Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If Family B rents and pays no school tax but wants to send their child to private school, no tax credit, since they are not paying any share of the school budget to begin with.
Renters may not pay taxes directly, but they most certainly are paying the equivalent amount to their landlord who then pays the tax. Believe me, landlords aren't paying taxes out of their own pockets without passing along the cost of the tax bill to their renters in the form of what they charge for rent.
So, yes, renters do pay their share of the school budget - albeit indirectly.
Quote:
By the way, I'd put limited stock in what E.D. Hirsch has to say about education.
Why? Are educational outcomes worse in schools that implement the core knowledge educational beliefs that Hirsch espouses? The Office of Postsecondary Education supports what Hirsch has to say about education...
"Core Knowledge evaluation reports suggest dramatic gains in both quality and equity in these schools. For example, at Mohegan School, located in the innermost South Bronx and serving primarily Latino and African American students, the average improvement per pupil over a school year in the Total Language Arts Battery was more than twice the average improvement in the district. A comparable improvement in equity (i.e., children enabled to perform up to their potential) is implied by data showing that the lowest quartile of students made gains 30 percent greater than the gains made by the lowest quartile in the district as a whole. Aside from outperforming neighboring schools, Mohegan's disciplinary problems went down and attendance went up."
I don't equate successful test scores with life success. The world has changed - there is 24/7 access to facts and information, the ability to critically evaluate information is a much more relevant skill for the current world. It's not enough to simply possess core knowledge and curricula that emphasize this over higher-level thinking are short-sited.
No vouchers. If we can come up with the money to give free handouts to people, then we can just as easily take that money and put it directly into the schools that already exist, and benefit ALL the children.
No vouchers. Fix our existing schools. If you want to send your kid to a different school, figure out how to do it without sticking your hand into my pocket.
I don't equate successful test scores with life success. The world has changed - there is 24/7 access to facts and information the ability to critically evaluate information is a much more relevant skill for the current world.
I find this to be an odd contradiction. How is it that students who are not able to critically evaluate information on a test successfully enough to choose correct answers magically acquire the ability to critically evaluate unfamiliar information they encounter in the current world around them?
No vouchers. If we can come up with the money to give free handouts to people, then we can just as easily take that money and put it directly into the schools that already exist, and benefit ALL the children.
No vouchers. Fix our existing schools. If you want to send your kid to a different school, figure out how to do it without sticking your hand into my pocket.
How is paying school taxes for my child to be educated in a public school system different then paying taxes for my child to be educated in a private school? It would cost the same.
How is paying school taxes for my child to be educated in a public school system different then paying taxes for my child to be educated in a private school? It would cost the same.
Oh gee, let's see here. Are you going to take the taxes that would normally go to the public school and put them into the voucher system? If so, then you are taking AWAY from public schools that already do not have enough.
OR...are you going to charge me EXTRA taxes to send your offspring to a private school? Which is it? Because they are both equally unacceptable.
My biggest problem would how would kids get to school. Parents? Hah. And you can't have a bus system running around picking up kids when every child down the street goes to a different school.
Take my brother. He's a senior in high school but doesn't have a car because college is more important. My parents both leave for work by 6:30 AM. High schools don't start until 8:30. So what should he do if there were vouchers? Wait around for 2 hours in the parking lot for school? Or longer since both parents are going to OPPOSITE direction of school. Our middle schools start even later.
So all I see is a way to cause more pollution, placing undue competition on students (think the NYC system where kids have to TEST INTO the good public schools and all private schools- don't think that wouldn't happen with vouchers), and playing Russian roulette with kids who end up for whatever reason in poor performing schools. It's not as if those would magically disappear.
I'm not sure this is an issue. In our old public school district the children didn't have bus service. I have a child in a private school and we provide transportation. That is our choice. We knew it was part of the package, we didn't expect someone else to handle it.
I suppose that if a parent wanted their kid to go to ABC school and had a voucher for it, it should be their responsibility to get their child there. If there was a conflict with the parents' work, then they'd either have to make alternate arrangements or choose a closer school. That seems like the least of the concerns regarding vouchers... one that truly DOES have an easy solution!
I find this to be an odd contradiction. How is it that students who are not able to critically evaluate information on a test successfully enough to choose correct answers magically acquire the ability to critically evaluate unfamiliar information they encounter in the current world around them?
I don't see a contradiction. I'm not suggesting that kids who do poorly on tests have better critical thinking skills - rather that schooling should focus more on developing higher-level thinking skills than on developing fact-retention and test-taking skills. It would be awfully hard to measure skills like critical thinking, creativity, synthesizing, etc. on some kind of standardized assessment, yet these are the skills that will be most important in the digital age.
And for the record, I don't reflexively believe that standardized tests are evil, but I do believe they are misused. I think they're fine if used as a screening device to provide support for kids who might struggle with certain skills. Instead, they have become a yardstick for measuring the efficacy of districts, schools, teachers, and students, and I think that way overshoots what they can accomplish.
I'm so happy that many of you HAVE the option of of changing work hours and such. My parents would lose their jobs. How is this voucher program really a benefit to ALL students in the public school system if there is no way for students to get to a school? Where I grew up, there were no sidewalks so even if you lived next door to school, you could not walk.
Essentially, the voucher program seems like it would be a good idea for those students who already would be successful in failing schools. It's the kids with working parents, single parents, or parents that in general can't be bothered who would still be stuck in schools that are losing funds to this program. Brilliant idea.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
How is it different?
