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The Case for Student Vouchers

By Larry Doyle on February 8, 2010 at 3:00 PM in Education, Sense on Cents (Larry Doyle blog)

Who would not make an investment that can generate a 20% better return at half the overall cost? The appeal of this investment is that it pays increasing dividends in the future. Are you interested? You should be because your tax dollars are being spent at an ever increasing rate to fund a lower returning investment at a higher cost, without the benefits of future dividends but the reality of higher social costs.

I am referring to my major interest in the use of student vouchers for the funding of secondary education. Time and again I come across stories of urban families who are desperate to get their children well educated in hopes of moving on to a better life. These hopes are evidenced by the overwhelming demand for admission to a charter school or access to a student voucher.

Regrettably, the teachers’ unions in our country maintain a stranglehold on the futures of many of our urban youth. How so? The unions’ support for the Democratic Party comes with the price tag of limiting both charter schools and the use of vouchers. What a shame!

I am not stating that the problem in urban education does not extend beyond the unions. It most assuredly does. What I am saying, though, is that I strongly believe the answer to the problems in urban education can and should be increasingly addressed via the growth of charter schools and the use of student vouchers.

What city extensively implements student vouchers? Milwaukee. How are they doing? Let’s review this morning’s Wall Street Journal, which writes Milwaukee’s Voucher Graduates:

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget calls for a 9% increase in federal education spending, and he has famously said that the money should go to “what works” in education. So he ought to take another look at Milwaukee, where the nation’s oldest and largest publicly funded school voucher program is showing academic gains.

A report released last week by School Choice Wisconsin, an advocacy group, finds that between 2003 and 2008 students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program had a significantly higher graduation rate than students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

“Had MPS graduation rates equalled those for MPCP students in the classes of 2003 through 2008, the number of MPS graduates would have been about 18 percent higher,” writes John Robert Warren of the University of Minnesota. “That higher rate would have resulted in 3,352 more MPS graduates during the 2003-2008 years.”

In 2008 the graduation rate for voucher students was 77% versus 65% for the nonvoucher students, though the latter receives $14,000 per pupil in taxpayer support, or more than double the $6,400 per pupil that voucher students receive in public funding.

The Milwaukee voucher program serves more than 21,000 children in 111 private schools, so nearly 20% more graduates mean a lot fewer kids destined for failure without the credential of a high school diploma. The finding is all the more significant because students who receive vouchers must, by law, come from low-income families, while their counterparts in public schools come from a broader range of economic backgrounds.

Vouchers are of course taboo among most Democrats, and Mr. Obama has done nothing to stop Congress from killing the small but successful voucher program for poor families in Washington, D.C. The Milwaukee program has survived for 20 years despite ferocious political opposition, and it would have died long ago if parents didn’t believe their children were better off for it.

Remember, America’s future is about the kids. It is not about political parties and political lobbies. Defendants of the status quo will scream that vouchers and charters can not be implemented on a larger scale.

I would maintain it is high time we try. Our national 50% urban graduation rate is not only a travesty, but a death knell for our future economic prosperity.

Keep your unions. Keep your political parties. Keep your pandering and posturing.

Listen hard to the kids and families who want a chance at life.

Katherine B.

I went to private Catholic schools from 1st grade through graduate school. I consider myself well educated. And just how did I get to go to these private schools? My parents both worked to pay for it themselves. My father worked two jobs. They also paid their taxes to support public schools. They NEVER thought they should get special treatment from the government to help support their choice to send me to private schools. Those people who want to send their children to private schools can do so by WORKING for it. I do not want my tax money to go to pay for vouchers for private Catholic schools or private Muslim schools.
lark

LD said, Defendants of the status quo will scream that vouchers and charters can not be implemented on a larger scale.

The status quo? Secondary, college and university education as we know it is something from the past. Elementary will need to change too. But I am not going to talk about it.

When the American economic system collapses we will change it.

The future of academic education is the internet. Cost very little.

No, no. I vote to pay teachers 20 thousand a month and to make schools and colleges safe.
Craig Della Penna

There are many ways to reform the educational system in the U.S. but almost all of them require real commitment from government, teachers’ unions and the community.
Vouchers are so much easier – just make out a check and let someone else figure it out.
Vouchers are most often championed by fanatical religionists and equally fanatical libertarian types who are also, oddly, venemously antithetical to public education in toto.
For them vouchers are the dream scenario: they get to starve public education to death while getting paid by the government to inculcate their particular brand of propaganda into young minds.
Be careful what you wish for.
Anonymous

I sent my children to private high schools because I wanted them to have a great education, but do not support vouchers. Ive not seen a single study that shows that vouchers has created better schools. Unless I’m shown definite studies that show those schools that use vouchers consistently (90 percent or better) give better education, I will continue to support public schools. I would support any steps to improve public schools, but abandoning them is not the right choice, imo. In my case it wasn’t the schools fault. Good students who went to the schools available to my kids did well and transferred to great universities, and bad students were losers. The public schools had both students. My kids demanded more attention because they were not great students and I wanted the school to do the job I could not do. That’s why I sent them to a private shool. We need to recognize that bad students demand more supervision and that public schools cannot do the job that rightfully belong to the parents unless we pay huge amounts of taxes.
lark

LD said, Defendants of the status quo will scream that vouchers and charters can not be implemented on a larger scale.

The status quo? Secondary, college and university education as we know it is something from the past. Elementary will need to change too. But I am not going to talk about it.

When the American economic system collapses we will change it.

The future of academic education is the internet. Cost very little.

No, no. I vote to pay teachers 20 thousand a month and to make schools and colleges safe.

Here LD is my teacher but I am a bad bad student.
Diana L. C.

I am all for the voucher programs. Parents should have a choice of where to send their children. I know that the main problem in most cases is the one Katherine B points out–preventing taxpayers for having to pay for religious education with tax money. Don’t allow vouchers for programs that include religious education; do allow it for private programs that simply teach academics. And there are now many such non-religious programs available. I would have been so much happier when my children were of school age if I could have taken them out of the public schools where we lived and put them in a private school. I couldn’t afford it; I was angry that my tax dollars were going to that joke of a public school system and would have much preferred to spend them in a school of my choice.

I should point of the cheapest way to educate our children–do more to support homeschooling. Homeschooling began often for parents who did want to provide a religious slant to their children’s educations, but nowadays you will find far more people opting to homeschool simply to avoid sending their children to public schools where their children’s educational progress will be stunted. I have an ex-teacher friend whose little girl was supposed to enter kindergarten this year. She made the choice not to send her but to apply to homeshool. This girl, with simple interactions with her highly educated parents is already reading at second-grade level. She breezes through the work from the homeshooling program and continues to progress far more than the public school students. She gets all types of interaction with other children in her harate class, her regualr library reading group attendance, etc. If you try, you’ll find story after story of homeschooled kids who get top scholarships every year.

But for perents who don’t want to homeshool or don’t feel capable of homeschooling, let the competition begin to open the door for people willing to provide some competition to the public schools.
lark

For 1/1000ths of what the gov spends in college education the gov can pay academic sites to provide the academic curriculum and students can go to school to do experimental work. Close all high schools and colleges as we know them and open experimental facilities. Rent schools and college rooms to students to begin business ventures. All the problems of the U.S. solved in 10 years time.
PA Caucasian

A few years ago I heard a blurb on the news that cited Philadelphia’s billion dollar school budget.

That’s one BILLION, people.

I was astonished. All that money to produce a whole lot of nothing. In buildings that are crumbling, staffed by teachers who are barely literate.

And yet one billion dollars was not sufficient, by 2007 the school district required 2 billion dollars, and it still wasn’t enough.

“A big part of this savings goes to the state government, which pays for the biggest chunk of education. But if the equivalent of just 5.5% of the Philadelphia school budget — that’s $110 million out of over $2 billion — were devoted by the state to education tax credits supporting about a third of students in the city, the local district would have another $140 million to spend and no budget shortfall at all.”

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8019

Excerpt taken from an article advocating education tax credits to address the perennial budget shortfall.

google Asian students under attack in Philadelphia schools

You’ll see how efficiently the two billion dollars is being administered.
bayareavoter

Here’s an article I just read about a charter school in the SF Bay Area where there are serious financial irregularities and no proof that the kids did better either. Except they were more comfortable in a segregated school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/education/07sffame.html

and here’s another article from last week showing that charter schools are increasing segregation

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/05/MNBN1BSOIL.DTL

And, no, I don’t want my tax dollars sent to private religious schools, or Waldorf, or ritzy schools that the rich will still only be able to attend because vouchers don’t cover enough of the tuition. There’s a hs nearby that costs $24,000/yr. Even with a voucher who will attend?
EllenD

I agree Katherine. The disparity in Milwaukee can easily be explained by the voucher parents being the most supportive for their kids to graduate, otherwise why would they get vouchers?

I sent my kids to non-sectarian private schools and don’t begrudge my tax dollars going to public schools. I do begrudge my tax dollars going to schools that promote religion.
EllenD

I sent my kids to private schools because I had a business I needed to run and needed a school that would keep them until after work, as well as have summer programs.
And for anyone who might ask – the private school was majority ethnic.
lark

Change everything
lark

I think that if teachers can hardly teach because they hardly learn to teach in college then they should be paid even more. Teaching is something that comes from the heart. Pay teachers that have a heart for teaching less.
Kathy in CA

I think limiting the voucher program to non-religious private schools is way too limiting. Where I live there is one non-denominational private school, and many demonimational schools (catholic and the like). The non-denominational schoold is $1700 a month – a voucher would not make enough of a dent for a poor family.

Many private, religious schools are also accredited. That should be the litmus test.
PA Caucasian

So you are a proponent of rewarding incompetence?

help me out here, I may not be catching your drift.
Hokma

“require real commitment from government, teachers’ unions and the community.”

Nice thought but I have found that each have their interests, and even share interests - but none focus on the actual students except in passing.

I don’t know what the actual solution is but I know the problem. Teachers are not paid or incentived enough and tenure is the system that keeps that from happening.

Teachers are the most important profession in the progress of society (along with scientists). Yet public school teacher pay scales are not comparable with other graduate degree professions. It is easier to get a law degree and practice than it is to be a high school teacher yet lawyers are paid far more.

Why? Lawyers, like other graduate degree professionals are not protected with tenure.

I would like to see an pilot test in a public school district where teachers are not tenured but have more lucrative pay scales and rewards.

That’s my opinion.
Diana L. C.

The charter school movement is different from the voucher movement. Some charter schools are excellent, and some are terrible. But basically, a charter school is a parent-run school under the auspices of a public school district. Most school districts don’t want to grant charters and set up requirements that have to be met before one is granted. I have seen charters granted for people who have excellent plans and in which children do very well–and most charters have to allow for everything a public school has to deal with, special needs, etc. But I have seen charters in which the parents involved want only a place where they can intervene constantly for their out-of-control children–since they, the parents (also out of control) are supposedly in charge.

Private institutions for learning are spinging up every where that are not in the model of the super rich boarding schools of before. They are designed in various ways.

To use an example, students with my son’s diagnosed dyscalculia have a terrible time with the block schedules so popular in large American high schools. Even teachers often can’t remember what room they’re supposed to be in at what time on what day of the week on any given week. The multi-taskers, the type As can navigate these schedules, but someone like my son starts shutting down. After you’ve been humiliated by a teacher for being late too often (because you just couldn’t remember what day it was and what class on that day he was supposed to be in–sequencing is a problem), you give up.

He entered the GED program at the community college, breezed through the reading, writing, history (social studies), science programs and tested in the 80th and 90th percentiles. He did the programs one at a time at his pace. The math program took him longer and was much harder for him because of his disability, but he did pass by being able to concentrate on it alone when the others were done.

The person from the Department of Ed who spoke at the GED graduation ceremony made it very clear that most people his age who held actual high school diplomas could not pass the GED tests–and so the people walking that day should be proud of their accomplishments.

Many of our students who drop out are in no way “bad” kids or really troublesome kids. They just aren’t the same type of people as the ones who can successfully fit into common public school schedules and ways of providing the teaching.

In past eras the kids like my son would have had many opportunities to excell, as his major skill is long-term concentration on one subject and an ability to do a task over and over with all his attention.

The public schools, the NEA, are totally unwilling to try different ways of providing the teaching, and they are failing many, many kids who are very bright.

If private schools are formed to meet the needs of a different kind of student, why shouldn’t they have a chance to provide that schooling through help from a voucher program?
Hokma

Vouchers only get you into better schools. they don’t create better schools. I don’t think it resolves the problem of public education.

What Craig Della Penna said above is right. There needs to be a willingness on the part of government, unions, and community to improve schools.
lark

My drift is that the fastest the current nonsense takes to a crash the fastest the system will change to something that reflect the current day. Our education system is a relic of the modern days. Modernism is dead and education as it is is also dead.
Diana L. C.

The word is “competition.”
J.J. (The PUMA)

I don’t in theory disagree with vouchers, but I’ve never seen how the numbers work out, at least in the short run.

1. First, we will be subsidizing millions of students currently attending private schools.

2. Unless we start spending more on education, that means there will be less to spend on the students currently in the public system.

But, the implication of Larry’s argument is that higher graduation rates will increase productivity (and tax revenues) in the long term. I doubt that the public is willing to subsidize all students (rich and poor) through vouchers if it means higher taxes.

But means tested subsidies for vouchers makes sense.
Anonymous

Competition in school is not necessarily an ingredient for great schools, just like it’s not an ingredient for great health care, transportation and other services. Thats why fire departments did not flourish in the private sector. Only services that are profitalbe benefit from competition.
Diana L. C.

I guess what I mean is not really competition, but variety of choices. OUr schools across the country are vastly different in terms of successful “product.” But, in many ways they are all very much the same in terms of practice, organization and method.

What vouchers might accomplish is breaking the mold, innovation, etc. Schools not formed in the “tradidional” way might really work better for some students.
stodghie

vouchers on the first look seems to be a great idea however i have seen a great deal of fraud, poor schools, and even criminal activity. it takes away from developing the type of public schools that are truly needed. i don’t see a future in this except to cause confusion, anger and even more taxes. sorry!

i can well see why a parent would want to pull their children out of a poorly performing school and use a voucher for another school however a bandaid isn’t the answer.
stodghie

lark grow up!
stodghie

here’s a little hint at one of the problems. too many chiefs and not enough pay for the teachers. these so called administrators get top dollar and do what?

america first needs to get back to teaching reading writing and arithmetic. after that go on other other things. those who advocate dumping the whole system need a brain transplant. that comment doesn’t include vouchers. it is a temporary bandaid however that ignores the ongoing problemns we have in this country. we need to stop mandating things for social engineerying in areas where they were never meant to be.
socalannie

Bravo Diana! Agree with you. We pulled our kid out of public school after 4 years because he was getting an “education fit for an imbecile” and started homeschooling through a private school. Our kid does about half of his work at home and takes many classes with other homeschoolers that we pay for. Its expensive, but is best for our child, and even though he is mildly disabled, we have never gotten a dime from any gov’t agency for any of his physical therapy or other special needs. Our child is one of those that falls through the cracks of the system. Anyway, I would love vouchers, because it offers another choice. I’m all for public schools being as good as possible, but public school doesn’t work for everyone.
mountainaires

I don’t support vouchers. I don’t support MORE money for education, either. I support eliminating “No Child Left Behind,” because all it does is waste time teaching to the tests. I support revamping our education system, and limiting classrooms to 20 students, and I support splitting off education systems into two tracks–one for college and one for technical/career training. Let each kid choose the track they want. I also think revamping the entire elementary/middle school/high school age grouping. Who ever thought of putting 14 year olds in 9th grade into high school anyway? It’s ridiculous.

We have a public school system in this country; I am a product of it, and I got a damn good education, and ended up with 3 college degrees, which I paid for myself.
lark

Diana L.C., some people even after having received a good education have issues retaining English grammatical rules or correct spelling and should not receive accusations about missing an education or rationalizing their errors.
lark

Diana L.C., some people even after having received a good education have issues retaining English grammatical rules or correct spelling and should not receive accusations about missing an education or rationalizing their errors.
lark

Diana L.C., some people even after having received a good education have issues retaining English grammatical rules or correct spelling and should not receive accusations about missing an education or rationalizing their errors. Some people may give up and never write again.
Dave of Seattle

Come on Larry, you use one statistic – graduation rate – for your whole pointless argument? How about ACT & SAT scores. Heck, I’d even go for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Student Based Assessment scores. Graduation rates mean absolutely nothing.
If you want your child to go to a charter school, then just go ahead and pony up the money and put your child in one. But stealing money from public schools to set-up new “charter” schools just wastes our precious tax dollars. You want some proof? Just go ahead and research the original DC program that established charter schools and you will find out that students were graduating who didn’t know how to read, charter school administrators who were buying themselves new cars and condos when the Xerox machines didn’t work. Milwaukee might be working but at what price? Perhaps the significant difference between graduation rates in Milwaukee is exactly because of the charter schools and their ability to siphon money directly from the school district coffers.
Larry Doyle

I should have been more emphatic that school vouchers are available only to low-income families.

These families are screaming for access to vouchers. They want a chance for a better education and a better life.

It is just that simple.
Dave

Remember the old saying, “Those that can’t, teach ?” Teachers should not be allowed to unionize, incompetent teachers are protected by unions. I would not send a child to public school, if I had to work 3 jobs to send my kids to Catholic or privte schools, I would do it.
Arizona has the 49th or 50th worst schools in the nation, they flip flop with Mississippi every other year. You have La Raza dictating to the schools that students need to be taught Spanish, (its not really Spanish, its Mexican border slang), as long as you have outside interference, and morons running the administration part of the school system, you will graduate idiots. That is if they hang around long enough to grqaduate !!
PA Caucasian

I don’t agree with your assessment of who most vociferously supports the use of education vouchers. What I do know is that Philadelphia’s Catholic schools’ enrollment includes 50% students who are not Catholic. Their parents do not send them to Catholic school in order to be indoctrinated in the ways of the faith. They pay extra tuition so their children can be taught in a safe environment, one which does not require armed police walking the halls, or metal detectors at all the entrances. These parents are not necessarily fanatical religionists or libertarians, they just don’t want a call in the middle of the day to go identify their child in the city morgue.

http://www.thenotebook.org/spring-2005/05689/high-schools-looking-alternatives-more-police

Some 450 personnel work as full-functioning, uniformed school police officers. The other 250 are “per diem” officers who receive about half the training and who chiefly assist on safety-related issues. They are currently part of daily staffing in the District’s schools.
Each high school is also equipped with a walk-through metal detector, a conveyor-belted x-ray machine that scans book bags and purses, and security cameras that schools can opt to use.

The article opens with the statistic of 2500 incidents reported in one year, and two murders.
PA Caucasian

Yes.
Doc99

Vouchers would put the focus in education back where it belongs – On the Students.
lark

How so?

Wouldn’t the students receive a role?

Wouldn’t the recieved role specify the dependent nature of the person on the government for its wellbeing?

Wouldn’t the parental role change completely?
stodghie

fankly larry, it is the low income charter schools that have the largest theft and graft. sorry that argument doesn’t fly.
stodghie

idealism is a wonderful thing but it won’t get a child a quality education. and why should they get special preference and even more of our money with typically no good results. i say this having been a teacher and witnessed all this. also i was chairman of the board of a nonprofit.
socalannie

My husband works for the 2nd largest school district in the country. Their budget in in the billions, more than most state budgets. They waste tons of $ on nonsense, have a huge middle management layer that spend their days making up forms & repetitious paperwork for other employees to fill out, I could go on & on. The point is, we all contribute to public education whether we use it or not, which is fine, but public education does not meet the needs of many students. Those of you who who are happy with the public education you grew up with, great, & I am very happy for you, (personally I found my public education to be a handicap and think I would’ve done better in life if I’d had other learning opportunities), but since so many billions of education $ are completely wasted, why not cut the waste and use some of the $ to enable parents to make the best choice for their kids. I don’t at all understand the enthusiasm in this thread for the cookie cutter education for all. (A lot of the stuff I was taught in the 60′s & 70′s in public school was crap, falsified history, etc) Children are individuals, with different needs and strengths. The percentage of special needs kids (autism, etc) has risen dramatically since we were all young and in school. Non public education alternatives work well for these kids, I’ve seen many examples of this personally as a homeschool mom who is part of a large thriving homeschool group. Well educated, well adjusted children will grow into responsible tax paying adults (which is what we baby boomers will need in our golden years!). Personally, I think exploring alternative education is worth America’s best effort. We have fallen behind because the “one-size-fits-all” mentality does not work. Lastly, I have several cousins who have lived their entire lives in Milwaukee. Their kids, and grandkids, are doing superbly with the education system there. LD is right, it is worth examining.
socalannie

moderator, can you please remove all my extra posts? I have no idea why it did this. Ever since the comment change, I’ve had a hard time posting here.

So sorry for all the posts!
socalannie

My husband has seen a lot of fraud, pathetically poor schools, and lots of criminal activity, while working for the 2nd largest school district in America. California and Los Angeles pour billions into this mess.
stodghie

socalannie, i too worked in a school system. whereas mine was a decent system, i know there are issues. howvever i think we need to apply ourselves in updating our public schools.

we waste so much time on these idealistic views with typically bad results. so i want the tax money used for an overall good purpose for the greater number of people.
stodghie

larry please delete all of these posts. it was a mistake. thanks

oops please leave the original of course.
Morgan

In other words, you don’t want poor urban children to enjoy the same educational benefits your children received. Classy.
Morgan

I bet you didn’t attend an inner-city public school.
henry

We Home Schooled. Mt wife did I paid for the books from Calvert School. Later we got a dell 486 for a thousand from Sam’s Club.
It went very well for our daughter. We began home schooling because of daily violence against our son at school he refused to take the GED.

I want to promote One lap top per child. Sugar the activities of OLPC
Sugar on a stick bootable on any computer.

I would like the chicago police force to have this as an option to The Chicago Board of Education which is a vessel for creating mass waves of violence.