People who have a higher propensity to live in a district with shittier schools overwhelmingly support an alternative. This isn’t shocking. What most people, including it seems you, haven’t thought about are the long term consequences to universal voucher programs given the current idiotic system of school funding being largely based on a how much the houses in the area are worth. The long term consequences are bad and quite predictable.
EDIT: There are lots of papers regarding school vouchers and private schools and why it’s a bad idea. Simplistic solutions to complex problems tend not to work and have bad unintended consequences.
>current idiotic system of school funding being largely based on a how much the houses in the area are worth. The long term consequences are bad and quite predictable.
This hasn't been true for decades:
>on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15, respectively.[0]
Almost all federal funds go to poor areas, so much so that they have more funding on average.
While total per pupil expenditures may be greater for the typical Black or Latinx students’ districts, there is variation in how these dollars are spent. On average, both Black and Latinx per pupil expenditures exceed White per pupil expenditures for administration, instruction, and social services. On the other hand, Black and Latinx per pupil expenditures are less than White per pupil expenditures on infrastructure. Black per pupil expenditures on all other items are slightly less than in the typical White student’s district, while Latinx spending is comparable.
Table 1 also illustrates some familiar facts. Black and Latinx students’ typical districts tend to have higher levels of child poverty, on average, than the typical White student’s district (5.4 and 4.0 percentage points higher in Black and Latinx districts, respectively).
Poor students who come from food insecure homes or live in high crime areas need more help in school in terms of school lunch programs, after school care, mental health intervention, etc. As such they need a lot more funding per student.
Complex problems require more than a simplistic solution. There are cultural, sociological, and economic forces at play. Vouchers are not a panacea. For one thing, private schools don’t have to accept students they consider a problem. Wealthy schools don’t want too many undesirables so won’t accept vouchers. Public schools will end up having mostly all the problem students without the resources to deal with them.
I don't understand how you can read that and think that the issue is spending.
The answer is (and always will be) human capital. You could airdrop TJHSST kids into a literal warzone and they would do well. Smart kids are smart because they are smart. There is no magic dirt, and "muh multicausal forces" is pure cope.
People like you got ahold of SF's school system and made Lowell lottery entrance. They swore that it wouldn't have a big impact on test results and that the new class would benefit from being on the magic dirt of Lowell High School. Of course that's what their theories would support. Lo and behold it was an abject failure as anyone who wasn't a psychotic leftist could predict.
I don’t think the issue is spending. My main point is that school vouchers are bad. I did say that the method of school funding is idiotic.
Smart kids dropped into a war zone may or may not do well. They might die for one thing. They might get so traumatized by the event that they are unable to cope in life. Change someone’s circumstances drastically enough then it won’t be possible to know what the outcome is.
I’ve mentioned some of the bad effects vouchers would have. That would be a supporting argument in my mind. The bad consequences are easy enough to deduce though so that should not be necessary. This is not an academic forum. This is a place where people post their perspective and opinions. I have no desire to hunt down links. Interested people can do that for themselves.
It’s worth pointing out that people who support vouchers haven’t posted links to papers showing that vouchers are good. At least not in the thread started by rayiner. There have been papers posted on ancillary topics but not on the efficacy of vouchers. This isn’t a complaint on my part. I’m showing an asymmetry in the view that you posted above.
As for downvotes. I don’t care about internet points and never complain about downvotes or are otherwise affected by them. If you think what I’ve written is poorly stated or otherwise bad then downvote.
The person who said that smart kids dropped into a war zone would do just fine said something moronic and without attribution to its veracity. Why don’t you downvote them and ask for citations? Are you consistent in your view on this? I doubt it because if you were you’d be downvoting the overwhelming majority of comments on every thread on HN.
If you read the paper cited by the person I responded to above you’ll see merely comparing dollars spent is not an adequate analysis. Poorer districts have to spend more on ancillary costs - school lunches, mental health resources, social services, etc. Poorer districts have higher administrative costs, spend less on teacher salaries, and spend less on other areas related to educational success.
It’s not a strange feeling seeing data contradict my beliefs. I welcome such occurrences as they provide an opportunity to get rid of false beliefs. In the present circumstance I’ve not argued that more money needs to spent. I have suggested a better method of allocation of expenditures and that school vouchers are not the answer. Do you have evidence that I’m wrong on this? If so please show the evidence.
This depends a lot on the state & county. Where I used to live in VA & NC, property taxes went to the local district to spend, and the wealthier schools had better programs & facilities. In CA, where I live now, property taxes are aggregated at the county level and doled out to districts based purely on student population. Superficially, this results in rough parity when it comes to government-funded services (things like lunches, Pre-K, music/PE/libraries/art/etc). However, this all falls apart because of the piece that can't be controlled this way: direct parent contribution. Some bay area schools receive >$1000/kid/year in direct parent support, not to mention volunteerism. These schools will always do better than ones without this, and not just because of the $. The $ & time investment makes the parents even more vested in how schools spend, and the outcomes.
EDIT: There are lots of papers regarding school vouchers and private schools and why it’s a bad idea. Simplistic solutions to complex problems tend not to work and have bad unintended consequences.