Asymmetrical Information

Good schools, those that teach kids from good socioeconomic backgrounds use the old established methods of teaching that cost $X per student.

Poor schools, those that teach kids from poor
socioeconomic backgrounds use the old established
methods of teaching that cost $x per student.

Good schools get good results at $x.
Poor schools get poor results at $x.

The voucher proponents claim that all you have
to do is transfer the poor students out of poor
schools and provide a private school $x per
student to turn them into good students.

In other ways, they claim the problem is the schools rather then the kids socioeconomic background.

If this is not a promise of a free lunch I have never heard one.

So if I pay $150 for a meal from Lutece, and $150 for a case of motor oil, they will taste exactly the same?

If class is destiny why are we going to the needless expense of spending $x to fail to educate poor kids? We'd do them more good by spending $0 to fail to educate them, and using the $x to improve their lot in some other way.

To answer your specific question.

I do not have a problem with the concept of school vouchers. But when you look at the evidence the difference between good private school and bad public schools is the students socioeconomic background and class size, well class size may not be all that important. But public schools and private schools teach using essentially the same methodology that no one --public or private --has been able to improve on the age old method of a student at one end of the log and a teacher at the other end of the log. So claiming that private schools can take the kids from poor backgrounds and bring them up to standards for the same money or resources is still promising a free lunch.

In general healthcare is provided by private or not for profit organization. With a few exceptions except the VA and military hospitals or a few remaining municipal hospitals the public sector does not provide healthcare. If you provide an individual with a voucher for healthcare -- conceptually what Medicare does -- you are providing them the resources to purchase healthcare from a private vendor.

So the difference between using a voucher for healthcare and education is that the issue of using the voucher as a stealth approach to destroying the public education system is not part of the argument for healthcare
vouchers as it is with the appeal for education vouchers.

So from this perspective it is the conservatives, not the liberals who are being inconsistent.

'if that is not the definition of a free lunch..'

Actually that is not the definition or even close to it.

Oh, what is the definition if it is not promising something for nothing?

If voucher schooling cost nothing it would be a free lunch.

Voucher advocates merely say it is a better way.

I don't think you'd have to be consistent.

An important difference between the two issues is that health care consumers are not geographically locked in the way that education consumers are: I might drive 45 minutes out of my way to go to my preferred GP, because I see him every six months, but I can't add an hour and a half to my kid's commute to school every day.

You can add to that the infrastructure barrier to entry in education. Every school needs classrooms, a gym, a playground. Hospitals have a similarly big infrastructure footprint, but a GP's office can be an insurance agent's office with a little bit more plumbing.

The upshot is that there's some reason to think that you could have a competitive market among health care providers but it would be hard to have a competitive market among "education providers" (i.e., schools).

That said, I would point out that the education "voucher" system JG posits here is pretty different from the voucher schemes that have actually been proposed. Most voucher schemes I've heard of basically propose to give some kids a fraction of private school tuition, with the idea that their parents will make up the difference. An education voucher scheme that was analogous to a single-payer health insurance system would provide much larger vouchers that a school would have to take in full satisfaction of the costs of attendance. I think the first type of scheme -- the "part payment" voucher -- is basically a new kind of upper-middle class entitlement and don't think it would make any meaningful improvement in the education of poor kids. I think the second type of voucher scheme -- the "full fare" voucher -- is worth trying.

Incidentally, further to my previous comment, it seems to me that it would be enormously expensive -- Iraq war kind of expensive -- to implement any serious voucher scheme (by serious I mean something like a "full fare" voucher scheme). That doesn't mean it's not worth trying, but it is something to take into account.

Alkali, the only way a full fare voucher system costs any money at all is to the extent it provides education for kids who are currently outside the public schools - either private or home-schooled. Most parents who choose this option are making a huge sacrifice, and only do so because their public school alternatives are unacceptable. But maybe you are saying that we can't afford to stop screwing these parents.

Hunter McDaniel writes:

[T]he only way a full fare voucher system costs any money at all is to the extent it provides education for kids who are currently outside the public schools - either private or home-schooled.

Well, yes, that's exactly why it would cost a lot of money.

By way of example, there are about 60,000 kids in the Boston Public School system. The annual budget for the BPS is about $660m, or about $11,000 a kid. I'm guessing that there are about 10,000 kids in the Catholic schools in Boston (there are about 30 such schools). If we are going to give those kids full fare vouchers, that's another $110m. That's a lot of money, and that's just getting started.

However, I would point out that I didn't say we "can't afford" to implement such a scheme. In fact, I explicitly said that I think that it is "worth trying" even though it would be very expensive.

K says:

If voucher schooling cost nothing it would be a free lunch.

Voucher advocates merely say it is a better way.

This is still a free lunch.

I made the observation that public and private schools use exactly the same technology to teach and that the reason for the difference is the socioeconomic background of the students.

So K, all you have done is provide a snarky observation that in no way refutes my comments,
let alone even addresses them or comes close to defining a free lunch.

Possible reasons:

1. As Matt points out, liberals have more faith (and more reason to have faith) that health care would maintain minimum standards because the health care providers given public funds have to abide by a minimal standard.

Similarly, we know that even those health care providers connected with religions have to actually serve a secular purpose in addition to their religious one - they have to provide health care. We can have doubt that some private schools connected with religions provide an education about anything but religious dogma. If parents want that for their children, fine. But spending federal money on it would be unconstitutional.

2. The benefits of single payer health care are likely to be spread out across demographic groups and might even benefit most those who need it most. However, because tutition at private schools far exceed the amount of money spent per student in public schools (which is the basis of the value of the voucher), even if vouchers were implimented, only the wealthy are likely to be able to afford private schools. So taxpayer money is being expended to disproportionately benefit most those who need it least. That's fundamentally at odds with liberal economic philosophy.

Actually, Spencer, as someone who's attended government and private schools, and whose mother is a 30 year veteran of government school teaching, the biggest difference between a government school and a private school is that the parent(s) want the kids to be there, and had to put forth extra effort to get and keep them there.

This leads to several good effects, but the principal one is the ability to enforce discipline. The government school parent feels like the teachers have to take the sh*t the kids and parents dish, because the government school is a right. The private school parent realizes that the education is a privilege that they have to earn by allowing rules to be enforced. Once discipline is established, learning can take place.

By way of example, there are about 60,000 kids in the Boston Public School system. The annual budget for the BPS is about $660m, or about $11,000 a kid. I'm guessing that there are about 10,000 kids in the Catholic schools in Boston (there are about 30 such schools). If we are going to give those kids full fare vouchers, that's another $110m. That's a lot of money, and that's just getting started.

How is it "giving" it to the folks when it's tax money that's supposed to be spent on their education?
As schools stand right now, my kids will probably be homeschooled. I refuse to make my children go somewhere that the authority figures will try to expel them for defening themselves, in addition to not giving a very high quality education.
(Actually happened to me-- a 14 year old pulled my 6 year old self off a gymset and started hitting me, I tried to get away by kicking, flailing and all, and if it wasn't a small school and my mom wasn't so stubborn I would have been kicked out for at least a week.)

What I found in a small, moderately prosperous Midwest community school district, is that in micro-focus, teaching kids from prosperous backgrounds is the same technique as teaching kids from the poor side of the tracks. Teaching kids from different socio-economic backgrounds is very different in the way the school functions. One of the big differences between public and private schools is not just the selection of students, but how the school supports the teacher.

Where a private school has latitude to exclude students that cause problems for the teacher, in public schools the remedies are far fewer. While a child may be excluded from an initial classroom, the public school is still obligated to continue serving that student. For instance, children incapable of completing work at the grade level (multiple handicaps, those with poor preparation, behavioral issues, etc.) consume enormously more dollars per student in facilities and faculty than the average student from 'good' background. In some cases, students incapable of completing material for grades 1 or 2 are carried, with near medical-level support, to age 21 or 22 -- with assigned one-on-one attendant. You cannot compare these students with private school requirements for cost or achievement.

Probably the biggest threat to 'level playing field' education, is the social differences. How likely is the student to read at the current grade level? How likely is the student to accept direction from the teacher? Respect other students? Accept other students as peers? When there are gang mentalities in the home and in the neighborhood, the teacher will be facing those attitudes, distractions, and dangers in the classroom. Same with drug and alcohol abuse, and the elusive respect for property often present when affluence is not.

You cannot expect similar results from one classroom to the next, until each student experiences similar discipline ('will to complete a task') and lifestyles at home.

To improve school performances? Require the parents to pass the same material presented to their kids. No Child Left Behind is the old Hitler strategem, 'Give me your children, and I will take your country' -- this is a liberal, deliberate strategy to perform social engineering, favoring the policies of the parties in power at the time. Instead, pursue a 'no family left out' policy. Bring the full family into the education system, assure financial and physical security, and you will see schools improve.

And the students in 'Special Ed' programs for various reasons? The state should still be responsible for educating those the families cannot otherwise meet obligations for compulsory education. But realistically, stop hindering public education with kids that require a clinical support system. And I have spent time substitute teaching in special ed classes, and been invited to return. My concern is the impact on the school district, not the presence of the children (which I think benefits every child in the school). This is a tough problem with no easy answers, in my opinion.

Brad Kruse
Ponca City, OK

Living in Columbus, OH has been very influential in my beliefs on education policy...

1)The Cols. Public schools had 105,000 students in 1972... and just under than 65,000 students in 1999.(and they now have less than 55,000 students in 2007.)

The combination of state and local monies for the Cols. Public schools is now over $13,000.00/student per year(and this does not include the $1.5 billion "school building" plan that was enacted in 2003)--but it still seems that more than 5000 parents just last year were happier taking a $5K/yr "voucher" over the $13K/yr education the "state" offers!

Did I mention that the Cols Pub Schools also have more than 10 schools where 99% of all 4th graders do not read at grade level?

Also consider...

-30% of all CPS students "disappear" after 9th grade...
-50% of all CPS 8th graders never graduate.
-20% of CPS grads(of the 50% who do actually manage to graduate) didn't learn enough to even balance their checkbook...
-of the 30% of grads who attempt college, more than half will need a 'remedial' class(to make up for what they never learned in HS...)

I guess $13000.00 doesn't go as far as it used to...

You can't compare education to health. Healthcare costs and outcomes are determined partially by behavior and environment, but they are also heavily determined by genetics. Educational outcomes are much more influenced by familial and cultural factors rather than raw intelligence (i.e. genetics).

Vouchers will destroy public education. The only reason some public schools are decent is because they have disciplined students and committed parents. If such districts have to start importing large numbers of children from elsewhere, the quality will collapse. No public institution reflects more directly the caliber and values of the community and its residents than the neighborhood public school. Good schools are nothing but places where well-brought-up children go to be instructed by lucky teachers.

Why are the teachers' unions (with which all these familial-determinism arguments originate) so intent on talking themselves out of a job? If it doesn't matter what sort of school (some) kids go to, it doesn't matter whether or not they go to school. Or at least it doesn't matter whether they go to schools staffed by licensed and well-paid graduates of teachers' colleges or by minimum-wagers hired away from McDonalds.

Of course the reason education costs as much as it does is that the people in charge of it do NOT behave as if they really believed it doesn't matter what the school is like; the only time you'll hear that argument from them is when they're making excuses.

Most private schools cost less than public (government) schools. The reason so few can afford to go to private schools is their parents are being ripped off (along with childless people and those with grown children) to feed the union and Democratic party coffers.

Anon is overlooking one of the iron laws of school-reform debate:

For purposes of comparing expenses, all private schools are assumed to be Phillips Andover.
For purposes of comparing curricula, all private schools are assumed to be Brother Jethro's Blood of Salvation Bible Academy.

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