Douglas County School Board (Lamar: transfer, magnet schools, cost of)

[resipsa]

what's next? do we want to introduce competition in police and fire protection? Instead of being stuck with your local fire department or police, you get a voucher and can purchase your own protection from a more efficient private entity?

Yes, that's completely ridiculous. But no more so than the competition argument for public schools.

As for the religion issue, I couldn't care less what religion we are talking about, public dollars should not be subsidizing it in any way. But even if you took religion out of it and only allowed voucher to go to non-religious private schools, you still have the same problems. The free market produces great overall outcomes in many situations and I generally find myself to the right of center on political issues defending the free market, but in a situation where you need to have equal opportunity for all, it fails miserably.

[Calix]

I agree that many public services are not profitable and can't be. A great professor once broke it down for me.

The breakdown of what to make private and what is public goes like this:

Socially Beneficial, Profitable = Make it private
Socially Beneficial, Not Profitable = Make it public
Not Socially Beneficial, Profitable = Private
Not Socially Beneficial, Not Profitable = Don't do it

I'm not sure schools should be run as profit centers, at least not if we are providing education for all. there needs to be a public option. If you want premium (private school) that option should be open, but at your cost.

Education K-College = Public (since you need a college degree, it should be part of the system at no additional cost, but that's another discussion)

If DCSD is trying to eliminate the public option, that is not good, not socially beneficial.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by Calix

I agree that many public services are not profitable and can't be. A great professor once broke it down for me.

The breakdown of what to make private and what is public goes like this:

Socially Beneficial, Profitable = Make it private
Socially Beneficial, Not Profitable = Make it public
Not Socially Beneficial, Profitable = Private
Not Socially Beneficial, Not Profitable = Don't do it

I'm not sure schools should be run as profit centers, at least not if we are providing education for all. there needs to be a public option. If you want premium (private school) that option should be open, but at your cost.

Education K-College = Public (since you need a college degree, it should be part of the system at no additional cost, but that's another discussion)

If DCSD is trying to eliminate the public option, that is not good, not socially beneficial.

this is a great post.

The problem with the DCSC is that they would never say they are trying to eliminate the public option, but their actions lead to a heavily weakened public option. That's what vouchers do.

[eatsDEN]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

I will add though that facts are facts. This agenda is being driven BY CHRISTIANS. The goal is to use money in CHRISTIAN schools. Douglas County proves that this is where the money is going. To deny that this is the case is denying facts. I'm not sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

Now, if you please, make a convincing case that vouchers don't harm the poor and I'll step aside and even post a funny Mohammed joke next to Jesus one.

so, you know for a fact that all folks taking advantage of the program are Christians? There is no possibility that the parents are non-religous, or Muslim, or Buddhist - and are sending their kids to whatever option they feel is best for their family's student needs?



School Vouchers Help Low-income Minority Students Earn a College Degree : Education Next

for the first time, we are able to show that vouchers may have a long-term positive impact on college graduation rates. Certainly, that is the case, on average, for low-income minority students in New York City. Minority students who received a school voucher to attend private elementary schools in 1997 were, as of 2013, 10 percent more likely to enroll in college and 35 percent more likely than their peers in public school to obtain a bachelor’s degree.
These results emerge from our analysis of a randomized evaluation that traced the effectiveness of a New York City school voucher program over the course of more than 17 years (1997-2013).

[resipsa]

Originally Posted by eatsDEN

so, you know for a fact that all folks taking advantage of the program are Christians? There is no possibility that the parents are non-religous, or Muslim, or Buddhist - and are sending their kids to whatever option they feel is best for their family's student needs?

Who cares which bronze age man in the sky they want to pray to? does it make any difference on whether tax dollars being used to subsidize it is completely inappropriate?

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by eatsDEN

so, you know for a fact that all folks taking advantage of the program are Christians? There is no possibility that the parents are non-religous, or Muslim, or Buddhist - and are sending their kids to whatever option they feel is best for their family's student needs?



School Vouchers Help Low-income Minority Students Earn a College Degree : Education Next

Please note that I never said "All" anywhere.

There is certainly the possibility that there are some Muslims that took advantage, but the vast majority are Christian.

90% of students who took advantage of the Douglas County vouchers used them for religious schools according to the Denver Post in the article I cited earlier.

Douglas County is 92% white. I cannot find a demographic study that shows what percent of DougCo is Muslim, but Denver is less than half a percent and has much higher populations of the ethnic groups associated with Islam. I would be very surprised if DougCo wasn't lower than Denver.

This is very much about Christians pulling tax payer money out of the public schools and using it to go to Christian Schools. Sure there are a few outliers, but that is what this program is about in Douglas County.

With that said, I don't really care what religion anyone is. You can't use public funds to go to a religious school.

The problem with the link you provided is that it does not prove causation with the vouchers. It does not take in to account that the low income families who chose to take advantage of the vouchers are more heavily involved in their children than the families who did not choose to use them. There is nothing to say that these kids would not have gone to college had they stayed in their regular schools simply because their families were more interested in their education than the other families. Meanwhile, the schools they left are now worse off than before which penalizes all the kids who did not leave. Not a good system.

edit: One other important thing to add is that private schools can choose who they admit. It's easy for them to show that a program works when they cherry pick the best low income students to admit.

[eatsDEN]

Here's the study, if you'd actually like to read it
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/...s_Peterson.pdf


how do you know their former schools are worse off now?
And how do you suppose causation could be demonstrated? Does causation matter; or is the ultimate goal higher acheivment than would otherwise have been attained?

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by eatsDEN

Here's the study, if you'd actually like to read it
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/...s_Peterson.pdf


how do you know their former schools are worse off now?
And how do you suppose causation could be demonstrated? Does causation matter; or is the ultimate goal higher acheivment than would otherwise have been attained?

Try to find a recent Brookings Institute Study that came up with a result that was counter to their previously stated policy objective. The study is flawed.

This strong focus on positive impacts for a single subgroup of students is not warranted. Goldrick-Rab notes four problems:
1) There are no statistically significant differences in the estimated impact for African Americans as compared to other students;
2) There is important but unmentioned measurement error in the dependent variables (college attendance outcomes) affecting the precision of those estimates and likely moving at least some of them out of the realm of statistical significance;
3) The authors fail to demonstrate any estimated negative effects that could help explain the average null results; and
4) There are previously existing differences between the African American treatment and control groups on factors known to matter for college attendance (e.g., parental education).

Brookings Study Does Not Support Claim that Vouchers Boosted College Enrollment | National Education Policy Center

The point is as I stated before, the study doesn't prove that higher achievement for those students would not have otherwise been attained.



Fortunately, there has been a lot more data made available for study recently as more school districts have been rolling out the voucher programs.

Article: Report: School vouchers don't benefit students or taxpayers - TheIndyChannel.com
Study: http://www.ctbaonline.org/sites/defa...ort__FINAL.pdf

Article: Vouchers Don't Do Much For Students

In Milwaukee, just 13 percent of voucher students scored proficient in math and 11 percent made the bar in reading this spring. That’s worse on both counts than students in the city’s public schools.

In Cleveland, voucher students in most grades performed worse than their peers in public schools in math, though they did better in reading.

In New Orleans, voucher students who struggle academically haven’t advanced to grade-level work any faster over the past two years than students in the public schools, many of which are rated D or F, state data show.

And across Louisiana, many of the most popular private schools for voucher students posted miserable scores in math, reading, science and social studies this spring, with fewer than half their voucher students achieving even basic proficiency and fewer than 2 percent demonstrating mastery. Seven schools did so badly, state Superintendent John White barred them from accepting new voucher students — though the state agreed to keep paying tuition for the more than 200 voucher students already enrolled, if they chose to stay.

[davidv]

Originally Posted by eatsDEN

School Vouchers Help Low-income Minority Students Earn a College Degree : Education Next

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

The problem with the link you provided is that it does not prove causation with the vouchers. It does not take in to account that the low income families who chose to take advantage of the vouchers are more heavily involved in their children than the families who did not choose to use them. There is nothing to say that these kids would not have gone to college had they stayed in their regular schools simply because their families were more interested in their education than the other families. Meanwhile, the schools they left are now worse off than before which penalizes all the kids who did not leave. Not a good system.

edit: One other important thing to add is that private schools can choose who they admit. It's easy for them to show that a program works when they cherry pick the best low income students to admit.

Interesting argument for vouchers. It seems that vouchers can help low income African-American and Latino students.

Now if we can only find some low income African American and Latino Students in Douglas County...

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by davidv

Interesting argument for vouchers. It seems that vouchers can help low income African-American and Latino students.

Now if we can only find some low income African American and Latino Students in Douglas County...

Ha. Well in DougCo, it seems that the idea seems to be that vouchers can help get the government to pay for your child to go to church, synagogue, mosque, temple......oh who am I kidding....It's church. In Douglas Country it's church.