Re: Reich on Vouchers
An obvious problem with Reich's proposal, which he blithely overlooks, is that rich suburbs would not take the vouchers. Massachusetts (where Reich lives) already has in place a system which allows students in poorly funded districts to transfer to another district. The town where the transfering student lives then has to pay the receiving town the average per-pupil expenditure of the receiving town (generally higher than the per-pupil expenditure of the town where the student lives). Almost all of the better school districts have refused to participate. I doubt that the added incentive of a higher than average payment would change anything. There is a reason that upper-income people segregate themselves and their children in exclusive suburbs. Ellen
Re: Re: Re: Re: Reich on Vouchers
Yes, Reich has flunked political economy 101. He has been seduced by the delusion of "choice" when we already have much evidence how the notion of choice plays out among poor people. Residents of the inner city use welfare dollars to obtain housing, and get slums; they have medicaid, and uniformly poorer indices of health; and they have a choice of banks, or at least those banks who have not left for more profitable climes elsewhere. If the vouchers is small, it will fail to make a difference; if it is bigger, as Reich suggests, it will be even more vulnerable to hijacking by private interests. Either way, a few additional government dollars cannot compensate for a much broader social inequity. Joel Blau Peter Dorman wrote: My sense of Reich is that he is genuinely egalitarian and regrets that markets generate inequality, but other than that he likes how markets operate and, in particular, believes them to be creative and efficient. So the position he stakes out in the WSJ is not surprising. I agree with Michael and Jim, however, that he is too clever by half, if not a lot more: if we can't get the progressive funding for education we need in a public system, how are we going to get it when the privatizers take over and implement their vouchers? Maybe Reich thinks he can cut some kind of deal -- progressive financing for privatization -- but if so he has really flunked political economy 101. Peter
Re: Re: Reich on Vouchers
An obvious problem with Reich's proposal, which he blithely overlooks, is that rich suburbs would not take the vouchers. Massachusetts (where Reich lives) already has in place a system which allows students in poorly funded districts to transfer to another district. The town where the transfering student lives then has to pay the receiving town the average per-pupil expenditure of the receiving town (generally higher than the per-pupil expenditure of the town where the student lives). Almost all of the better school districts have refused to participate. I doubt that the added incentive of a higher than average payment would change anything. There is a reason that upper-income people segregate themselves and their children in exclusive suburbs. Ellen Middle upper-middle strata suburbanites don't have to care about dysfunctional urban schools. They are, in general, satisfied with their kids' public schools. Voucher system offering lower-income students measure of actual choice (i.e., covering full cost of tuition) runs counter to MUM interests because it devalues premium linking school quality to value of homes. Michael Hoover
Reich on Vouchers
In addition to the points about private and religious schools' elitism, racism , obscurantism taught etc. which are in the main superstructural aspects in any class divided society. Other horrors are wrapped up in schools for profit vouchers.. And here too -- "It's the economy stupid!!" There is a lot of foot loose capital lying around with rich idlers and venture capitalists searching for industries to make better than the average rates of profits than in their existing ones. Prop 38 would mean a $4,000 voucher for EACH student, each yr. . That is a hefty chunk of cash . There will be a myriad of street corner outfits ready to set up those Play Chess-Checkers and Blocks all day schools of parasite 'entrepreneurs' that would love to get in on this gravy train . If each new Street corner school for profit got 35 kids , thats $140,000.00-yr before meager expenses. Nothing to spit at for start up exploiters (probably those who failed in other businesses). And no doubt larger capital ( small banks, etc) might also want to get in on this action. Under Prop 38 they could warehouse the kids all day --and there is NO accountability! Also wahts to stop some smaller Corner Basement "Academy" from cashing in vouchers for $4 G-s each and giving a kick back of $1000 to "friends" and "neighbors" who enroll their kids? Also back to the politics, there are NO credential requirements (as mentioned), NO background checks for employees and owners of these voucher schools (That would be costly and cut into profits -always held sacred by profiteers !) And ZERO safety concerns for the kids ! Anybody can set up a "Voucher Academy" . Who knows if they are criminals, scam artists, or WORSE for the kids . This is the epitome of the bosses "free market" where for-profit means ultimate "freedom" -- to rip-off and scam,even prey on children ,etc. More license for the most despicable predators --all in the name of their blessed 'free market"! Neil
Re: Reich on vouchers
I see that Robert Reich is saying that vouchers work on the editorial page of the WSJ. Michael Perelman WSJ is issuing vouchers now (place smiley mark here)? Michael Hoover
Re: Reich on Vouchers
what's his take on this issue? At 08:58 PM 9/6/00 -0700, you wrote: I see that Robert Reich is saying that vouchers work on the editorial page of the WSJ. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Reich on Vouchers
Jim D. asked what Reich actually said. Here it is. Wall Street Journal - September 6, 2000 Commentary The Case for 'Progressive' Vouchers By Robert B. Reich. Mr. Reich, former secretary of labor, is professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University. His next book, "The Future of Success," will be published in January by Alfred A. Knopf. Education tops the list of Americans' concerns. But there's no agreement on what to do about it. The biggest emerging battle is between people who advocate school choice and those who want more money for schools. George W. Bush wants to give vouchers to poor kids in failing schools so they, and their parents, can shop for a better education. But Al Gore says no way. He would prefer to spend $115 billion more on schools over the next 10 years, by contrast with the $13.5 billion over five years that Mr. Bush proposes. Joe Lieberman, who has sponsored legislation calling for experiments with vouchers for private schools, is now mute on the subject. Meanwhile, voucher plans in Cleveland and Florida are in the courts, and initiatives to authorize statewide voucher schemes will be on ballots this fall in California and Michigan. Vouchers Work The standoff between vouchers and money is predictable. It is also regrettable, because it prevents consideration of a most promising way to improve school performance -- giving kids "progressive" vouchers that are inversely related to the size of their family's income. Evidence mounts that vouchers do work for kids who use them. A new study of students in New York, Washington and Dayton, Ohio -- conducted by researchers at Harvard, Georgetown and the University of Wisconsin -- found that after two years, the average performance of black students who switched to private schools was 6% higher than that of students who stayed behind in public schools. So why not simply "voucherize" all education funding and let students and their parents select where they can get the best education? After all, that's what wealthy and upper-middle-class families do by choosing pricey homes in upscale towns with excellent public schools (in which case the "voucher" comes with the home), or by sending their kids to private schools. Voucher proponents, including a growing number of black parents, argue that poor kids should have the same advantage. The biggest drawback to vouchers is that kids who are most troublesome, or whose parents couldn't care less or are overwhelmed with other problems, would almost certainly end up bunched together in the worst schools. Such schools would become even worse than they were before. After all, the increasing concentration of poor kids in America's poor schools has already compounded the problems these kids and those schools must deal with. Assuming that the kids who leave these schools take public money with them, the worst schools would end up with fewer resources per difficult child. The new study also confirms the importance of school environment. The parents of voucher recipients noted the differences between their children's private schools and their former public schools, pointing out that there was less fighting, less destruction of property, and less racial conflict in the private schools than in the public schools their kids left behind. Why is behavior better in private schools? For one thing, private schools enforce discipline in ways that public schools cannot. In particular, private schools can expel a child who seriously misbehaves. About 20% of the students in the study who were selected to attend private schools never completed the two years. It seems a fair guess that at least some of them were sent packing. But public schools must, by law, provide a public education to all. The students drawn to private schools are also likely to be better behaved than those who remain in public schools. In the study I cite, most of the students already attending the private schools were from families who cared enough about their children to seek a good education for them, and who earned enough to afford one. By contrast, many inner-city public schools are comprised of students whose families are either unable to pay attention to their futures, or very poor, or both. There is a powerful case for giving every possible advantage to better-behaved poor kids who are fortunate enough to have caring parents. School vouchers offer them an escape route from troublesome and unmotivated peers, negative peer influences and anarchic environments where teachers have to spend much of their time trying to maintain order. But it also means that school vouchers alone won't solve the problem of poor kids and lousy schools. Vouchers may just concentrate the problem further. Almost a decade ago, New Zealand embarked on the closest thing we've seen to a national school-voucher experiment. Parents were given the right to choose the school their kids attended. This gave schools that attracted more applicants than they
Re: Reich on Vouchers
Reich's article is hardly coherent; it pushes me toward agreeing with the various nasty things that Krugman says about him. The kind of voucher program most likely to pass through the Halls of Congress and to be okayed by Prez. Bore or Gush is not the kind of progressive voucher program he favors. Further, he equates "problem kids" with "poor kids" (while making the assertion that some poor parents don't care about their kids -- if so, this is because they're ground down by poverty, a problem he doesn't address or thinks that his scheme will solve by itself). As a father of a problem kid who's not poor, I know this isn't true. The big problem with vouchers -- in addition to showing no respect for teachers and the problems they face -- is the one he mentions and minimizes: all the problem kids will be rejected by the "good schools," so they'll be concentrated in the worst schools with the least resources. Private schools don't have to obey such laws as the Americans with Disabilities Act -- or even hire credentialed teachers. They can teach the idea that the world is the back of a turtle or similar nonsense. They can teach racism and even if they don't want to, they teach elitism. Of course, government regulations can deal with this, but then the private schools are transformed into public ones I get the feeling that Reich is feeling left out, now that it's four years or since Clinton iced him out... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Reich on Vouchers
Also, Jim, to have put the piece in the WSJ gives enormous liberal cover to the voucher crew. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Reich on Vouchers
My sense of Reich is that he is genuinely egalitarian and regrets that markets generate inequality, but other than that he likes how markets operate and, in particular, believes them to be creative and efficient. So the position he stakes out in the WSJ is not surprising. I agree with Michael and Jim, however, that he is too clever by half, if not a lot more: if we can't get the progressive funding for education we need in a public system, how are we going to get it when the privatizers take over and implement their vouchers? Maybe Reich thinks he can cut some kind of deal -- progressive financing for privatization -- but if so he has really flunked political economy 101. Peter
Reich on Vouchers
I see that Robert Reich is saying that vouchers work on the editorial page of the WSJ. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reich on Vouchers
He may be right. They work on the editorial pages of the WSJ. However, they don't work anywhere else. CHeers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 10:58 PM Subject: [PEN-L:1372] Reich on Vouchers I see that Robert Reich is saying that vouchers work on the editorial page of the WSJ. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
