary of market solutions. The public/private competition that
Mike describes might work somewhere with a big population but would it work
in small communities? Would we really get "a lot of tiny schools"? If
running a school entailed purely variable costs (proportional to student
numbers), perhaps. But if there's any sort of fixed cost associated with
setting up a school, I'm not sure the logic holds.

This reminds me of the deregulation (i.e. privatisation) of public transport
in the UK. "Of course rural communities will still be served," ran the
argument, "the Invisible Hand of the market will ensure it." Of course it
didn't. Micro-bus and train companies did not suddenly materialise to take
over what had been regional/national government responsibilities. Public
transport outside metropolitan centres evaporated and the car increased its
stranglehold on Britain's roads.

Robert

P.S. I know that the implicit top-downess of this post is in direct
contradiction to the bottom-upness espoused in my post of 10 minutes ago but
hey, consistency is the hobgoblin of tiny minds, yes?

On 10/13/05, Mike Oliker <mike.oliker at comcast.net> wrote:

>
> Thanks Cez,
>
> The largest effect of vouchers would be in providing competition to the
> public schools. They are charged with educating everyone, but they fail to
> do this on a regular and massive scale. Huge numbers drop out.
>
> With vouchers in place, the public schools would regain the right to expel
> anyone not working towards the goal of learning. Those who would be
> tracked
> to "mass detention hall" in your friend's proposal could instead seek an
> education which actually works for them. They could learn in their own
> way,
> something they find useful, instead of disrupting an education they find
> unsuitable.
>
> I would favor making the vouchers equal the per capita spending on
> education. I would normalize this separately for elementary school and
> high
> school, since the latter is more expensive to provide. Perhaps $4-6 k/year
> elementary, and $6-8 k/yr for high school, assuming a mean of $6k, which
> is
> low nationally, I believe.
>
> The flood of inexpensive private schools is an accurate prediction. With a
> $5k voucher, a class of 20 students brings in $100k/yr for 180 days of
> work.
> A lot of tiny schools, especially in K-6 will spring up giving personal
> tailored care to a small group of students. Some of them will do a poor
> job, and go out of business. A lot of schools do a poor job now -- but
> they
> can't go out of business.
>
> I expect that a voucher system would produce a lot of adaptivity, with a
> highly fractal system of schools of all sizes and kinds. The public
> schools
> would have the advantage of being familiar, and already established, but
> they would have to hustle for their piece of the huge education pie. Much
> like colleges do now.
>
> -Mike Oliker
>
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:58:52 -0600
> > From: "cez" <cezacher at sfedi.org>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] School Vouchers
> > To: "Friam" <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <mailman.6.1129219205.8570.friam_redfish.com at redfish.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > I shared Mike's comments (anonymously) below with a friend
> > who has been involved with the public schools for years and
> > thought you might be interested in his anonymous comments below:
> >
> > "I think the big difference is that in our land of "equal
> > opportunity" public schools are forced to teach to the lowest
> > common denominator'
> >
> > Higher ed isn't forced to take students who don't want to be
> > there. It can concentrate more on making the best students
> > world class.
> >
> > Our kids got a pretty good education because they did what it
> > took to get the very best teachers. But if we'd had the
> > money, we might have opted for expensive private schooling.
> >
> > I worry that vouchers will produce a flood of inexpensive
> > private schools, with low standards, wanting to take
> > advantage of the available money. In Gov. Johnson's voucher
> > plan, the voucher amounts would have been less than the
> > public schools spend on students, and only a fraction of what
> > really good private schools charge. And it would have been an
> > opportunity for expensive private schools to up their tuition
> > even more.
> >
> > The best answer is to track good students and those who want
> > to learn in one direction and have a mass detention hall for
> > the rest. But it'll never happen here."
> >
> > Cathie
> > Catherine E. Zacher
> > President
> > Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
> > 505.984.2842
> > www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> <http://www.sfedi.org>
> >
> > "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much
> > room....."
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Mike Oliker
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:22 PM
> > To: Friam at redfish.com
> > Subject: [FRIAM] School Vouchers
> >
> > Re: Vouchers
> > One curious point to me about the education debate is that we
> > have two broad educational systems in the US: K-12 schools
> > and our system of colleges and universities.
> >
> > The former is a global disaster, ranking below most third
> > world countries. Even our best 10% do very poorly in
> > international comparisons.
> >
> > The latter is a global model. People come from all over the
> > world to partcipate in it. It takes American kids and pulls
> > them from ~last place in international comparisons to
> > something closer to first place.
> >
> > The college system is simply ignored in discussions of
> > educational reform. Isn't that odd? What qualities does it
> > have that could make K-12 work, and do alternatives like
> > vouchers obtain those benefits?
> >
> > -Mike Oliker
> > ========================================================
>
>
>
> ============================================================
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