the new mathFollow

I guess I'm just not getting why people keep saying this. The kids in the low income brackets are *already* at a disadvantage in terms of education. Vouchers doesn't decrease the money they have at all. It doesn't decrease the amount of money per student the school they'll go to will have. The rich kids will still have opportunities that the poor kids dont. The point of the education system is not to erase economic advantages gained by those with higher incomes. It's to provide education and opportunity to all students.


You say you just left the public school system, and it had lots of problems. Let me ask you something. Would you say that those problems were due to a lack of funding for the school? Or poor use of the funds the school had?


I would argue it's not about funding, but how the funding is spent (or misspent in many cases) that causes problems in our public school system. Vouchers do address that pretty directly. Schools that manage their funds well will get more vouchers. Those that don't will fail and be replaced. Everyone seems to want to insist that any education system must erase econmic differences between students, but that's well out of the scope of the education system. Let's just educate the kids in the most efficient manner possible and worry/argue about whether it's fair for wealthy kids to have advantages in a different arena...

Don't forget the po' kids have to work after school. Rich kids get their butlers to do their homework.

Personally, I feel it was a mix of both. My main problem was that most of the money alocated to extra cirecular activies went to sports and not many of the other kinds of activies (though I lack a list due to very little personal experince.) I my case, while I didn't go to the a poor school, it certainly wasn't all that ritzy either, was that the over popularised activities, that were mediocre at best, would recieve a disproportionate amount of funding. i.e., the cross-country running team, which had a far better record than any other sport at the school, had to use some jersies that were 30 years old while the football team were able to get far more frequently. THat was the worst case that I saw. Mismanagement of money? Yes, a very large one at that. Worthy of privitizing the the school? Not in my opinion.

Had the money been avaible for jersies for both teams, it would have been a moot issue. A case where management vainly cut costs because it had to was when budget cuts demanded the removale of one teacher from certain departments. They settled on not replacing a teacher who was retiring as thier cut, using his salary to estimate savings. By doing this, they made one teacher cover the position that nomarly takes two teachers and could have used a thrid to improve class function. Again, a stupid decision made by bad management but would have been avoided by sufficent funding.

So, from my experince, the management of the school is definatly far under par, but I feel that the under the same conditions, private schools that have to think economicly rather than educationaly would have used the made similar descions. It's seems to be more a case of needing to get management to work more effectivly and efficently. In either case, I think that should be something adressed before going to vouchers. Private shools now have a very good incetive to be effecient and effective with thier money; they want to caputre a larger share of the education market, and need to be as strong as possible to do so. However, if everything goes to private schools, in some parts that emphisis on management efficency may be lower and let fall because at the certain levels and certain areas, they will get bussiness, not matter how bad it is.

So, the long and the short is, I'd rather see management policy change before jumping into vouchers. If things still fall, then I'd look into vouchers.

I'm not actually for a Federally run system, I was just tossing it out there as a rebuttal to Gbaji's claim that privatization is the only thing we haven't tried and his attempts to make current education look like a giant government behemoth. There's a whole other side of the spectrum we could be trying except he'd never go for it because it's opposed to his political beliefs.

I guess I'm just not getting why people keep saying this. The kids in the low income brackets are *already* at a disadvantage in terms of education. Vouchers doesn't decrease the money they have at all. It doesn't decrease the amount of money per student the school they'll go to will have. The rich kids will still have opportunities that the poor kids dont. The point of the education system is not to erase economic advantages gained by those with higher incomes. It's to provide education and opportunity to all students.
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the voucher system only helps people who do not need help. it is pointless, and useless. it solves nothing.

the worst performing schools are in predominatly poor neibhorhoods. if you are going to fix anything, you need to start here. vouchers do not work in this enviroment.

in wealthy neibhorhoods, the children do not need any help. giving them vouchers is like giving a upper middle income person free gas to solve rising gas prices. it is wasted money. vouchers do not work in this enviroment either.

vouchers also cross the line in the seperation of church and state because most private schools are religious based. vouchers are ILLEGAL here. something thing two is finding out right now in Florida.

so, in summery, vouchers do not help the poor. vouchers do not help the rich. vouchers are illegal if they go to a religious based private school.

get it yet? useless.

the ONLY thing vouchers do, which is what they were designed to do, is to subsidize private school for upper middle income people, which is only about .....20......percent of the famileys in florida, and only those that are not already going to private school, which is probably only about half of those, mabe less.

they do NOTHING. useless.

i would entertain the idea of charter schools if not for the FACT that EVERY charter school in the state of Florida is in bankrupcy, and some are under a court order to stay open so they dont dump their kids on the street in the middle of the school year like a couple have already done.

charter schools are FOR PROFIT. they are NOT CHEAPER than public schools. they dont pay teachers less. they dont give out free bussing to kids. their lunches are not 50 cents. their books are bought for each class just like a colledge. the problem they are having in Florida is Florida will not pay them enough to be profitable, and yet are already paying them MORE than it would cost to run a public school.

they do not work.

what needs to be done is build more schools and hire more teachers. what needs to be done is have the 500 million dollars thing two is using to bribe bussiness to move here reallocated to the educational system.

what needs to be done is elect a politicial who has the political will to improve the school system. which will not happen while big bussiness decides who gets to run for office.

education NEEDS to be inherantly government. medical care NEEDS to be inherantly government.

for profit companies WILL let you die to save money. for profit companies DONT CARE if your kids fail or not, as long as they get your money, and they dont care if you are poor, no cash, no education.

this is reality. for profit companies are about making money, not about making moral or ethical decisions (enron anyone?}.

florida is trying vouchers. florida is trying charter schools. both are failing miserably......as predicted i might add. the moral majority party does not care as long as they dont have to pay more tax dollars to build schools and provide medical care for poor people.

this is what you voted for. this is what you, gbaji, stand for.

this is what 20 percent of this country wants and has managed to seduce another 30 percent of you ignorant sheep into supporting.