Voucher Valedictorian

[Bono]

www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/07/07/voucher-valedictorian/

Voucher Valedictorian

NRO has an editorial today by that title, sharing the story of Tiffany Dunston: class valedictorian at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C. and first person in her family to attend college (she’s headed for Syracuse to study biochemistry and French). As it happens, she was attending Carroll thanks to financial assistance from DC’s voucher program, and her mother couldn’t otherwise have afforded the tuition. “I started praying every day because I didn’t want to go to a neighborhood school,” Tiffany told a reporter. “I was so nervous — there was no way to know if I was going to get the scholarship.”

Actually, though, there is a way she could have known that she would get the financial assistance she needed: if Congress and the City council replaced DC’s $24,600 per pupil monopoly with a universal system of school choice.

Instead, it seems likely that the next Congress will kill the fledgling school choice program that made Tiffany’s dreams come true. Over the coming year, congressional opponents of school choice must ask themselves: is it right to steal children’s dreams to curry favor with public school employee unions?

posted by Andrew J. Coulson on 07.07.08 @ 12:10 pm

Filed Under: General, Education & Child Policy

[MODU]

Good for her!  Glad she had the opportunity to move to a school that was able to educate her.

[7,052,770]

Congrats to her, but what would be the ultimate right would be to fully fund public schools so every public school in the District is as good as the private one she attended.

[MODU]

Congrats to her, but what would be the ultimate right would be to fully fund public schools so every public school in the District is as good as the private one she attended.

Unfortunately in the district, it isn't a matter of funding (they actually receive more funding per student than Maryland does), but rather the quality of teachers, control of the classrooms, and the inner-city drug/gang activities.  You need principals that carry big bats and lay down the law as necessary to get through to some of those kids up there.

[Bono]

Congrats to her, but what would be the ultimate right would be to fully fund public schools so every public school in the District is as good as the private one she attended.

Public schools in the district already receive far more per student than private schools do.

[7,052,770]

Congrats to her, but what would be the ultimate right would be to fully fund public schools so every public school in the District is as good as the private one she attended.

Unfortunately in the district, it isn't a matter of funding (they actually receive more funding per student than Maryland does), but rather the quality of teachers, control of the classrooms, and the inner-city drug/gang activities.  You need principals that carry big bats and lay down the law as necessary to get through to some of those kids up there.

Sounds good, but we should do that in the public schools.

[MODU]

Sounds good, but we should do that in the public schools.

That is what I was talking about.  The DC public schools are awash in funds.  It's just the quality that is terrible.  Of course, much of non-government DC is terrible.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Lots of people are the first person in their family to attend college. And many of them attend colleges higher ranked than Syracuse. Big deal.

[MODU]

Lots of people are the first person in their family to attend college. And many of them attend colleges higher ranked than Syracuse. Big deal.

Not many of them are Valedictorians.

[7,052,770]

Sounds good, but we should do that in the public schools.

That is what I was talking about.  The DC public schools are awash in funds.  It's just the quality that is terrible.  Of course, much of non-government DC is terrible.

Then fix them.  Don't abandon them.  Give better incentives to the brightest college students to become teachers and principals.
Vouchers are just a way of throwing in the towel.

[MODU]

Then fix them.  Don't abandon them.  Give better incentives to the brightest college students to become teachers and principals.
Vouchers are just a way of throwing in the towel.

A short-term and long-term fix is required.  For starters, I would give current students the options of vouchers just so they can obtain the education they deserve.  Piggy-back that with a stringent testing system (for the teachers) to ensure that they are qualified to teach the subjects that they are heading.  Unqualified teachers are removed to bring in qualified teachers from neighboring districts (Virginia and Maryland).  Do a detailed analysis of the schools that have low attendance rates and assign more police forces to round up the kids and get them in class.  All of that should take about 4-5 years.  At that point, you should see some improvements, making vouchers unnecessary.

[dead0man]

A short-term and long-term fix is required.  For starters, I would give current students the options of vouchers just so they can obtain the education they deserve.  Piggy-back that with a stringent testing system (for the teachers) to ensure that they are qualified to teach the subjects that they are heading.  Unqualified teachers are removed to bring in qualified teachers from neighboring districts (Virginia and Maryland).  Do a detailed analysis of the schools that have low attendance rates and assign more police forces to round up the kids and get them in class.  All of that should take about 4-5 years.  At that point, you should see some improvements, making vouchers unnecessary.

Wow!  What color is the sky in this land of fantasy?

[MODU]

Wow!  What color is the sky in this land of fantasy?

BLACK!

[7,052,770]

Then fix them.  Don't abandon them.  Give better incentives to the brightest college students to become teachers and principals.
Vouchers are just a way of throwing in the towel.

A short-term and long-term fix is required.  For starters, I would give current students the options of vouchers just so they can obtain the education they deserve.  Piggy-back that with a stringent testing system (for the teachers) to ensure that they are qualified to teach the subjects that they are heading.  Unqualified teachers are removed to bring in qualified teachers from neighboring districts (Virginia and Maryland).  Do a detailed analysis of the schools that have low attendance rates and assign more police forces to round up the kids and get them in class.  All of that should take about 4-5 years.  At that point, you should see some improvements, making vouchers unnecessary.

I would agree to this if the voucher program expired and was not renewed by 5 years.

[Albus Dumbledore]

A short-term and long-term fix is required.  For starters, I would give current students the options of vouchers just so they can obtain the education they deserve.  Piggy-back that with a stringent testing system (for the teachers) to ensure that they are qualified to teach the subjects that they are heading.  Unqualified teachers are removed to bring in qualified teachers from neighboring districts (Virginia and Maryland).  Do a detailed analysis of the schools that have low attendance rates and assign more police forces to round up the kids and get them in class.  All of that should take about 4-5 years.  At that point, you should see some improvements, making vouchers unnecessary.

Wow!  What color is the sky in this land of fantasy?

Chartreuse, man. You'd see it too if you took the good drugs.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Congrats to her, but what would be the ultimate right would be to fully fund public schools so every public school in the District is as good as the private one she attended.

The best school in Newark, NJ is a private nonprofit which operates at about half the per pupil cost of Newark public schools.  Its waiting list is discouragingly long.

Sounds good, but we should do that in the public schools.

That is what I was talking about.  The DC public schools are awash in funds.  It's just the quality that is terrible.  Of course, much of non-government DC is terrible.

Then fix them.  Don't abandon them.  Give better incentives to the brightest college students to become teachers and principals.
Vouchers are just a way of throwing in the towel.

Honestly, there are some schools that art terrible and will never get better, because there's no way for them to completely fail.  We all want results from public schools, but we don't want to impose sanctions on schools that aren't delivering.  "Don't fire the teachers!  Don't fire the administration!"

Who in the fuck are we helping by forcing kids to stay in shitty schools?  Seriously.  It's not as if a bad public school is a "temporary" problem.  It's a chronic one.  Bad schools don't happen over night.

We need to be able to throw in the towel.  That's why I fully support a "voucher" system that gives students their choice of any public school.  Let the bad schools fail and go out of business.  Let the good schools get even better, and open them up to more students.

And we certainly don't want to admit an ugly truth: There's a culture out there that ridicules black children for learning, because learning is something for white kids.  We need to address that too, but we probably won't, because it's not proper to talk about such things.  ("You're such a racist for suggesting such a thing!")

It's always because the poor school district doesn't have any money.  Except that the New Jersey model, funding the poorest schools to the same level as the richest schools, shows that money has virtually no effect on student performance.  How many more indoor swimming pools need to be built at crappy urban schools?  How many astroturfed football fields do we need before we realize that the fundamental problem does not involve money?

You could drop $100,000 per student in Newark and you'd still have failure rates above the New Jersey State average.  I guarantee it.