Charter schools, social norming and zero-sum games (2010)

http://educationandstatistics.blogspot.com/2010/10/charter-schools-social-norming-and-zero.html

by luu • 3 years ago

64 299 3 years ago

educationandstatistics.blogspot.com

monero-xmr6• 3 years ago

Social norming can work both ways. If you remove all of the students whose parents are willing and able to go through the application process, the norms of acceptable behavior for those left behind will move in an ugly direction and the kids who started out with the greatest disadvantages would be left to bear the burden

I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class. This is a big reason why teachers are quitting en masse from public schools - they are behavioral consultants rather than teachers. The pay has always sucked - it’s the lack of ability to discipline bad kids that makes it miserable, and then parents blame you for everything when you just want to teach math and go home.

micromacrofoot8• 3 years ago

“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help - of course they don’t behave well when there’s 0 modeling at home, it’s not because someone isn’t yelling at them enough - raising a child “takes a village” and many of us aren’t operating within a village anymore, we’re all stressed out and working too much

monero-xmr6• 3 years ago

This is why if I had to teach I would teach college kids. I don’t want to be a therapist and bear the weight of all parents’ failures. I want to teach math. So if to be a public school K-12 teacher you have to also “model” how to be a functional human (as the kids go home and see the opposite) then I would never accept that job.

I was raised by a single mom who worked a million hours and didn’t have a baby sitter when I let myself in after school. Don’t see how “working too many hours and being stressed” is a new phenomenon because most of my extended family is poor and have always been. My mom told me not to steal and don’t be an obnoxious asshole in school, wasn’t exactly rocket science.

briHass• 3 years ago

Discipline does work; it's ultimately what the 'bad' kids get when they have runins with the criminal justice system.

The lack of discipline from the parents, mentors, and teachers early on is why the State has to do it later. Discipline is not orthogonal to 'help'.

goda902• 3 years ago

Yelling isn't the only form of discipline. There's withholding privileges. There's physical restraint even. Without cooperation from parents, school staff can't really do either. A teacher I know tells me how some of the violent elementary school children just get put in a room alone when they are having an episode because that's all they are allowed to do. These children (under 12 years old) have sent teachers to urgent care with injuries, and the kids are let back to school not long after.

giantg24• 3 years ago

'“bad” kids don’t need discipline, they need help'

Some would argue that disciplining is helpful in many cases. Proper disciplining is not just punishment but should include an explaination of why what they did was wrong and what the right thing to do is.

Kids having discipline is a slightly different topic, but can be partially built through the process above.

MisterTea• 3 years ago

A friend taught public school in a poorer area outside of DC for about 8 years until moving into admin. He had one tactic that worked for many "bad" kids - call their parents, in the middle of the class if need be. He said today's young teachers, are non-confrontational and not used to verbal communication over phones as they were raised on social media and texting. So those young teachers sit there helpless while the student runs wild.

Now in admin hes some kind of teacher manager and he had teachers come to him, sometimes physically crying, unable to deal with a child with a behavioral problem. His says 99% of the time these problems are corrected with a single phone call to the parents. Just one call but no - young teachers these days don't have the guts or social wherewithal. So his job is now teaching adults how to make phone calls.

Another thing to realize is a lot of these kids do respond positively to teachers when they show them that they care and aren't there to simply baby sit and yell at them. He has had many students come to him later on thanking him for breaking their balls and setting them on the right path. Kids aren't stupid - they want respect but are treated like little monsters to be corralled and controlled like cattle.

Showing the kids you truly care is incredibly powerful for them - it connects at the human emotional level and those positive interactions boosts the kids moral and they feel more confident or centered in life.

JediWing4• 3 years ago

Agreed, but teachers can't be expected to be the only ones providing this help.

Other public institutions outside the school system need to be in place to support the parents who are stressed and overworked and barely have time to parent.

And their right to be helped stops at the line where they're causing harm to the learning of others.

Discipline in schools isn't and cannot be about holistically reforming the problem kids, it's about making sure those who want to learn can.

You can't dump the entirety of systemic poverty, racism, mental health, etc. on the education system and expect it to work well.

Simulacra5• 3 years ago

I went to a public school and disruptive kids were NEVER expelled, or kicked out of class, they were just tolerated and placated. I wish I had gone to your school because no matter how disruptive they were, or how much they bullied others in class, the school simply would not expel them. The worst they would get is after school detention. It was hugely disruptive and made life miserable for the rest of us.

If only disruptive kids were expelled instead of placated MANY of us might have had a better education.

civilized12• 3 years ago

Too many liberals feel such guilt about expelling disruptive kids, when the reality is just what you've said: if they stay, they don't improve and they ruin genuine learning for everyone else.

It is so wrong for adults to fail to protect children who want to learn simply because they want a facade of feel-good egalitarianism.

busterarm14• 3 years ago

I was the disruptive kid in public school (although I'd blame it on excessive and biased attention from teachers and teachers not in control over their egos) and I was indeed kicked out of class and eventually given the ultimatum of be medicated into submission or be expelled.

The next year I was at the private school across the street. Suddenly I wasn't a problem child anymore there.

I had already been taught algebra at home by first grade. I was in the "gifted program" in public school and the curriculum was still boring and slow. Teachers lasered in on my boredom and made my life miserable despite (or perhaps because of) being able to answer anything. I thrived a little more in private school in part because the children were on-average smarter but also because instead of the school treating everyone like they were special and going to save the world (and rewarding only the kids they liked) they taught children the value of group conformity and not being the nail that sticks up.

sidewndr462• 3 years ago

The public school I went to was worse. If you were attacked by one of those disruptive kids you'd be suspended for starting a fight.

stronglikedan• 3 years ago

It hasn't been that way for a long time, but it used to be. And I can say that as a disruptive kid that was kicked out of a school. I then had to go through middle school in a special school for kids kicked out of other schools. Thankfully, they knew what they were doing when it came to getting kids back in line, and I turned out pretty okay in my book.

aidenn05• 3 years ago

My daughter was threatened by 3 girls (with a long history of behavioral problems) that they would beat her up the next day. The school VP suggested with a straight face that maybe my daughter should stay home that day (since it was a Friday).

themitigating5• 3 years ago

What makes a private school more likely to expell children?

Since they are a for profit enterprise, unlike public schools, wouldn't there be a financial incentive to have as many customers as possible?

In one particular area what is the reason a charter school would be better than a public school. Since the entry factor for most (excluding schools for smart kids) is money why wouldn't the same problems occur at a charter school? Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?

mhb3• 3 years ago

What makes a private school more likely to expell children?

Uh, because more customers will leave if the private school is no better than a public school.

conception• 3 years ago

It’s a business where all the customers interact with one another. If it costs more in complaints, then you drop the bad apple.

monero-xmr6• 3 years ago

Because the paying customers will go elsewhere if they allow another paying customer to ruin it. They want 20 to stay even if they have to lose the 21st payer.

giantg24• 3 years ago

The private schools are seeking and selling quality. Plus, the majority of private schools are non-profits. Many are religiously affiliated and would like a large population as as a potential source of new religious members, but they also need some way to fund that. If a family is already paying $5k/yr in property taxes it is less likely they can afford another $10/yr for 2 kids to go to private school. The funding is the biggest blocker to increased private and charter school attendance. That's why there's so much talk about things like vouchers, 529s, etc.

"Finally, why can't we just fix public schools?"

That's a good question without a good answer. Perhaps the best answer is the meta that people don't agree on the course of action that would "fix" the schools since there are numerous opinions on what that is, resulting in no action or half measures.

light_hue_1• 3 years ago

Many public schools simply cannot expel problem students.

The school district must educate everyone. When a school expels or excludes a student that student is still a live human that must somehow be educated. They may need to be bussed somewhere. Or to be sent to another school in another district. All of this is very expensive. Never mind that someone needs to administer this.

So in a public school expelling a student increases costs significantly, several fold. In a private school, it decreases costs. The private school just tells you to hit the road.

JediWing4• 3 years ago

This is absolutely a huge factor, if not the biggest factor in education: kids who are actively disruptive and harmful to the learning of others being kept in with other kids, draining all of the attention from the teacher.

The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that.

stainablesteel• 3 years ago

its worse than that, i have some examples of what always annoyed me:

- a terrible kid was constantly given presents from a teacher, chocolates, and small things she could give him so that he would stop misbehaving in class. normally these prizes would go to a single student every day, for merit, but once this terrible person kept getting them, everyone else became pissed and demoralized.

- the young kids copy the teachers behavior, and it creates this culture of "they have a harder life than you" when trying to complain about the terrible students in their vicinity (which i completely disagree with, they're not trying hard at all that's why they get like this), so when terrible people bully decent, kind, and hardworking students, there's no sympathy for the hardworking students. they get treated like shit and abused from the future-criminals who do nothing but degrade the experience of everyone who attends, then they get told "get over it, you have everything" by their peers who for whatever reason weren't bullied, and refuse to help. its cult-like behavior

- you also have kids who are way too old for their grade, by at least 4 years. someone who should otherwise be way ahead of the classroom they're in is 2x the size of anyone else, is a literal delinquent, and is for some reason still allowed in the public school system where they either terrorize their classmates, get them into their same terrible habits, or bully people who express any kind of discontent with their behavior.

tivert2• 3 years ago

> I went to public school as a kid and the disruptive kids were expelled. Not just kicked out of class - totally kicked out of school and told to find a new one! One reason I send my kids to private school is if you don’t want to learn they will kick you out. In public schools today you get a few bad kids and it ruins the whole class.
The causes and solutions are not as simple as "these kids are bad, kick them out of school", but any solution needs to involve kids who aren't disruptive and WANT to learn getting an environment conducive to that.

But it might not be that much more complicated. It's been a long time since I've been in school, but in our district there was an "alternative" high school, which had a reputation among the kids as the place you'd end up if you were too much of a behavior problem.

That said, the kids at my schools were well-behaved in class and I never knew of anyone specific who was expelled.

If behavior problems are getting more widespread, maybe embracing more of an explicit containment strategy is appropriate.

jacknews6• 3 years ago

Indeed, and the assertion that 'only poor kids together' will behave even worse certainly needs backing up with data.

It seems obvious to me (since the experiment is repeated over and over within millions of families) that environment plays a major role in behaviour, but tbh I don't see good behaviour rubbing off onto the 'bad' kids in a mixed setting, it's almost always the other way around, or at best, a productive environment is disrupted by a few troublemakers.

So 'good' kids should get an environment free of disruption so they can do what they do. And the 'bad' kids should get an environment much more focused on encouraging good behaviour, so they learn to do the good stuff too. Win-win.

II2II• 3 years ago

Except you run into a few problems when implementing that, especially for public schools.

Proactive parents will typically want their children in good schools, regardless of their child's behavioural history. (This doesn't mean they refuse to acknowledge the issue, though some will. It simply means they want their children to have access to better supports.)

There is an overarching philosophy within the school system that integration is better than separation. I don't know if this has to be the case, but it has been historically true. Think of it this way: even though some of the best teachers may want to serve the most challenging schools, good teachers almost always want to teach in good schools. Where does that leave the challenging schools? If they're lucky, with a great teacher. More often, with a bunch of mediocre teachers.

Related to that, schools rarely have the resources to distinguish between students who would benefit from integration and those who would benefit from specialized and separate programs.

danaris2• 3 years ago

While there's obvious classism (and very-slightly-more-veiled racism) in the assumptions that "poor kids" will be more disruptive in class, there is, to my understanding, substantial data backing up the perception, with causal mechanisms that have nothing to do with race or "poor breeding", and everything to do with how grindingly awful it is to be poor in America.

kjkjadksj5• 3 years ago

That still only goes so far because sometimes its a disrupted life at home that causes the in class disruptions.

wing-_-nuts• 3 years ago

Only, the measure of what constitutes 'bad behavior' is inconsistent as heck. I had cerebral palsy and undiagnosed ADHD as a kid and was constantly being sent to the principles office for simply 'spacing out' and getting distracted. I would have been royally screwed if I had been diverted to a school for kids with behavioral problems. Eventually I got glasses, got medicated, and thrived, but there were a lot of people who wanted to write me off without giving me a chance.

drak0n1c2• 3 years ago

This used to be the case. Even in rural Wyoming. In each region there were at least one military-style dedicated boys school and girls school focused on disciplining bad students. Public school students would receive a few detentions and suspensions, followed soon after by expulsion to the boys school. Parents could also voluntarily and temporarily enroll their kid there if they needed disciplinary help.

The boys school had a good reputation and would have engagement with the local schools via sports and dances.

dehrmann• 3 years ago

they are behavioral consultants rather than teachers

During covid, someone observed that it exposed the primary role of public schools to be day care.

analog31• 3 years ago

Except there must be a difference between school and day care because the kids who stayed home during covid are now way behind academically.

nonameiguess• 3 years ago

I don't get the expulsion discussion here (not just your comment, but responses as well). At least in the US, these kids legally need to be educated somewhere. Expelling doesn't remove them from the school system. It just means they'll be disrupting a different set of kids at some other school. Making something someone else's problem isn't solving the problem. It's like dealing with homelessness by rounding them up and bussing them to a different city.

You could conceivably create schools composed entirely of the kids who got expelled from somewhere else, which I think some districts have actually done (continuation schools), but you're effectively creating a juvenile prison system for people who didn't commit any actual crime and definitely never got a trial.

sixothree4• 3 years ago

I think that's pretty much the crux of every argument here - move those other kids somewhere else. Don't worry about improving their situation, but make my situation better.

Cite a study, draw incorrect conclusions from it that support your argument, find some exception to the norm and use that as your example, and don't forget - describe how you were brought up and how that was better.

JJMcJ• 3 years ago

An analogy.

In a dorm the week before finals, 90% of the students are urgently trying to prepare for finals.

10% are drunk and or high and playing frisbee in the halls 24 hours a day.

From friends who have taught high school in poor neighborhoods the situation as similar, only more violent.

bsuvc• 3 years ago

The author seems to be saying that the reason charter schools are successful is because of self-selection, and that is also why public schools are worse, due to the inverse of self-selection.

While there is certainly self-selection occurring here, it would be a mistake for policy makers to dismiss the problems with public schools as just being due to that. They should introspect instead of seeking excuses.

monero-xmr6• 3 years ago

Also it’s totally fine for the rich to self-select among many private schools. Apparently it’s only a problem when poor people similarly have choices.

Why is having competition among public schools, with parents having a choice as to which to send them, so bad? It doesn’t make any sense.

zmgsabst5• 3 years ago

The professional/managerial class can’t stand being responsible for their policy failures — which become apparent when people have options.

cardamomo2• 3 years ago

The author is suggesting that the self-selection effect is a problem for this and similar studies, because they potentially mask the effect they the learning environment has. In fact, the author sounds quite complimentary, calling the program being studied "an impressive, even inspiring initiative to improve the lives of poor inner-city children through charter schools and community programs." This piece is calling for randomized trials, as opposed to observational studies.

RHSeeger• 3 years ago

Also it’s totally fine for the rich to self-select among many private schools. Apparently it’s only a problem when poor people similarly have choices.

That is, I believe, misrepresenting the problem. Rather, it's more like

It's fine for the small subset to self-select among many private schools. Apparently it’s only a problem when the masses similarly have choices.

And that makes sense, because 0.5% of people/funding/etc being taken out of schools isn't a big deal... but 20% starts to make a big impact.

nxm• 3 years ago

Charter schools are the saving grace to the public schools hijacked by the teachers union and bloated administrations. Recently, these unions succeeded to lowering testing standards for graduation in blue states to mask the worse job they’re doing teaching our kids:

Examples: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-lowers-bar-...

Meanwhile major cities have the highest per pupil spend for public schools, with frighteningly poor outcomes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/03/30/bal...

Fix K-12 schools (no, more money on bloated administrations is not the answer), and the need for affirmative action goes away.

forgotOldLogin• 3 years ago

The Times Union piece you cite does not say that the union supported lowering standardized test scores required for graduation. In fact, the article quotes the union funded Alliance for Quality Education as opposing the change.

Charter schools create duplicate systems with duplicate costs, reduce funds available for traditional school students in sending schools, and are a waste of taxpayer resources. When students leave traditional public schools for charter schools, the traditional public school is unable to reduce costs in proportion with the loss in per-pupil revenues. Students in public schools are left with fewer resources.

davemp3• 3 years ago

Take a survey of public school board budgets if you want to see a waste taxpayer resources. There is already all the duplication of effort and wasteful initiatives you could ask for.

zaphar• 3 years ago

If we've learned one thing about education over the years it's that past a certain point more funding doesn't help. Improving educational outcomes requires at least 2 things that the article mentions:

1. Engaged parents.

2. Social Norms that normalize learning behaviours.

Parent's can control the first directly and the second indirectly by "choosing" a non public school option or moving to a district that has the proper norms.

Charter schools are one of a class of escape hatches that less advantaged parents can choose in order to impact the second factor for their child. I strongly believe that these escape hatches should exist for the Parents who can't easily move or choose a private option. Improving education outcomes for the children of those parents who do care requires giving them tools to support their children whether the environment itself does or does not.

It seems unfair to force those parents to fail just because their community is failing around them.

wyager• 3 years ago

Presumably the equilibrium state is that we will have fewer public schools and more charter schools, rather than a bunch of half-occupied public schools.

HDThoreaun8• 3 years ago

I'm sure my district is worse than yours, but here the public schools are a waste of taxpayer resources. They are corrupt, with more than a handful of superintendents being arrested for sweetheart contracts. They have extreme administrative bloat. They spend more per student than almost any other district in the world. And the outcomes are absolutely garbage. 25% of high schoolers are now in charters here, and honestly it's not for any reason other than the utter incompetence of the public school district. Why should we be giving more money to the system that parents have roundly rejected? At this point I'm forced to see the public schools as a waste of taxpayer resources that reduce funding for the more successful charter schools. We need competition to make schools better. The district was resting on its laurels since they were just counting on poor students showing up no matter how shitty the product was. The public can't accept that.

josephcsible• 3 years ago

Is competition in other industries bad and wasteful too, since it creates duplicate systems with duplicate costs too? Should we replace it with a single monopoly per industry?

kodah• 3 years ago

Charter schools create duplicate systems with duplicate costs, reduce funds available for traditional school students in sending schools, and are a waste of taxpayer resources.

I went to a private school. Obviously slightly different from the Charter system, but only in administration of funds (depending on the state). This statement is categorically untrue. The private school that I went to was not analogous in learning or structure to the public school system. Coaching for college admissions essentially took place since first grade and gradually ramped up. Additionally, the school taught to different learning styles instead of just one. Where these schools fail is socially because often kids are geographically spread farther apart. As a result I was alienated at times both at school and out of school depending on where I needed to put my time. When I transferred to public school I was bored out of my mind for years due to how far ahead I was from 8th grade. It took until around junior year before I began learning new-ish material.

To call them a "waste" of tax dollars ignores the fundamental problems with the public school system and why the separation occurs in the first place. Those fundamental problems are thorny issues though; you'll end up creating very different teaching methods, levels of classes, etc for a wider group of kids that will continue to grow as an area grows more dense. This was more sustainable at my private school because class sizes were smaller. I also don't think blaming teachers is really the right way to go here; most of them are underpaid and mistreated.

specialist3• 3 years ago

Yes and: Privatization greatly impairs transparency and accountability. Because private entities fall outside of public disclosure laws like FOIA. With depressingly predictable results.

cardamomo2• 3 years ago

The articles you cite don't mention teachers' unions at all, and they don't point to "the worse job they’re doing teaching" as the reason for renorming standardized tests. I agree with you on the need for reform (though I have a hunch we would disagree on the specifics), but I don't think your argument adds up.

MisterBastahrd2• 3 years ago

The need for affirmative action exists regardless of what you do to K-12 schools as long as college admissions count standardized test schools and extracurricular activities.

vacuity14• 3 years ago

If there's a baseline level of good education and whatnot, it stands to reason that there would be roughly proportionate demographics among the applicants. Get rid of legacies, and that seems perfectly fair to me.

aaroninsf• 3 years ago

"Highest spend per pupil"

PSA a primary driver for this (along side other issues) is that in "major cities" the affluent pull out and stick their kids in private schools, creating a feedback loop of public school increasingly capturing all and predominantly the least- least-supported kids.

And teachers then teach in over-crowded classes with 3x the student-teacher ratio of the private schools, while also providing de facto baseline social services of many kinds. While horrifically underpaid.

Meanwhile the right wing is driving this feedback loop on multiple fronts, as it has been for decades—with the collapse of secular public education an open agenda for those decades.

scarmig• 3 years ago

The solution to people fleeing public non-charter schools to go to better options is to provide opportunities for kids who remain in public schools to thrive.

As it stands, school districts are doing the opposite. Getting rid of educational tracking at least, or banning algebra in middle school because it's inequitable at worst (as in SFUSD). This isn't a matter of funding but ideology.

revolvingocelot2• 3 years ago

Recently, these unions succeeded to lowering testing standards for graduation in blue states to mask the worse job they’re doing teaching our kids

The link provided shows that, in fact, the union opposed the change. This claim is a bald faced lie, and lies should be downvoted on HN.

namelessoracle• 3 years ago

what union opposed the change? The Alliance group mentioned is not a Union of teachers. https://www.aqeny.org/

Unions aren't mentioned at all in the article. Your claim is also a bald faced lie. More so than the OP. This article supports OP's claim https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/nys-education-leaders-again-pr..., I can trivially find other articles from other sources where the New York teachers union has made it clear they dont find how they are evaluated by test scores acceptable. That may even be a reasonable position to have. There is more data out their to support OPs claim than yours that they are against it.

willio585• 3 years ago

Charter schools are the saving grace to the public schools hijacked by the teachers union and bloated administrations.

Where I live, charter schools are a joke. They're old office buildings converted into "schools". This is super unsafe and honestly quite sad to see in most cases because these office buildings are on busy streets with no playgrounds (what they do have is basically a concrete slab in the back with nearly no play equipment).

News flash: if you want education to "work", we need to pay teachers more. Subsidizing private companies (charter schools) through vouchers is just a leach on resources we could give to our existing schools and teachers instead. There are millions of teachers out there, some with master's degrees, who make much less than a new grad junior dev who goes to work, edits some CSS, and browses Reddit the rest of the day. We simply don't value education in the US enough, and charter schools are a non-solution proposed by those who would rather run away from the problems than face them head-on.

endisneigh3• 3 years ago

I fail to see how even doubling teachers salary would resolve anything. I’d love to see a study where a school simply increased teacher salaries alone and that improved outcomes for students.

The issue is almost entirely cultural and socioeconomic. Fixing schools is basically fixing society. Intractable, which is why every school from Harvard to Oxford relies on glorified selection bias instead.

aidenn05• 3 years ago

Pay is only one part of what motivates teachers. I've seen more teachers leave because they don't feel empowered than I have because of pay.

P_I_Staker• 3 years ago

In some cases outcomes might just be bad in major cities. It may be counter intuitive, but in many ways cities have felt the brunt of economic and racial injustices.

Are major cities more likely to contain people in abject poverty, who perceive their situation as hopeless, sometimes correctly? Many people struggle with learning, due to conditions at home, and without money there's no get out of jail free cards. Kids need people with money to advocate for them, or they can be abandoned by society, told they will never amount to nothing (very much like Biggy Smalls did), and their talents overlooked.

For people living in these conditions college may be achievable, but there's a very narrow window, with a ton of risk involved. To summarize, perhaps we're simply spending more, to combat bigger problems (often ineffectively); versus the quality of education being as poor as you claim.

thelock85• 3 years ago

Charter schools are the saving grace to the public schools hijacked by the teachers union and bloated administrations.

I''d break this into two statements with "public schools" being part of both:

1. Charter schools are the saving grace to the public schools because they are not mandated to serve every student and can therefore siphon off failing or behaviorally challenged students back to the public system. Find me a charter system serving special needs and at-risk students better than the public system at the scale of a public system, and I'll change my mind.

2. Public schools have been hijacked by the teachers union and bloated administrations because their funding structures are controlled by politics and culture wars instead of targeted research and practice on what specific kids need. I'm not a fan of teachers unions or bureaucracy, but who else takes the heat for teachers who are under-resourced, under-paid, and over-worked?

Fix K-12 schools (no, more money on bloated administrations is not the answer), and the need for affirmative action goes away.

100% agree on the affirmative action part, but to fix K-12 schools you need new or other institutions to pick up slack on supporting students. The reason that "Deputy Assistant Senior Manager of Cognitive and Emotional Development" exist is because the law is pretty clear about how a school district is responsible for a student with XYZ cognitive and emotional developmental challenges. To get rid of that administrator, you also need to transfer (operationally and legislatively) ownership of that responsibility.

FrustratedMonky12• 3 years ago

The drive to use public tax dollars for private schools is great when it is STEM. Seems good right? Charter Schools for STEM. Who could argue?

People miss that the primary interest groups that are lobbying for private schools, that are arguing against public schools, are for Religion. They want to be able to teach the bible as fact, not teach evolution, to allow prayer.

By syphoning public dollars, into private schools, they are bypassing the separation of state-church.

This then takes dollars away from public schools, which then struggle. Then the awful state of the public schools, is used as an argument for more private schools, and thus more religious schools.

Eventually the population wont be able to think in scientific terms anymore, logical reasoning will be gone.

brightball7• 3 years ago

My kids go to a private religious school in South Carolina.

They are taught about world religions, evolution, have chapel twice a week and allow prayer. It’s also the best school in the entire state. My kids go there because it's a great school.

There are a lot of anti religious scare tactics used to push people off of vouchers.

The reality is that the only people with true choice in school selection have to either be able to afford private school, afford to move to a house zoned for a better school or afford to have parent who can facilitate a home school group.

Voucher proponents want everybody to have all choices available.

FrustratedMonky12• 3 years ago

"It’s also the best school in the entire state."

That is the problem. Why not make public schools better? Why is everyone else at a disadvantage. If our focus was on putting funding into 'all' schools, not just 'rich geographic locations', then everyone could be educated.

It isn't about 'Choice', it is about everyone getting a minimal education.

If you want to 'choose' to indoctrinate your kids into your particular religion of 'choice', that can be done at home. But everyone should learn the old Reading/Writing/Arithmetic.

hibikir• 3 years ago

Even among private schools, pricing differentiation happens. My local catholic parish has many schools: Some are very affordable, but those are not the good ones. The ones that are competitive with the secular private schools charge just as much, and it's not due to facilities suddenly costing five times as much: It's that, for the most part, only the kids with rich parents will afford them, plus a few rare scholarship targets that happen to make the school look a little diverse. The high price is a feature.

So Vouchers do not have all choices available: Having a voucher doesn't guarantee acceptance to a school. And depending on your voucher legislation preference, you aren't going both force all schools to accept vouchers and make sure they don't raise prices. Ultimately, being selective is a feature, and therefore prices will go up, not unlike how easy student loans for colleges help raise prices. The top schools will eat the entire value of the voucher in cost increases, or just refuse the value of the voucher if they can't.

You are right in the fact that really, most people in America have to pay for the good school district, either straight up in cash, or in significant increases in home costs. I've seen 30% drops in home values as, within the same district, the line of who got to go into the 'good' public school changed. Vouchers probably make the school choices far more explicit, and might lead to less housing segregation. But they sure aren't going to make all choices available to everyone, any more than I can choose to marry a supermodel, or own a private island.

cmurf4• 3 years ago

I went to a Catholic one of these. World religion was a double edged sword. If you're born a Muslim and are a good Muslim you go to heaven. But it's better to "upgrade" by converting to Catholicism.

That's what we were taught. Including the inferiority of evangelical Christianity. i.e. belief in Christ as a deity and your redeemer, isn't good enough to get you into heaven. You have to do good works.

I have every confidence religious schools teach the superiority of their religion. With a white Jesus on a cross. It's not Jewish and Muslim schools pushing for public money without strings attached into private schools. It's Christian schools.

Well maybe there will come a time once again when folks understand Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, from which we get the wall of separation between church and state phrase. It is in the letter from the Danbury Baptists we see what they were worried about. It wasn't Jews, Muslims, atheists, or anti-religionists. They were worried about the Danbury Congregationalists.

Christians are not on the same page, is an understatement. They really aren't all on the same book either. It's impossible to promote them all the same. And they will not and should not permit dissimilar promotion.

The only sane solution to preserving freedom of religion is to also preserve freedom from it. The government must only promote secularism. Everything else is playing with fire.

JamesLeonis2• 3 years ago

My kids go to a private religious school in South Carolina.
They are taught about world religions, evolution, have chapel twice a week and allow prayer. It’s also the best school in the entire state. My kids go there because it's a great school.

I also went to a private christian high school and it was all that you say here. However I also remember many very rich, ultra religious parents that ousted three principles over religious horseshit while I attended until my latin teacher became Principal and told them all to pound sand or go somewhere else.

I also went to a private catholic elementry school. While it was good at the time, recently it's falling apart. The church has distanced itself from it, attendance YoY is falling, and it'll likely close in the next few years. However unlike a public school, these private schools can close and lean on the public system to catch all of the students they shake out. Unlike the private and charter schools, the buck stops at Public schools.

The reality is that the only people with true choice in school selection have to either be able to afford private school, afford to move to a house zoned for a better school or afford to have parent who can facilitate a home school group.

Charter schools kick out kids as well, so all of these problems apply to them too. The only purpose of charter schools is to make their lobbyists (like Bill Gates and Betsy DeVos) rich by siphoning public money like defense contractors. All this talk about Charter Schools is about Options for students/parents, but nobody is talking about who is Obligated to those students, parents, and the tax payer. When a charter or private school closes, it dumps its students into the pubic system [0].

Consider City High School in Los Angeles, California, which received a $575,000 grant from the federal government. The school had barely started its second year when it suddenly closed, leaving 116 students scrambling for a new school. Similarly, a charter school in Wilmington, Delaware, received a grant of $350,000 but closed just five months into its first school year, forcing 206 students to look for a new school.
The Acclaim Academy charter school chain in Florida received grants of $375,000, $175,000, $175,000, and $19,198 for its four schools. One never opened, another was taken over by the district due to financial concerns and mismanagement, and the two other closed suddenly with no notice, in the middle of the year, leaving students, some of them seniors preparing college applications, searching to find new schools.

Then there is the low attendence and fraud.

The report locates much of the blame for this waste of taxpayer money on the Department of Education’s practice of awarding grants to states with few rules and virtually no accountability. Often, grants were “doled out to individuals who had no credentials or experience to open up a new school,” according to the researchers.
The report also identified a “pattern” of charter school operators—even before their school opened—funneling money from grants to their own personal accounts, to purchases of expensive equipment, and to “for-profit consulting and education management organizations” that do not publicly divulge how they spend money. The report concluded that, due to these practices, the charter school grant program “has become a magnet for grifters, consultants, and charter entrepreneurs who see an easy way to cash-in.”

The kicker:

When members of Congress repeatedly referred to those findings when questioning Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, she dismissed the findings as “political.”

History is littered with corpses and bailouts. At the end of the day, it's all about privatization of public institutions for private profit.

It's also an open secret that private schools rose as a response to desegregation [1] [2].

Privatization is cancer.

[0] https://progressive.org/public-schools-advocate/new-report-w...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy

[2] https://southerneducation.org/publications/history-of-privat...

MisterBastahrd2• 3 years ago

Voucher proponents want to get parents hooked on the idea of charter schools, and then the schools will invariably raise their prices past the cost of voucher when the undesirables start trickling onto their campuses.

zmgsabst5• 3 years ago

There’s nothing that prohibits public funds given to individuals from then going to religious organizations, eg student loans at university level.

They’re not “siphoning public dollars” as some third-party cabal; members of the public are choosing to allocate their dollars (in benefits) to what they believe will be best for their children.

Edit:

It’s not “siphoning” because the allocation is made by the beneficiary of those funds, who is choosing their preferred service provider. There’s no diversion of funds: they’re being utilized by the intended beneficiary in the manner they deem to best suit their needs.

That’s in contrast to traditional school systems, where funds are diverted by administrators to engage in politicking unrelated to education.

Edit 2:

I understand that many people are upset the beneficiary of a public benefit is allowed to make their own choice of service provider. People that in their wisdom, they know better how other people should run their lives!

But it’s indisputably the case school allocations are to benefit the student — the intended beneficiary. Admit you’re in a huff because you’re being told you can’t control what other people do with their benefits.

You’re like people yelling candy shouldn’t be allowed with SNAP/EBT funds. Next you’ll be yelling about “muh welfare queens!” or whatever.

FrustratedMonky12• 3 years ago

If money is literally being diverted, why can't it be called 'syphoning'?

Guess it depends on the state.

In my state, public dollars are literally, pulled from public schools, and given to private schools, which can then teach religion as fact.

How is that not 'syphoning'?

jgeada3• 3 years ago

It isn't the parent's money!

Everyone in my area pays local taxes, whether they are parents or not, including businesses; the bulk of these local taxes are allocated to fund schools. Most of us don't want our taxes going to charter schools or religious schools, and I'm tired of entitled parents siphoning from the system and leaving everyone worse off. If you want to make changes, fix the rules under which schools operate and allow disruptive kids to be expelled.

LanceH• 3 years ago

As long as they cover the curriculum required by state law, withholding money from them because they choose to teach religion is the violation of separation of church and state. The money is for the state mandated education of the children which is typically being satisfied.

JediWing4• 3 years ago

It's also in large part profit motive. You can bet there are corporations licking their chips at the thought of opening cut-rate schools and raking in the profits. They can also incorporate all sorts of corporate propaganda that their parent companies want them to inject.

The profit motive belongs far far away from education.

zackmorris• 3 years ago

Ya this is a really sad turn of events for the US. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, public school was considered one of the pillars of the American Way, like free speech and MTV.

But after 9/11, trillions of dollars got funneled to Christian nationalist groups loosely aligned against Islam and diversity in general, who wouldn't have otherwise received that money, that work tirelessly to underline American values like the separation of church and state that you mentioned. Now whole generations have been raised under an MTV that doesn't play music videos. It seems like it's the same, because we have reality shows and influencers and people who are famous because they are famous. But it's not the same.

Private school is not the same as public school and it never will be. I would even go so far as to say that it misses the point of education altogether. Like a for-profit church or hospital. Privatization is making America a caricature of itself.

XVincentX• 3 years ago

Reminds me a lot what Thomas Sowell says in Charter School and Their Enemies book

h2odragon• 3 years ago

(2010)

we are thinking about spending an enormous amount of time, effort and money on a major overhaul of the education system when we don't have the data to tell us if what we'll spend will wasted or, worse yet, if we are to some extent playing a zero sum game.

... well, do we have the data now?

Seems to me the "education system" keeps having the same debates over and over; surely "data" isn't at issue here? From an outsider perspective it seems like all sides to any debate feel free to make up any data and any reinterpretation of existing data they need, in order to support their position of the day.

AmpsterMan• 3 years ago

That's exactly what they say in the beginning:

First off, this is an observational study, not a randomized experiment. I think we may be reaching the limits of what analysis of observational data can do in the education debate and, given the importance and complexity of the questions, I don't understand why we aren't employing randomized trials to answer some of these questions once and for all.

eimrine• 3 years ago

Could you ELI5 this article for me? I am amazed by the high quality comments here but the article is not readable for me.

sixothree4• 3 years ago

The quality of comments here is pathetic. These are some of the most misleading arguments I've ever seen. Every bit of evidence is some exception to the norm.

vacuity14• 3 years ago

When most people equate emotion-based beliefs to logic, that's what happens. Of course everyone has their biases, but most conveniently ignore theirs.

WarOnPrivacy• 3 years ago

I had 3 sons in my county's first charter school. We enrolled when it launched.

It was a mistake I regret. My kids were not baseline* and the educators were out of their depth. They took their obligations seriously and made good faith efforts but weren't able make the leap (during our 7 years).

We left for the county's public schools and they were a world better - by every measure. I am not overstating that an inch.

All that said, I still felt the charter was a good fit for normie students and I recommended it to some parents (but not all).

* One was high functioning autistic. Two coped poorly with the limited curriculum.

Charter schools, social norming and zero-sum games (2010)

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