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1. You are empowered to send your child to a private school if you like. But since many private schools are religious in nature tax dollars should not be spent on them.
2.What makes you think the public schools that are succeeding actually want MORE students? Do you think Millburn or Chatham are going to be accepting students?
3. If you want to see how well competition is driving the cost of education look at the cost of private colleges over the last 30 years. More people go to private schools than ever before, schools are competing for this ever expanding pool of students and the cost of college has outpaced that of inflation some 200%. What about the largest model of school choice makes you think it would drive DOWN the cost of education?
1. You are empowered to send your child to a private school if you like. But since many private schools are religious in nature tax dollars should not be spent on them.
2.What makes you think the public schools that are succeeding actually want MORE students? Do you think Millburn or Chatham are going to be accepting students?
A school that operated efficiently wouldn't have a problem accepting additional students if the voucher they receive is less than the cost that they take on to educate that student. Of course, the school should have just as much choice as to who they are willing to accept and how many they are willing to accept. If you have the opportunity to add an A student to your school at no additional cost, most schools would do it.
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3. If you want to see how well competition is driving the cost of education look at the cost of private colleges over the last 30 years. More people go to private schools than ever before, schools are competing for this ever expanding pool of students and the cost of college has outpaced that of inflation some 200%. What about the largest model of school choice makes you think it would drive DOWN the cost of education?
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The cost of running a University has not really gone up all that much. Universities are huge beneficiaries to federal and state research grants. They also receive aid from the state as well. The reason tuition keeps rising has nothing to do with rising cost of operations and everything to do with the fact that you are not allowed to default on students. Add to that the fact that the government is content to backstop loans to students who are willing to incur 50k of student aid debt a year, and the colleges will all naturally jack up their tuition as high as possible. The second you let people default on their student loans and the second you see the government get out of the student loan business, you'll watch the price of tuition collapse back to normal levels.
Universities have the most bloated payrolls and are content to erect building after building as long as they are able to ride the gravy train of government subsidies.
Venture capitalists, and those who take the VC approach to school reform, love the independently run public schools known as charter schools, another trend Zuckerberg is likely to promote in Newark. Charters function like an educational startup. They give ultimate power to leaders, freeing them from many district rules, including union agreements, and they depend on a round-the-clock work ethic. Sadly, charters fail at similar rates to startups -- and when they do, children can be the casualties. A 2009 national study from Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that 37% of charter-school students performed worse than their counterparts at public schools: 46% matched up, and just 17% showed clear gains.
Of course, such "performance" stats hinge on one central metric: standardized test scores. And it's here, I believe, that the philanthropic narrative of school reform breaks down. A growing chorus of educational iconoclasts, including Diane Ravitch and Sir Ken Robinson, argue that such scores are exactly the wrong gauges of success. What do they really measure? "Taking tests again and again does not make kids smarter," Ravitch says. "Their motivation does not improve, their interest in their education does not increase, and their achievement does not improve." Judging schools based on test scores means pushing students to conform to a single standard deviation, rather than cultivating their individual passions.
Many of the people who disagree with Ravitch and Robinson (and me, for that matter) are smart and dedicated. The face of their movement is former Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee, who is profiled on page 94, revealing why she's pushing her new billion-dollar program. Also included in this package: suggestions from a wide range of experts, from elementary-school principals to philanthropists and union chiefs. Put it together, and you've got a foment of ideas all aimed at benefiting children. Whatever your policy position, that's a good thing.
Our continued prosperity in a postindustrial economy depends on creativity and innovation. And that's why Zuckerberg's decision to follow the popular script disappoints me. I wish he had taken his $100 million, and some of his smartest people, and designed a new framework for education from the ground up, much the way he built Facebook from a dorm-room idea to a global brand. Is it possible to craft an education platform that's as participatory, offers as much opportunity for self-expression, and is as magnetic to young people as Facebook itself? That would be a theory of change worth testing.
The cost of running a University has not really gone up all that much. Universities are huge beneficiaries to federal and state research grants. They also receive aid from the state as well. The reason tuition keeps rising has nothing to do with rising cost of operations and everything to do with the fact that you are not allowed to default on students. Add to that the fact that the government is content to backstop loans to students who are willing to incur 50k of student aid debt a year, and the colleges will all naturally jack up their tuition as high as possible. The second you let people default on their student loans and the second you see the government get out of the student loan business, you'll watch the price of tuition collapse back to normal levels.
Universities have the most bloated payrolls and are content to erect building after building as long as they are able to ride the gravy train of government subsidies.
most people would be shocked that many private universities are largely union shops as well. also, private universities rarely charge most students sticker price. but it does keep getting more expensive either way.
well i thought since you were telling me you knew it to be true, you'd actually have some sort of way to back that up. oh well. i'll keep looking on my own. thanks anyways for getting my hopes up.
well i thought since you were telling me you knew it to be true, you'd actually have some sort of way to back that up. oh well. i'll keep looking on my own. thanks anyways for getting my hopes up.
I provided data for you, you didn't like, so help yourself. You say you will "keep looking it up", which implies you have made an attempt. You clearly haven't since a search since a Google search turns up 62,800 hits in 0.22 seconds. I will not provide any of those links for you since the last one I provided, by the former chancellor of the Milwaukee school system, was inadequate for you.
You can lead a horse to water...........
Ok, I have reconsidered. But this is the last of your work I do for you.
"Fortunately, my research team launched a comprehensive evaluation of the voucher program three years ago. In partnership with two other veteran school-choice researchers, John Witte of UW-Madison and Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas (and assisted by a bevy of bright young scholars), we have left no stone unturned to determine the effects of the school-choice program on students and on the public school system as a whole.
To date, our evidence indicates that these students are demonstrating rates of growth in achievement comparable to similar MPS students. At the same time, we have determined that competition from the voucher program is pressuring public schools to improve and that school choice saves Wisconsin taxpayers tens of millions of dollars per year.
However, we suspect that the most important findings lie just ahead, in the fourth and fifth years of the project, which is a longitudinal study of a representative sample of 2,727 voucher students carefully matched to a similar group of MPS students. The two groups began the study similar to each other regarding important characteristics such as test scores, grade, race, and neighborhood."
"Student participants in the Milwaukee school voucher program have graduation rates that are 18 percent higher than those of students in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), according to a new report released by John Robert Warren, an education expert and professor at the University of Minnesota."
Last edited by shorebaby; 02-25-2011 at 04:24 AM..
shorebaby, the first link you gave me was an article that says "it works", but didn't explain any data showing it worked. if some chancellor stands up and tells me it works, i just take his word for it?
thank you for the new links. i did not find them. the different things i've been reading as of late is that charter schools and school choice studies aren't very good as far as a scientific study, since there is not a case where a test school opens, and they truly pick a random sample of students from the other schools. it's always an opt-in program, which by default, means that the data is skewed and can't be used as evidence.
i'm not arguing with you, i'm asking because there's very few, if any, where they truly studied a random group of students in these programs.
i'll take a look at these links later. thanks!
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