How many educated people who:
a) Oppose vouchers
b) Have children who do not attend inner city public schools
would still oppose vouchers if they were the only way to get their child out of an inner city public school? How many of them would accept that their child had to be left in that school because the systemic effects of allowing their child to exit that repulsive school would be dreadful?
Respectfully, I believe the answer is "null set".
Opposing school vouchers is, for basically every single person who does so, a completely costless belief. You get the pleasure of "supporting public education"; someone else's kid, whom you will thankfully never meet, loses their future.
Obviously, this is not exactly a unique phenomenon; most people are more sympathetic to policies whose costs they don't bear. But at least most of the libertarian policy wonks I know have endured extended periods without health insurance. Find me the parents who oppose vouchers when it's their own child who has no exit.
I'm in the complementary set: I (a) support vouchers and (b) sent my son to a public high school (Woodrow Wilson HS) in Washington DC, though I certainly could have afforded a private school (and would not have qualified for vouchers in any case -- too high an income at the time).
Wilson HS, despite being up in the NW (e.g., richest) sector of DC, was, ah, interesting. There was just one entrance/exit for all students, with a metal detector installed. My tours of the school made it clear that this was a major step down from the other various high schools that our kids had attended in Utah, California, Texas, Virginia, and Maryland.
I had respect for the administrators and teachers at Wilson, who I think were doing the best they could, but the DC School District is notoriously corrupt and inefficient, in spite of having one of the highest per-pupil spending rates of any major city in the US.
I met with the acting CIO of the DC School District at one point to see about offering them pro bono information technology (IT) consulting (I was with PricewaterhouseCoopers at the time), and she regaled me with horror story after horror story about just how primitive, non-functional, uncoordinated and wasteful the school's IT infrastructure was.
Jon did not do well at Wilson HS, though given some of his struggles, I don't know how much of that was his own fault. But I'm a strong supporter of vouchers, particularly for those who have no other options. As you note, the hypocrisy is particularly rank in DC, where virtually none of the opponents of vouchers actually send their kids to the DC public schools. ..bruce..
Megan: During the the City of Boston desegregation suit in the 70's, I had a conversation with two persons, residents of the Town of Brookline with school age children, who were very enthusiastic about the busing of Boston kids to bring about some sort of mixture of whites and blacks in the schools. Brookline, which sticks into Boston like a peninsular, was at the time a 97% white school district.
I happened to suggest to these persons that the judge in the Boston desegregation case was planning to bring Brookline into the mix and use its students to help with the Boston schools. Suddenly, it seemed to these parents that the idea of mixing up races was not such a good idea.
So, thirty years later the same attains. It all depends upon whose ox is gored. Vouchers are bad if you don't need them to educate your own children. You are all for the public school system as long as your kid does not have to go there. On and on, it's so human, so boring, and so repetitious to point it out.
Even Jesus lost his temper when he confronted hypocrites.
Let me try putting my skepticism another way, too.
I'm very, very skeptical that vouchers will substantively improve our education problems. Rather, I think it will move our problems around.
I have a few reasons for thinking this:
1) I haven't seen voucher proponents address how they guarantee that every child gets an education. Either a) you force schools to admit everyone, essentially turning private schools into public schools, or b) the kids who are refused entry into private schools remain in the troubled public schools
2) Voucher proponent seems to believe that there's something inherently wrong with public schools. Obviously, this isn't the case, as there are many very good public schools. It's public schools serving specific populations in specific locations that have problems. I don't see how simply moving these students from one location to another helps.
All that aside, the idea of parent choice is, I think, a strong argument in favor of vouchers. But there's nothing about vouchers in and of themselves that suggests they'll actually improve educational outcomes.
Or, to put my above argument more succinctly:
Let's give everyone vouchers, and in five years we'll still be having arguments over why our schools are failing so badly.
The point, Peter, is that while they may still be failing, they'll be failing fewer kids . . .
That's the sticking point for me, Megan, I'm not certain that's true.
I really am sympathetic to the choice argument, but I'm afraid we're deluding ourselves by believing that choice will create improvement.
I doubt I'd vote against vouchers, given the chance, but color me skeptical as to vouchers as advancing educational outcomes.
We probably can agree that:
Which, to me, means that they will help some and somewhat reduce the costs sunk in "educating the hopeless" -- if funds are indeed kept attached to the student. Whether that's an acceptable goal to strive for is another question.
Megan: your CSS could stand improvement :(
Okay, say vouchers don't produce any improvement at all. The key question is, who does it make worse off? If vouchers can't improve things . . . i.e. if the school really doesn't matter at all . . . then who does it hurt? It seems to me that at the very worst, vouchers make the parents and students more satisfied, at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
Then there's another possibility: they help the marginal kid at the expense of the failing kid. That's a problem. But unless I'm willing to let my kid stay in a failing school for the sake of the other students, I can't see how I could demand the same of any other parent. It doesn't seem moral to rob a child of their entire future for the sake of creating extremely marginal improvements in others.
But I also don't buy that argument. Peer effects seem to have a tipping point; in a failing school, the failing kids drag down the kids who might succeed, not the other way around.
And as I say, I'm not convinced that vouchers don't work. I'd like to see some better data than what we've got.
My dad taught in a public school system, and was always a staunch supporter of public schools, especially compared with most European systems (where they track students from an early age.)
His favorite comment on this topic is "The [American] public school system is the best in the world, because everybody has the opportunity to fail."
In other words, you are (theoretically) given the same opportunities as every one of your peers, and, if you don't take advantage of it, tough cookies. You had your shot.
I think that this statement actually provides a great foundation for vouchers, because, at some schools, some people aren't given an equal chance to fail, because of conditions, peer pressure, gangs, etc. Vouchers would provide the last critical piece of the puzzle.
P.S. My dad does NOT support vouchers, believing that schools are a function of the students, not the teachers. I personally think he is 80% right on that, but we deserve to give the other 20% a shot with vouchers.
P.P.S. He taught in the same school district his entire career. When he started, the school won award after award, and consistently sent kids to ivy league schools. He couldn't make it to 35 years because of the discipline problems. The neighborhood went downhill, and took the school with it. Same teachers.
Really Megan, your argument overall is good, which is all the more reason for you to drop this silly line.
A person can be against school vouchers because they think they're bad overall. This can be right, or this can be wrong, but either way, this has no bearing on the issue of hypocrisy.
I doubt most parents who oppose school vouchers are also opposed (meaning, being opposed to school vouchers is not the same as blaming the recipients) to relatively disadvantaged people taking advantage of what's available. Meaning, they don't have to blame the specific individuals, (meaning, the parents who accept the vouchers) involved.
The idea that virtually all parents would take advantage of vouchers if they had to has no bearing on the argument, since this is a bigger-picutre-than-that kind of issue.
I may think parole is given too easily, but encourage my incarcerated son to jump at the chance when they offer it to him.
Or I may think that gun control is a good idea, but as long as gun's are legal, I'm gonna pack mine.
There's nothing necessarily hypocritical about that. And it has no bearing on whether the overall argument is justified or not.
Maybe it makes more sense to just have a cash transfer?
Let's say public school costs 25k per student right now, if you figure in capital costs and pensions.
Maybe it would make more sense to just give a check of $25k to the family and let them get laptops, internet access, tutoring, etc.
Sorry, one more thing. You may think that giving 25k per kid to a family as a direct subsidy is bad, but:
1. That's what we're indirectly doing with public schooling right now.
2. How is that different than social security?
-J
Jay J, I'm sorry, but I think any parent who exercises choices for their kids, and then votes to deny that choice to other kids on the basis that they "support public schooling" or "don't want their tax dollars to go to the Catholic Church" is not only doing so with a callous disregard for lives of the poor, but claiming that they are doing so out of concern for the very lives they are destroying.
Megan, not sure if anyone mentioned it but Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, supports your earlier post on this subject, BTW.
A closing thought for the night on Megan's point:
It may not be the case that the people who are in the most desperate situation are the best indicator of what we as a society should do.
I mean, I'm sure those who have had a loved one murdered probably favor the death penalty at a higher rate than the general public, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should just defer to them. The death penalty may be a good policy, or it may be bad policy, but it doesn't depend primarily on the view of victims.
And it is quite possible for a person to acknowledge that a program to be good for people, but that their bigger-picture argument is more important to them. Those opposed to school vouchers don't need to deny that they can be good for some people, yet believe that a better system for the masses would be one where vouchers were not allowed.
In this way, you could even remove your own children from the public school, have a live and let live attitude toward what other people do with their children, and yet think school vouchers are a bad idea from a bigger-picture perspective.
You could be wrong in all these views, and yet still not be displaying any hypocrisy. And if those who oppose school vouchers are wrong, it has nothing to do with whether or not they would accept a voucher if they found themselves in a situation where they needed one.
This just strikes me as a particularly hyperbolic place to argue from, Megan. I'm sure some of those opposing you do it too, but in this argument, I think you've stepped off the path.
Jay J,
I think you're trying to hard to rationalize. At the end of the day, you're either in or you're out. And if you don't send your kids into "the system", you're out.
Jay J, in the end every argument about vouchers boils down to one of two things:
a) kids shouldn't be allowed to exit failing schools for any of a number of moral or systemic reasons.
b) allowing kids to exit failing schools doesn't do any good.
But anyone arguing about vouchers who has chosen their house for its school district, or enrolled their kid in a private school, has demonstrated by their actions that they do not, in fact, believe what they are saying. I'm sorry, but that's hypocritical; just as I would have been a hypocrite if I'd favored single-payer when it would have benefited me personally. I really don't see how you can argue otherwise.
Now, you can argue that they're not bad people, and fine, I mostly agree, but so what? Their self-delusion is still maddening, and more importantly, IMHO very possibly ruining the lives of a lot of poor kids.
It seems to me that at the very worst, vouchers make the parents and students more satisfied, at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
Um, who's going to pay for the vouchers? Unless you're suggesting that we simultaneously and instantaneously end the public school systems (and that's so clearly politically impossible I'm pretty sure that's not what you're suggesting), I'm not sure how vouchers are "no extra cost to the taxpayer."
I didn't see your response while I was posting my last comment, Megan, so I wasn't trying to whip a dead horse. I wouldn't have responded twice had I known that you were replying. Anyway...
But in response to your 9:34 post, I have to reiterate that you may be right that those who oppose school vouchers while removing their children from public schools have missed something very important. But I don't believe that you can demonstrate that they know this in their own heart. I imagine they believe they're as right as you, and like a poster in a recent thread, many of them probably believe that support for school vouchers can only come from heartless conservatives who hate the public schools. If yawl keep accusing one another of bad faith, or moral blindness, you may accumulate numbers of already converted zealots on your own side, but you won't change very many minds either.
Take stem-cell research. I happen to make the value judgment that those tiny little blastocysts, while clearly an example of life, are not fully developed humans, and that using them for research to fight disease is a value-weight judgment I'm willing to make. However I understand that some believe that these blastocysts are sacred and special and shouldn't be exploited for any purpose other than for procreation. I'm fine with that. I have a different value judgment (or maybe we're just disagreeing on facts, as Ayer would say). Of course I could beat my opponents over the head with how callously they were disregarding the sick, but they could return the favor by calling me a murderer.
The example above is emotionally charged, but I think the logical content is the same.
The possibility that there are principled arguments against your position should cause you to pause before you beat your opponents over the head with this kind of hyperbole, regardless of whether you're right nor wrong.
I find it hard to believe (yet, here it is) that you think a parent forfeits principled opposition to school vouchers because they remove their children from failing schools.
It seems to me that wholes and parts are being conflated in your argument. Opposition to school vouchers can be principally based on big-picture reasons, or on the whole. But what each individual parent does with their child is an example of the part.
I know you're way too sharp to not know this, so it probably sounds condescending, but it seems that you've gotten so deep in the back and forth that you aren't seeing that maybe you're shooting like a shotgun, and hitting some innocent by-standers, rather than honing in on the issue with a laser pointer, which you've clearly demonstrated your ability to do.
I think deep down you know I'm right...
I love your blog BTW.
Respectfully, Jay, no, I really don't.
To me, a suburban parent who opposes vouchers sounds like this:
1) Allowing poor kids to exit failing public schools via a voucher: terrible idea that will destroy the system.
2) Allowing my kids to exit failing public schools via a real estate purchase: just doing what's right for my kids.
Megan,
I'm not arguing that they simply aren't bad people, that would be silly and over-simplistic.
But first things first, self-delusion is not the same thing as hypocrisy. Unless of course of course you're willing to entertain the idea that perfectly well-meaning people are hypocritical, in which case the label "hypocritical" kinda loses its normative force, especially if the label could be reduced to "well-meaning but wrong" without losing any key meaning. If you grant that they may be perfectly well-meaning, then I have to wonder if you truly believe that your moralizing about hypocrisy and self-delusion will advance the issue.
As to your 9:51 post, I don't think the argument must boil down to something like "people should not be allowed to take advantage of school vouchers." Now of course that may be a result of their argument. But it needn't, and probably isn't the intellectual trigger for their opposition.
They can think that vouchers are just a bad idea, and that a more utilitarian argument may be at play, such as believing the quality of the public schools will suffer too much in the long run if vouchers are implemented. Now, they can be perfectly wrong about all this, but this doesn't mean that they either deserve your moral admonition, or that your admonition will help anything but allowing you to vent your anger, regardless of how it will impact the give and take.
Josh, it doesn't take much effort on this one, and I must admit to failing to understand why anyone is "out" if they take their kids out of a public or failing school. People can have an opinion about the policy regardless of their situation right?
I might also add, to Jay J's point, that someone can be against vouchers and still make some kind of sacrifice or contribution to helping kids get out of bad education situations.
I'm a voucher skeptic myself (though not, as I've noticed, a hard-core opponent), and I've given money in the past to my local Catholic school to help them afford to bring in more kids who want to go there. There's nothing in my stance on vouchers that prevents me from helping individual schools in bringing in more poor kids.
Just because someone is skeptical of vouchers as a mass-policy proposal, it does not therefore follow that they are committed to denying poor children educational opportunities.
To claim so would be as silly as, oh, claiming that those who opposed SCHIP hate poor children...
Above should be "as I've noted", not "as I've noticed"
Megan,
As to your 9:50 post, I guess it's as simple as that huh?
Wow, I guess you're right. How can anyone actually hold these views? It must be hypocrisy, or self-delusion.
I guess it's not possible that people actually think:
1) School vouchers are a bad idea because they rob the public school system of monies.
2) But insofar as individuals in need take advantage of a voucher program, I can't blame them at all.
3) I can't keep my own child in this school system because my child is more important to me than my abstract political views, in spite of the fact that I still think vouchers are a bad idea, in a utilitarian, big picture way.
4) After all, one or two children being taken out will not make the ultimate difference, however introducing a large-scale voucher program might endanger the school-system in a way that taking my child out won't.
OK, I almost added the possibility that some parents stay in the district (those who send their kids to private schools) and happily pay taxes to the school-system that their child doesn't attend, but no use sticking up for someone with such a hypocritical or self-deluded position.
And I almost added that if any of these parents blamed the individuals who did take advantage of the program as being the culprits for the harm, yet then took their own child out, then that would REALLY be hypocritical. But I guess we've got them dead to rights on this one.
How dare these people? What do you suggest we do? Call them self-deluded more? Maybe that will help them come around!
Jay,
Once you take the step of opting out of the system it's hard to argue that other people shouldn't be able to.
Once you send your kid to a private (or high-end suburban public) school, you are saying that there are immediately available better options and that you want to take them. You can't then roll out the "well, no one has proven private schools are any better" argument.
By sending your kids outside the system, you are taking a position that you can't then say is good for you but not good for others.
Jay, I think that someone who is against vouchers, and uses them, is a hypocrite. I think that someone who is against vouchers, and tells someone else to use them, is a hypocrite. I think that if you think that kids should be kept in bad schools in order to save the system, you should keep your kids in that school. I think that if your opinion on something would change if you were on the other end of the deal, you are a hypocrite. I think they're hypocrites. I think willful self delusion is hypocrisy. I think they're hypocrites. I seriously, totally, think they're hypocrites.
One can say: I think that exiting failing schools is bad for the schools. Unfortunately, a lot of other people have exited, and therefore I have to exit too, because my kid can't save the others. Collective action problems are real.
But why is your kid the last one who gets to exit? Why is that morally right rather than selfish as hell? Why should the ability to purchase a house give you a get out of jail free card? My problem is not that they take the exit; it's that they bar the doors behind them.
^^^in my above post,^^^, my 10:22 post, I meant to refer to Megan's 9:59 post, not her 9:50 post, which so far as I can tell, does not exist in this thread.
That was probably obvious, but my OCD wouldn't let me not clarify.
Jay, Your #4 is the hypocrisy summed up perfectly. You're saying, in other words, that for some reason the system should be the only choice for other people when you bail. If you're out of the system, then you can't honestly claim to support it.
On a follow-up, Jay: why is your kid more important than an abstract political principle, but other kids aren't?
This is precisely the source of my rage: that is what I think voucher opponents believe. And personally, I try very hard not to hold abstract political principles that only apply to everyone else in the world, but not to me personally. I think doing otherwise is the definition of hypocrisy. it is also very common. But frankly, in the case of a child's future, it's also unforgiveable.
Megan,
1) In the case of those who have caused you such rage that you have deemed their action, "unforgivebale," I hope this vent has helped you to feel better, since someone with such moral awareness as you should see that your line of thought here seems designed to let off your own personal steam, rather than advance the issue. Unless you believe that telling people that their action is "unforgivebale," "self-deluded," and "hypocritical" will change hearts and minds.
2) Peter said above, "Just because someone is skeptical of vouchers as a mass-policy proposal, it does not therefore follow that they are committed to denying poor children educational opportunities." Now this is the option you're ignoring. People have the ability to do all sorts of things in this society that not everyone does. To be less than a perfect egalitarian is not the same as being hypocritical, and I'm sure you're the last person who needs to hear that.
People in the inner city can still home-school, (I know this probably wouldn't work well, but it's not true that people are just stuck, without any negative liberty) and those who oppose vouchers can promote charter schools, magnet schools, tax increases, and the like. IF someone believes that the voucher program would be bad OVERALL, but still decides to take their child out, is not, by definition, engaging in hypocrisy. Any parent who insists that their child stay in the system just because other people don't have the positive capability to is sacrificing their child on the alter of an idea.
And I never said that other people's kids weren't important, like, existentially, but I'm not their parent.
I suppose that one could say that because some people have the ability to move to the best school system in the country, that other people should have the right to as well. Maybe this is in Beverly Hills, I don't know, but you get the point. Maybe we should give everyone the right to go to ANY school in a given state, since everyone ought to have the right to the same quality as everyone else.
Well, I suppose in very sort of naive way, this is right.
But if I opposed this policy on the grounds that it would ruin public schools, yet still moved my child to Beverly Hills because I wanted them to have the best chance possible, I guess I'm a hypocrite, according to Megan. I know this policy isn't what she's supporting, but the logical content is the same:
A person can think (even mistakenly) that vouchers will hurt the schools overall, and recognize the fact that everyone just doesn't have exactly equal positive liberty in this world. For this, I will not cease to put my child in better school.
A person could then (even mistakenly) decide to place more weight on their concern for the school system overall, than the unfortunate fact that individuals don't have all the positive liberty than every other individual. If a person took their child out of a school, and then supported vouchers because they wanted to avoid being a hypocrite, yet also believed that vouchers were a bad idea because the schools would be damaged overall, then I think an argument could be made that they did the wrong thing, insofar as they favored a policy idea they thought was bad, so they didn't have to feel like a hypocrite.
I was coming around to your view on vouchers, but I'm not interested in this kind of moralizing. I think you're as sharp as a whip, but I may just have to get my info on vouchers elsewhere.
Josh, I never claimed that people who take their kids out support the system, only that they can still have an opinion on school vouchers.
As far as the system being the only choice for people who bail, I suppose you're right that I don't think it's wise to try and build a system where everyone has as much positive liberty as everyone else. But those people in failing school districts have the negative liberty to home-school, or move even. I'm surprised that you and Megan would commit yourself to this reasoning, since I think an application of this reasoning would be, consistently applied, an example of misguided social planning.
Tell your filter to stop eating my comments.
Seriously, can you please step off of the meaningless canard of hypocrisy and actually argue this topic? There are plenty of people who can afford to send their children to private schools and don't. I don't see what in particular you think you are proving by continuing to flail on this straw man.
And, again-- you are directly contradicting the principals you established regarding the political and personal when it came to selfishness among libertarians. Seriously. (And then you complain about hypocrisy! Bonus!)
Freddie, my point is that people who say they support public schools, and live in an affluent school district, do not in fact support the idea they claim to support. Those people have in fact excercised pretty much the same choice that my parents did when they yanked me out of an awful public school and paid to send me to Riverdale.
They're deluded into thinking that they have some kind of shared experience with kids in failing inner city schools by the fact that they never paid a bill marked "tuition", because their private school came bundled with 2500 square feet of hardwood and tile. But what that parent did has much more in common with my parents sending me to private school, than it does with a parent in the inner city who cannot afford to move or pay for a different school.
They then demand that those kids stay in public school on the grounds that kids shouldn't be allowed to exit through vouchers, but only through the strategic purchase of well-zoned land. I find this odd from a group of people who claim to care deeply about distributional justice.
This is precisely the source of my rage: that is what I think voucher opponents believe.
Honest to god, please listen to me for a moment. There are many, many voucher opponents for whom this couldn't apply, not to mention the many for whom it does apply and who don't think this way. You have allowed this conception you've dreamed up to utterly cloud your opinion. I mean, look. Suppose I just decided out of hand that every opponent of abortion secretly just hated poor women and wanted to saddle them with additional expense. If I just held onto it and held onto it and refused to budge from this massive leap, this unsupported assumption, it would totally cloud my ability to engage the argument rationally. That's what you're doing here. You've created a context in which you think the opposing opinion is illegitimate, which is a) not supportable and b) completely cutting you off from engagement with the issue.
You've got to approach political argument with a basic assumption of good faith. You are totally bogged down with gross caricatures and stereotypes that make no difference to the argument at hand. There are plenty of voucher opponents who don't send their kids to private schools. And even if there were, it wouldn't change the merits of the argument! Surely, you can see that?
And let me put this to you: look, you're a connected person. Ask around in the voucher movement. See how many of the actual, on the ground pro-voucher advocates want the kind of widespread, "private school and vouchers for everyone" system you advocate. I'll tell you: very, very few. It's not even on the radar. It's all about small scale programs for the top performers. Don't take my word for it. Ask around. Read their websites. Read their publications. The truth is, they don't care about all the other kids. They just want money for their kid. They just want the money. They aren't interested in sweeping change for every student in America. Now why is that not gross hypocrisy? Why is a voucher proponent only caring about their kid righteous, but a voucher opponent doing the same "unforgivable"?
Open your eyes. You're on the border of delirium.
Freddie, I am arguing with voucher opponents who claim to believe precisely this: that they had to opt out of the failing system, but oppose any systemic reform that would help poor kids do the same.
As for voucher supporters, I'm sure some of them are in it for selfish reasons, and if and when it is relevant to overcome their opposition to a broad program, I will be happy to join you in flaming them out enthusiastically. Right now this is moot, however, since the major source of opposition is suburbanites who live in decent school districts and "support the public schools".
I also know that there are serious professional objections to vouchers; my best friend, who does educational assessment for a living, has made them all to me. But no voucher opponent that I know has made a convincing case that vouchers would be worse on net; at worst, they make the teachers in public schools somewhat worse off, make poor parents happier, make the kids somewhat safer, produce academic results that are statistically a dead heat, and save money.
But those are evaluations of small and often deeply flawed programs, often performed by voucher opponents, over extremely small (1-2 years) time frames. I certainly don't think that "voucher" is a magic panacea; the program has to be well designed, and even then, I don't know that it will work. It's just that I'm completely positive that the public schools are hopelessly screwed up, and I don't see how I can tell some poor kid to wait until we change the system, when the system won't change fast enough to salvage his future, and I would never make my kids do the same.
I get your objection to vouchers on efficacy grounds, but if the starting value of the students were all that mattered, then there wouldn't be any point in providing public education, rendering this entire discussion totally pointless.
Well, this argument has been done to death a thousand times on various forums I've visited, and I am quite literally a thousand miles from the nearest school age child, but I'd like to register my approval of vouchers and up the ante: I think compulsory education should be ended - at the very least for anyone over 8 - and that children should be allowed to learn what they want to learn, rather than be forced into an ill-fitting system that chiefly exists to produce brain-numbed morons for an out-of-date industrial system.
Many people don't know this (because modern education sucks) but most people were quite literate - more literate than at present, in fact - PRIOR TO compulsory schooling.
But mostly I just wanted to post and say, "Hey! I'm at McMurdo Station! and I'm headed all the way South tomorrow (if we're not delayed again)! Woohoo!"
I agree with Megan. Exercising school choice for your kids, but arguing it is a bad thing for other people's kids, is hypocrisy.
Why is a voucher proponent only caring about their kid righteous, but a voucher opponent doing the same "unforgivable"?
Because the voucher proponent isn't saying that other people should do something differently to what they are doing for their own kid.
Light, above, provides: "I think compulsory education should be ended - at the very least for anyone over 8 - and that children should be allowed to learn what they want to learn, rather than be forced into an ill-fitting system that chiefly exists to produce brain-numbed morons for an out-of-date industrial system."- the blinding truth of the root of the matter.
The whole of the 'voucher' debate is 'in the branches'. It's the system, itself, that needs to be examined.
I'll trust the voucher proponents when they allow all children from poor urban schools to choose from any suburban schools and provide transportation to those children. The voucher proponents around Wisconsin seem to be using it less to improve education than to make political points.
Speaking of vouchers, does anyone's position (pro or against) change when they're vouchers for housing instead of education?
Also, this point has come up a few times, but how, exactly, do vouchers save money? If anything they cost more, since we'll be funding schools AND vouchers (the idea that public education funding will cease with voucher implementation is unrealistic, so let's not undermine the discussion by pretending we live in a different world than we do).
It's just that I'm completely positive that the public schools are hopelessly screwed up
in all 16,000 or so school districts across the US? From your office in DC, you know best? Better even than your friend whose profession is educational assessment?
And, of course, vouchers are NOT the only way to get kids out of a failing school. Charter school programs, magnet school programs and moving are also ways for states, school districts and parents to respond to bad schools.
It's already been stated on other threads, but here's how vouchers can save money, or at least not cost money:
If a state or county is currently spending $7,000 per student, and they give $5,000 vouchers to any child who leaves, then every time a child leaves the system, they have $2,000 more to spend on other children, without spending a penny more than they did before. (We'll assume that the administrative costs of distributing vouchers are the same as for distributing the money internally.) Given that private schools have repeatedly demonstrated that they can do a better job with less money, it should be possible to set up a 'virtuous circle' (opposite of a vicious circle) where some kids leave for better education, and the public schools increase their per-pupil spending on the 'hard cases' who remain.
There are complications: the public schools presumably have to continuing paying the pensions of however many retired teachers they have, which is difficult if your total budget is shrinking, even if the per-pupil budget is increasing. On the other hand, I work for a public (charter) school, and I'm pretty sure all we have is social security plus TIAA/CREF, so this may not apply to all systems.
Given that private schools have repeatedly demonstrated that they can do a better job with less money, it should be possible to set up a 'virtuous circle'
Another potential component of the virtuous circle is "the marginal parent": one who cannot afford (or doesn't want to pay) full tuition but will take a plunge once you shift that number by your $5K (even if some of that offset is in turn absorbed by raising rates). Thus we may have more $$ spent on education without taxing anyone extra.
Freelunch, let me get this straight:
You're willing to believe that vouchers might make the lives of urban kids better.
But you're willing to let them fester in their current schools, because some of the nearby voucher proponents may be hypocrites . . .
. . . and they're the ones just trying to score political points?
Remember, school choice already exists; it is excercised almost universally by parents from the middle class and upwards, either by moving to the right neighborhood or paying tuition to a private school. Even home schooling comes into play only when a family has two parents able to live on less than two incomes.
That's the context for this discussion. The question isn't whether we will have school choice. The question is whether we will have school choice for poor people.
Here's a complication that I've read about elsewhere, though it hasn't come up in any of the voucher threads on this site:
One reason many suburban parents oppose vouchers is that it would reduce the value of their houses. If you paid 30% more for your house and drive 10 miles further to work every day, just so you can live in a house that's exactly the same as the other guy's but is located in a much better public school district, you're not going to like the effect of wide-spread voucher use on housing prices. Vouchers would tend to make those who spent the most to get their kids into better public schools feel like chumps.
Tracy W,
"I agree with Megan. Exercising school choice for your kids, but arguing it is a bad thing for other people's kids, is hypocrisy."
I agree with the validity of your argument as stated, I just think there are other reasons for opposing school vouchers.
You could encourage a person to take advantage of a school voucher if they had the chance, but still not think it was a wise policy proposal overall, as a mass policy proposal. To Megan, this triggers the automatic charge of hypocrisy, even at the hint of inconsistency, yet value judgments are more multi-layered than that, and don't have to boil down to purely robotic consistency at every level.
The argument can go: "Once we start allowing monies from public schools to be taken away on this scale, then the hope of the public schools working for the masses will go down the tubes, and insofar as the bulk of children will always have to rely on the public school in their district, I am opposed to school vouchers."
That's a perfectly valid way of going about it. It be be perfectly wrong, but there's nothing obviously inconsistent about it, and it doesn't turn on the silly argument which says that school choice is a bad thing for other people's kids.
The example I've offered is that it would probably be a very good thing for my kids to go to school in Beverly Hills or something, and I suppose it would be good for other kids too to be able to cherry pick the best schools around. And by the best schools, I mean the very best the country has to offer. But surely it's not a hypocritical argument that offering every kid a voucher to go to Beverly Hills-like schools would turn the system inside out.
So I guess it's an unfortunate fact about the world that not everyone has the same level of positive liberty, but there's nothing stopping other parents from exercising other choices within the scope of their negative liberty.
Opposition to school vouchers can be based on a misunderstanding of the program, less faith in one aspect or another, a misplaced value judgment that the masses would not benefit from the program, nevertheless ya can't blame those who have the option, etc, etc, etc.
I really hope Megan reconsiders her position on this, because her argument is much better without it.
"How many educated people who:
a) Oppose vouchers
b) Have children who do not attend inner city public schools
would still oppose vouchers if they were the only way to get their child out of an inner city public school? "
That's insane.
Good parenting is about providing every advantage possible to your child. You can't make societal decisions like that.
Vouchers are not a solution to the problems of urban schools. Vouchers don't even try to address the problems of urban schools. Vouchers are little better than surrender. I want to see the problems of urban schools addressed. Vouchers, as far as I can tell, take a few kids out of these schools and then ignore the problems that still exist in the urban schools for the students who don't get vouchers. If it's just about helping a few children, let them transfer to suburban schools if their parents want.
If you have a broad voucher program -- which no one seems to be willing to fund -- say one in which everyone in the district is free to pick any school -- I don't see how you would be better off than you are today. The urban problems would still exist and would be brought into every classroom that has a significant number of children with serious problems.
There may be a funding mechanism for vouchers that doesn't hurt the school district's funding, but I'm not aware of any that are in place. Schools have fairly high fixed costs and even the variable costs are related to the student under consideration. Taking revenue out doesn't always take the costs out. How many kids with individualized education plans will have vouchers? Which schools will take them?
It is possible that there would be a voucher system that would work: give the four most troublesome kids in each class a voucher and get them out of the public schools. It should be much easier to teach the rest of the children.
I want to see the problems of urban schools addressed.
And a pony!
Look, these disadvantaged kids can either be educated or they can't. If they can, why start from the assumption that private schools won't be able to do it? And if they can't, why not look for cheaper ways to fail to educate them?
Apparently you think the entire public school system should be replaced with private ones. Why?
The simple problem with your "hypocrisy" argument is that people advocate other solutions to the public school problem and vouchers invalidate those solutions...
Megan, your argument only makes sense if you collapse all forms of 'exit' from the public school system into the same thing. Someone could quite reasonably send their own children to St. Grottlesex on the grounds that it was a better school than the public schools available to them, but oppose a given voucher program because they believed it would leave the children using it worse off. (You could still think bad things about such a person if you don't like rich people spending their money on their own kids, but the argument you're making wouldn't work.)
Vouchers aren't going to let every poor child go to St. Grottlesex; they'll let them go to low cost private schools located in high poverty areas. There doesn't seem to me to be much of a reason to believe that such schools are going to be preferable to the local public schools.
I'd like to see statewide availablity of enrollment for all public schools, as suggested above, and I'm not opposed on principle to anything calling itself a voucher program. Voucher programs just sound very likely to me to turn into a funding mechanism for low-accountability for-profit warehouses for low-income kids.
One frustrating thing about these conversations:
There seems to be a lot of people, especially Megan, who conflate vouchers with school choice. One is a policy (school choice) and the other is one way to implement the policy (vouchers). The problem is that a lot of people oppose the specific implementation but are for the policy.
I really find it frustrating that it seems that a lot of people who favor school choice seem to think that the only way it can be implemented is through vouchers.
Opposing school vouchers is, for basically every single person who does so, a completely costless belief.
I'm still scratching my head about this. Honestly, it looks like cheap debate-team rhetoric that sounds forceful at first but really makes no sense. I'm surprised you are sticking with it still.
Opposing cannibalism is basically costless (for everybody but the very, very hungry, anyway). Heck, just about any moral belief is "costless" in the same way for most people. Just which your voluminously expressed beliefs exact any "cost" on you whatsoever? Are libertarians all hypocrites for opposing funding of various services that they don't make use of? Are war supporters hypocrites because they aren't fighting? Are abortion-rights advocates hypocrites because they aren't fetuses? Isn't this just the kind of personalization of political belief that you were deriding very recently? You seem to say that anyone who doesn't have a direct stake in the outcome is a hypocrite if they oppose vouchers. But doesn't hypocracy normally obtain when one does have a stake? And aren't you also begging the question by assuming as a given that vouchers will produce a better overall result than the status quo or alternative solutions?
People who oppose vouchers, for the most part, do so because they think that it will have bad results in the aggregate. Or they think that public schools can and should be fixed instead of junked. That they (like everyone) also tend to act in the best interests of their own children, even if it means shelling out for private school, in no way affects these larger arguments, unless you are seriously saying that they are opposing vouchers in order to keep their childrens' competition down. You aren't saying that, are you?
Perhaps vouchers would gain more support if they came with the guarantee that not one dime would be taken from public schools to pay for them. But of course that would be anathema to the voucher folks, because they see defunding public schools as a positive outcome (if not the main goal).
So, of what "cost" is it to you to oppose fixing the existing public school system? You may think it won't work or will make matters worse; but since you don't have kids in the public school system, you're obviously just a hypocrite. Right?
Megan
Jay J, I'm sorry, but I think any parent who exercises choices for their kids, and then votes to deny that choice to other kids on the basis that they "support public schooling" or "don't want their tax dollars to go to the Catholic Church" is not only doing so with a callous disregard for lives of the poor, but claiming that they are doing so out of concern for the very lives they are destroying.
This would make sense if the parent was voting to prohibit other parents from sending their own kids to private school with their own money. That's not what you're talking about, though.
It's very strange to equate choice with economic ability. In every other area you would not do this. You wouldn't say a person is denied 'transportation choice' because he cannot afford a car and the gov't refuses to give him a voucher equal to 'his share' of mass transit spending. You wouldn't say a person is denied 'food choice' because he cannot afford sushi every night and the gov't refuses to issue a food voucher to him equal to 'his share' of the food stamps budget. You wouldn't even say a person is denied 'medicial choice' because the gov't refuses to issue him a Medicare/Medicaid/employer provided insurance subsidy voucher.
Umm, but I would. If the government provides your housing, and you can't afford to move out of it, you have no housing choice. If the government provides your food, and you have to eat what they give you, you have no school choice. I currently have no "porsche choice".
The difference is, I don't think porsches are a good that the government is supposed to provide. I do think the government is supposed to make sure everyone gets educated . . .and I think the government should maximize parental autonomy and educational outcomes, not central control of the system, and teacher/administrator utility.
Your Medicaid/food stamps examples are exactly the point: we guarantee the good, not the provision. I presume that if you are in favor of national health care, you, like nearly everyone else so advocating, wants a French model where the patient chooses the doctor and the government pays, not a British model where the government provides the doctors. That model works much better than providing goods for every other category except certain non-excludable goods like police and armies. Why is education different?
Why is education different?
Well, there are couple of reasons. Geographical constraints are pretty powerful -- in most areas, a reasonable commute for a child is going to limit you to a fairly small number of possible schools. Within those limits, quality is pretty opaque, especially for a school that has a short prior history -- while you can look at test scores if the school's been around long enough to have them, you can't tell whether the school is doing well with bad students, or poorly with good students. Observing the educational progress of your own child takes at least months, more likely years, before you can make a solid judgment. Moving from one school to another is socially and educationally costly, particularly if the schools have non-standardized curricula.
None of these problems are insurmountable if you have time, money, and knowledge, but the population that now attends the public schools which can be fairly described as 'failing' isn't rich in any of those things. There really are good reasons for working on assuring a high baseline for all public schools rather than thinking the market can sort this one out.
Umm, but I would. If the government provides your housing, and you can't afford to move out of it, you have no housing choice. If the government provides your food, and you have to eat what they give you, you have no school choice. I currently have no "porsche choice".
But the gov't doesn't provide these things. There are gov't housing projects but there's no law prohibiting builders, real estate owners, developers etc. from making their own housing and selling/renting it to the public. There may be food stamps but the gov't doesn't prevent people from opening their own farms, stores, diners etc.
Likewise there's no law saying inner city kids cannot go to private school (and I wouldn't be surprised if inner cities actually have more private schools than more rural areas considering the denser market and the fact that many churches offer schooling at below cost tuitions).
Your Medicaid/food stamps examples are exactly the point: we guarantee the good, not the provision. I presume that if you are in favor of national health care, you, like nearly everyone else so advocating, wants a French model where the patient chooses the doctor and the government pays, not a British model where the government provides the doctors. That model works much better than providing goods for every other category except certain non-excludable goods like police and armies. Why is education different?
I would lean more towards the French model, that is essentially what Medicare/Medicaid does. You can go to any doctor who takes it, otherwise you're free to pay on your own if you want that famous NY doctor who only treats the stars. However that's not what you're talking about here. If I happen to oppose a national health care voucher program I'm not doing anything to anyone by using my own money to see an expensive doctor.
Here's an experiment for you. Imagine we have a universal $5000 voucher tomorrow. Will there still be exclusive schools that cost $25,000 a year that host the kids of the rich and famous like the Clintons? Of course. By your standard anyone sending their kid there but voting not to raise the voucher to $25,000 a year is likewise guilty of 'destroying lives' and 'denying choice' to poorer families. Clearly we can slowly adjust this experiment, imagining the voucher is $4,000, $3500, $1500 and so on all the way down to $0.
Here's the fact, public schools are provided as a free good to anyone who wants them....sort of like public parks. Some people would rather spend their own money to obtain something they see as better. (Think private gyms, country clubs etc.). Those people are not denying anything to those who either do not want to pay or cannot pay for the things they enjoy. In fact, the family that sends their kid to a private school is actually making it easier on the public school that now has one less kid to worry about! Now maybe vouchers are a good universal idea or maybe they are a good idea for inner cities with horrible public systems but simply opposing them is not 'trapping' anyone unless you're going to be a very radical socialist type who thinks things having prices is inherently evil.
Megan,
Here in my uberliberal upper midwestern town, many people are leaving their kids in the public schools, even while acknowledging the shortcomings in strictly educational terms, because they believe in the public schools and the "community" angle, as well as the associated liberal articles of faith regarding the PS system.
I think these folks escape your hypocrisy charge. But they also illustrate something I think you're overlooking - perhaps due to a east coast-centric view. The issue doesn't always hinge on extremes of class and race. But it is nonetheless political. At a time when "beloved" neighborhood schools are closing and combining for lack of numbers, families that go private because they can't get the education they need are viewed as defectors and traitors.
This is to say that your hypocrisy charge overly relies on extreme juxtapositions of Bronxville vs. the Bronx. Not all areas are like that, e.g. much of flyover country. However, the core issue of educational quality, markets, and the transformational power of voting with your feet remains.
You warned the GOP a few weeks ago not to die on the hill of SCHIP. I would say, don't die on the hill of calling suburbanites hypocrites, especially when you're so right.
Megan,
Let me put this another way:
Why should an economically sane but liberal person feel guilty about not supporting vouchers even if they choose to spend their own money on a private school? Why not simply suppose an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit that would put money in the hands of working families that they could use in a much more flexible way than they could a voucher?
(Examples include buying private tutoring from the 'smart' boy down the street, moving to a neighborhood with good public schools, buying a computer, buying books etc. try doing these things with a voucher and you're probably going to get charged with fraud.)
Great posts Megan! All of them on vouchers. I don't comment much, but I read all of your blog posts and this topic is so emotional to me that I had to comment and say thank you!
FYI: I grew up in Compton, California...an area known for a large amount of crime, drugs, and gangs, and know first hand what a bad school (and a good school) can do to someone who grew up in that environment. Nothing motivates me more politically than vouchers - and getting them adopted in every inner city neighborhood in the country.
Again, great posts and thanks for speaking up!
Megan, you are right that the question we need to ask is “Who does it hurt?” I think much of the knee-jerk opposition to vouchers is self interested, particularly from those whose tuition came “bundled with granite countertops.” They played the game and paid the entry fee. Because vouchers will enable kids to move to good schools (like theirs), vouchers put their entry fee in jeopardy. Their secret fear is that vouchers will force them to compete (or pay again) for the “good” schooling they thought they had already purchased for their children. I don’t see vouchers ever catching on until this problem is addressed.