School Choice/Vouchers (split from '7 point Drain the Swamp')

[zoogs]

I'm asking because I'm no longer able to understand half of what you're saying.

 

First, I never said a thing about who can avoid current taxation for school spending. I'd leave it as is....or any good change idea I'm open to.

If government has no obligation to collect taxes for K-12 schooling, it puzzles me that you are so fervently for a system where you ask your fellow taxpayers who don't have children to subsidize schools for your own, through their taxes. Sounds like a form of socialism, doesn't it?

 

Q asked whether that's what you want, or whether it's a private-only school system exclusively funded by those who pay. And that's why I asked about cost. Because they should be lower when it's subsidized by your fellow noncustomer taxpayers.

 

Android and Chrome do not run on thin air. They require a device. Your proposal also requires a robust ecosystem of mobile-friendly educational materials to supplant the physical textbook model. I can see why that hasn't happened yet, that's all, and it's not idiocy, it's time.

[Sargon]

I want school cost, leadership, culture, mission, values, performance, and cost to all improve and change. I want parents alone making the best choices per their decisions...with zero concern about what any democrat anywhere thinks including the White House and the Supreme Court and Zoogs. Vouchers will do all those things. So I am for vouchers. (sure state and local gov'ts will create some stupid democrat rules and make em conform but not in Nebraska. Not in Indiana. Not in Utah. Etc. So....those states will beat the idiot states....more and more over time. Then the voters in the idiot states will have some facts and data to do some hard thinking about. They will probably eventually choose to throw out the governments that mandate men in the girls room. Or mandate socialist econ, history, and other books. Participation ribbons. All stupid crap dies in competition and transparency eventually. Yay Evolution! Yay Progress!

 

zoogs...Taxes...you keep bringing that up and as it pertains to vouchers I don't care if taxation methods are changed or not as far as voucher programs are concerned. Vouchers are about spending on chosen schools they are not in any way tied to any taxation scheme logically. D's and lawyers always love to tie all sorts of crap together so they can f with people. Not me. Taxes is taxes. Spending is spending. They aren't related, unless D lawyers tie em together. I don't like D lawyers...I don't trust them either...and I have zero respect for them...I want them to lose all power they have....so I would not support tieing the issues. But many governments will. Whatever. Give me vouchers for all and I'm done on the school topic (well...regulation will remain a fight too untill the regulation lovers lose that fight but not where I choose to live).

 

Qmany wants to know if I would mandate private only schools? No. Competition rules. States and locals want to compete in the school business...fine. Just that they cannot have ANY advantage bestowed upon them from the governments. They must pay the same property taxes as other org's, etc. Over time there won't be many government schools because private entities will routinely outperform them by huge margins. For profit, not for profit I don't care. But hmm....I'd be a huge fan of excluding any foreign ownership of schools here. No I'm not Mr. Free trade heck no. I'm for we win on every trade or commerce deal/law...or we don't sign it. USA. USA. I wouldn't allow any ownership of US ports, uranium, lots of other stuff either. So, now readers get it that I'm not a globalism free trade person which I guess should be made clear as this country perhaps considers a huge increase of non-government schooling. BTW foreignors have a million times more influence on OUR GOVERNMENT today than I like...so it sure is not like new schools would be uniquely at risk.

 

Taxation...what significant changes do you want in taxation zoogs? I might agree. Probably not I rarely hear good taxation ideas from lefties but the second law of thermodynamics does admit there is non-zero probability that h*## could freeze but it's super duper unlikely.

 

Sargon's simple tax suggestions (no chance they ever happen)

1. Schools (since zoogs wants to know) are not mentioned in a tax code. Major tax codes would not mention any spending.

Conversely, taxes that result from certain specific spending would always be stand alone. For example, if the Fed taxes gas sales then there is a bill that defines the tax fully, and doesn't address anything besides gas sales tax. Special phone service tax? Nope. Just sales tax like everything else. Cable...nope. Sales tax only. Booze...yep...tax it. Costs society money so drinkers will pay the sin tax. Cigs...same...pay cig tax. Taxes that are stand alone and make the people who create a cost bear the cost...fine...good with anything clean that does that. Carbon tax lol not a chance I ever support that.

 

2. the rest of my desired tax ideas are NOT going to happen.

Anyway...income tax code abolished.

Replaced with a couple of pages that covers nearly all....then perhaps a dozen pages for government interference of the market.

Tax rate well...first I need to say I'd go mostly with Federal sales tax and most people and many businesses would pay nothing in income tax. No individuals pay income tax until 100K or maybe 200k something pretty high. The cost savings would be mammouth. No more IRS screwing with basically anyone. Taxing consumption pushes some tax bill to foreign goods which is great for US companies and workers. This is the biggest tax thing the US should do but it won't. Why? Because the ruling class are globalists, and they love the power and data that comes from the IRS. Also it would radically increase the taxes on the oligarchs and they don't want that even though they always say they do (please Warren if you think you need to pay more in taxes just buy a president that you know will do it (btw trump will try to hit the bs tax advoidance scheme that trading "investment" companies love called carried interest.)

 

One more tax code rule I'd like targeted at the oligarchs nearly all of which are democrat hypocrites like zucker gates blankfien diller etc etc so many zillionaire oligarch liars would take a day to make a good list.....INTERNET SALES ALL MANDATED TO BE TAXED AT ALL LOCALES THE SAME AS IN PERSON SALES. There...there's a little deserved 20 years ago f u to democrat oligarchs beginning with Jeff Bozo who owns the "free media" known as the Washington Compost "News" "Paper". Pay some taxes Jeff, and try turning a profit now and then. (not taxes but I want anti monoply law redone so Amazon and Google and Microsofts never again happen here they'd be broken up way before they hit this size and power).

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I did warn you zoogs that I don't want to talk about taxes and vouchers at the same time. They are not related...logically. One topic is small..vouchers....taxes is a GIANT topic. When D's interject tax talk into voucher talk the reason is usually to redirect the conversation. It's probably why you are doing it.

 

Voucher for the people! Yay..for the people...for the kids! For the poors! For the peoples of color!! Help em!!! Vouchers!!!

[knapplc]

I want parents alone making the best choices per their decisions

 

 

 

LOL. Have you met parents? They're stupid and self-centered and wholly lacking in objectivity about their children. There's a reason today's kids get ribbons for finishing last - it's their parents.

[Moiraine]

What happens to your idea of competition when no one wants to put a school anywhere near a poor area where the parents are less likely to have finished high school/less likely to have attended college/are less able/available to help their kids even if they do have the desire? Those kids are less likely to do as well in school regardless of who teaches them (thus giving the impression that the schools are "failing"), but they need to have schools in their area.

[zoogs]

I did warn you zoogs that I don't want to talk about taxes and vouchers at the same time. They are not related...logically. One topic is small..vouchers

OK. I did read some of that.

 

Vouchers are...from the federal government? Where does the money come from? To whom does it go?

[Moiraine]

Let me get really simple here.

I would consider being for getting rid of income tax, IF we had universal health care. Poor people's lives aren't worth less than anyone else's. We need some way to help them. I don't have this rosy view of the world where I think the super rich are going to do their part if not through taxes. Income tax is a way to ensure the poor aren't left to suffer/become homeless/die. Having basic needs (e.g. health care) met for them would be another way.

[JJ Husker]

Zoogs- This is my understanding if how vouchers work.

 

Taxing entities; Federal, state and local still collect funds (taxes) for educational purposes. Schools typically get reimbursed so much per student based on the specific enrollment numbers in the school/district. For explanation sake, let's say it is $7,000 per student per school year. What vouchers do is put the decision which school gets that $7,000 in the hands of the parents. Whichever school they send their child to, that school gets the money. The theory is it makes the schools more accountable and responsible for providing a good education. Bad schools would lose funding because parents will flock to the better schools. Initially, yes I think it would harm some underperforming schools in poorer areas but eventually competition and the desire to expand income should give rise to better schools everywhere. That per pupil money is just as good in a poor area as it is in a rich area. I actually think it could help improve school options in disadvantaged areas. It helps do away with the current model which in too many cases results in poring more and more funds into unaccountable hands.

[Sargon]

What happens to your idea of competition when no one wants to put a school anywhere near a poor area where the parents are less likely to have finished high school/less likely to have attended college/are less able/available to help their kids even if they do have the desire? Those kids are less likely to do as well in school regardless of who teaches them (thus giving the impression that the schools are "failing"), but they need to have schools in their area.

These parents have $9k or so per child, to spend. They are customers. They have school money to spend...lots of it! They are demand. Providers come because, they want the 9k per child. You are worried that no business will show up to take $9k per student? Open the econ book again. The socialism is bad econ book, btw.

 

Only liars and idiots speak this fictitious false negative impression you say will come forth. I'll never say it. And btw so what? It's none of my business and its none of your business. Parents need concern themselves with their OWN evaluation of their OWN local school choices and decide accordingly.

 

You think the parents are too stupid to figure out if their schools are really shi&&Y? Do you? How many parents do you think are that dumb? Where do they live? What race are they? Can they speak fluent English? Who exactly are these supposedly incapable parents that there will be such a high concentration of them that shi&&y schools survive and thrive where there is such a dearth of intelligence and attention and local leaders say nothing and can't be heard? Where is this land of idiots you think would fuel all these bad schools and allow should be failed business to prosper? I want to know because I'm moving there and opening schools. Easy money. Beat the crap out of crooked idiot operators taking away ALL their customers and making me lots of cash and giving the poors better service. Everyone's happy even me yeah super. Where is that city of idiots with voucher holding parents? That's where I'm headed to make lots of money the old fashioned (non clinton) way...earning it.

[JJ Husker]

 

I want parents alone making the best choices per their decisions

 

 

LOL. Have you met parents? They're stupid and self-centered and wholly lacking in objectivity about their children. There's a reason today's kids get ribbons for finishing last - it's their parents.

Knapp, this is partially true. Some parents are stupid and lacking objectivity. However, it has not been my experience that parents were the driving force behind ribbons down to last place. I and many parents used to make fun of the 12th place ribbons the Schools would hand out on field day. It is a valuable lesson learned, and the sooner the better, that some level of subpar performance is not worthy of being acknowledged as exemplary. 12th place in the three legged race? Really? I'm not sure where or how some of the insanity began but it is out of control. Part of the problem with society is we are raising a generation (maybe more than one) that thinks anything and everything they do is special. It's not. It stands to reason that some of these kids are having problems in the real world where real performance is the standard. I don't think many of these kids are learning that it might take real effort or skill or ability to make it in the world. As much disdain as I have for many parents, I think this has become more of a systemic problem than one directly attributable strictly to parents.

[zoogs]

@JJ -- thanks! From what you say, that sounds exactly like government taxes to fund K-12. We subsidize each other for the common good. Nothing about that strikes me as unfair.

 

If I were a parent, I think I'd appreciate choice. And I like the theory of competition. But I would not be OK with the sum of everyone's choices, and competition playing out, gutting the quality of a school system as money flows out of one (even if it weren't my kids being affected).

 

This would happen regularly almost by design, I think. I mean, in real markets the nice thing is a company fails and it's OK. Not for the families of the people who have to find new jobs, but that sort of disruption is in the normal course of economic activity. When it's kids' educations undergoing more turmoil than the Kansas football coaching staff, that gets to the point of social costs. An odd outcome, from a starting point of "promote social good."

 

Lastly, on choice. From my (limited) observations, people do have the choice of where to put their money already, and boy, do they use it. The access bar is raised via soaring house prices in places known to have great schools. These places don't necessarily spend so much more per student. But the really rich families who really care about education come here, costs become prohibitive everywhere else, and the student pool is self-selecting. These are the strongest school systems in the state, and so the best teachers and administrators flock there in an organic way.

 

So the places that need both the best teaching and the best resources don't have it. From this standpoint, the appeal of "Choice" would be to break up that denial of access. But every argument I've seen in favor talks about how money, and then quality would get aggregated naturally...which sounds like the same effect, only accelerated by making the cashflows more volatile. It does not sound like a game that most of us would be able to win.

 

But to emphasize, again, I am out of my depth here. I know there are criticisms and proponents of choice and for the most part I'll have to let others make those cases more completely.

[Moiraine]

 

What happens to your idea of competition when no one wants to put a school anywhere near a poor area where the parents are less likely to have finished high school/less likely to have attended college/are less able/available to help their kids even if they do have the desire? Those kids are less likely to do as well in school regardless of who teaches them (thus giving the impression that the schools are "failing"), but they need to have schools in their area.

These parents have $9k or so per child, to spend. They are customers. They have school money to spend...lots of it! They are demand. Providers come because, they want the 9k per child. You are worried that no business will show up to take $9k per student? Open the econ book again. The socialism is bad econ book, btw.

 

Only liars and idiots speak this fictitious false negative impression you say will come forth. I'll never say it. And btw so what? It's none of my business and its none of your business. Parents need concern themselves with their OWN evaluation of their OWN local school choices and decide accordingly.

 

You think the parents are too stupid to figure out if their schools are really shi&&Y? Do you? How many parents do you think are that dumb? Where do they live? What race are they? Can they speak fluent English? Who exactly are these supposedly incapable parents that there will be such a high concentration of them that shi&&y schools survive and thrive where there is such a dearth of intelligence and attention and local leaders say nothing and can't be heard? Where is this land of idiots you think would fuel all these bad schools and allow should be failed business to prosper? I want to know because I'm moving there and opening schools. Easy money. Beat the crap out of crooked idiot operators taking away ALL their customers and making me lots of cash and giving the poors better service. Everyone's happy even me yeah super. Where is that city of idiots with voucher holding parents? That's where I'm headed to make lots of money the old fashioned (non clinton) way...earning it.

 

 

Other than having kids, what is your experience with the education system?

[MLB 51]

 

Gosh, I can't believe the Justice Dept. is cracking down on cell phones during school hours. That seems like a grotesque misuse of resources.

 

On the surface, I don't think I like school choice. I see it this way: for those who have enough resources, they can use them to tilt the scales in their kids' favor already by sending them to self-selecting private schools. I'd be happy for them to save a buck, but I'm more worried about those who don't have resources and their schools failing.

 

A school going under is not a trivial thing to go through, and competition accelerates this (I'm thinking specifically of charter schools, some of which are great, some of which go belly up to the real detriment of a lot of families who were counting on that not to happen).

 

Generally, I don't think public policy should be used to help safeguard the domain of those who are already winners, at the expense of the rest of society who will suffer the consequences. I don't see how the natural course will not be an ever-tightening circle of high-cost, high-performing schools, with competition driving the raising of the access bar. De facto this seems to go on enough already, and I don't have great ideas on how to combat it.

 

All D's "don't like school choice." Is there any prominent D who likes it? Government rule school is the D reality and commitment and most R's and some libertarians and independents want choice. Like I said I hope the D's lose this fight (been losing it a bit...but extremely slowly, for decades).

 

Winners? Low IQ kids are not EVER going to be rocket surgeons you do know this right? Potential rocket surgeon kids (IQ 125+) SHOULD do MOST of their schooling with other high IQ kids studying at a pace that lower IQ kids can NOT handle. AP classes. AP schools. Socialist Germany even knows this.

 

Safeguards? Provide a safeguard for those who need it, fine. Do 90% of American students need government D's providing them an education safeguard? 60%? 25%? How about in Millard, NE? What percent of the kids there do you think NEED a D government safeguard? Millard is not downtown Detroit. Millard kids do NOT have the same needs. And frankly if there were no government schools at all in Millard the mostly intelligent and committed parents would be served ONLY by schools that perform. There's no market for bad schools so market forces wouldn't let any of them survive. Government forces keep them running for generations.

 

What percentage of American k-12 students need government "safeguards" because their parents are too lazy or stupid to get them into an appropriate school?

 

So, segregation. Here's a better idea. Why don't we just euthanize all low IQ kids? We wouldn't want them polluting the gene pool, would we?

[Danny Bateman]

Re: The school discussion, good stuff. Can't you distill this conversation down to the degree to which one believes in simple conservative/free market economic principles? Either you think competition can improve everything and give people more freedom in the process, or you think that it hurts the less advantaged schools/families and the market doesn't really care.

 

As for Trump, I despise that guy. That doesn't mean I won't give him a fair chance to succeed. I think rooting for failure of any President is a very petty stance to hold, and I wish Obama hadn't gotten that kind of treatment the past eight years. Particularly the ones who could have been helping him instead.

Like BRB, pretty much everything I've gleaned about Trump's entire business career has underwhelmed me. He seems like a shady con man to me.

Even so, horrible men can sometimes do jobs quite well. Nixon seemed like a pretty competent president. Until we found out he was corrupt as hell.

[zoogs]

12th place in the three legged race? Really?

I have a really different view about participation ribbons.

 

I mean, we're talking about elementary school kids here. I think that's important. A kid who hasn't already decided sports (or science, or whatever) isn't for them, you can work with later. The point is to keep them engaged, and I do think that's very valuable. We've probably all gone through times where we have had to have somebody tell us, "You can do this." And that's not weakness.

 

A lot of world-class athletes probably won some stupid charity ribbon at some point as a 6 year old. Maybe it was the small sort of reward that made them think, "Hey, baseball's pretty cool. I can't wait to go back next year."

 

I'm a big believer in positive affirmation. Sure, I mean, don't think you're a god for getting 12th place in a 3-legged race. But that's not the danger, is it? Our lives are all built on encouragement, tangible trinkets or not. All the silly, meaningless ways we've invented to reward grade schoolers is the last thing I'm worried about in this world.

 

*Then again, it's entirely possibly I'll be one of those terrible, coddling parents. I suppose I won't know until I find out

[Landlord]

Positive affirmation and encouragement are not contained in participation ribbons, and might even be hindered by them, imo.

 

 

Know what I did with ribbons I got from competitions I didn't win? I don't either, I couldn't care less about them - kids aren't stupid and they know when something is worthless.