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Originally Posted by thecoalman
Public schools have destroyed public schools. I have no issues with this as long as the students they are producing are actually learning something.
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So you would agree that voucher schools should be subject to the same testing and evaluations that are applied to public schools, especially "value-added" scoring that reflects student ability?
Most voucher proponents vehemently oppose subjecting voucher schools to the same testing standards applied to public schools. Why?
Actually, in Ohio, charter schools and parochial schools which receive vouchers have been exempted by the Republicans from having their students take the tests required of public schools with the subsequent resulting school and school system evaluations.
Why, because so many did poorly, while the public schools with the best students excelled. Before the tests were eliminated for private schools, Cleveland public magnet schools were outperforming St. Ignatius, one of Cleveland's most esteemed parochial schools.
<< Ohio's school voucher and testing system does not give a good comparison between public high schools and the private high schools that take the vouchers.
The private schools don't want to take the same tests, and usually don't.
The state is also not reporting results the same way for private high schools schools as public ones.
And since most voucher high schools have selective admissions with special tests and interviews that most public schools don't have, test scores are often skewed.
While private schools that cherry-pick their students often have better looking test scores, so do public magnet schools with competitive admissions. In Cleveland, those schools even scored better than schools like
St. Ignatius.>>
Cleveland's magnet schools score as well on state tests as St. Ignatius | cleveland.com
Very problematic is that studies have shown that kids of similar abilities attending voucher schools did worse than they would have performed in public schools.
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But Figlio found that while voucher students were typically better-off financially and stronger academically than students they left behind, they did worse after going to private schools than comparable students that stayed in public school.
"The kids that were going to the private schools were doing worse," he said. "The kids who participated in the program did considerably worse compared to the closest-looking kids in similar schools.">>
Do vouchers give kids better educations? Ohio test results are mixed | cleveland.com
Why shouldn't private schools receiving vouchers be subject to the SAME testing and evaluation programs as public schools?
Failures in public schools aren't the fault of "public schools" per se as there are many superb public school systems. Failing public schools represent a failure of administration and often financing, and perhaps even of changing societal values among parents and students.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
Also, one could easily argue singling out a school because it's religious is a violation of separation of church and state.
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That's the argument, but for the first two centuries of our Constitutional republic, it was well understood that public funding of religious schools aided in the establishment of religion. You have no problem with public funding of radical Muslim voucher-funded schools or public-funded Scientology schools?
So a big problem with private schools, especially religious-based schools, is that we are Lebanonizing our society. To the extent that students attend religious or class-based schools, whether for the wealthy, certain races, Christian denominations, such as Fundamentalists, Catholic, Lutheran, etc., or Jews and Muslims (there are many Muslim charter schools in Ohio), we're destroying community values and familiarity.
Part of the obvious popularity of voucher schools is to enable parents to enforce de facto segregation on their children.
The result in many places, as in Lakewood, NJ, when the Orthodox Jews took control of the public school board, public schools are diminished to the great detriment of the remaining public school students. Do you find this desirable?
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