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Thank you. This means a lot to me coming from a member of this forum



Something I will be monitoring in depth as time goes on. In any case I hope for the best.

Thanks for your responses, Edward. That helps me to understand where your positions are originating, and yes, I believe that we are on similar pages for similar reasons.



The reduction of education to a commodity is simply incorrect, in my opinion. My parallel with the healthcare system was deliberate, because this is another sector in which viewing the 'goods and services' as a simple economic construct is a false equivalence.


If I wish to purchase a pair of shoes, buy a nice dinner, hire a musical ensemble, or read a particular book-- those are all subject to those sorts of economic evaluations. They are transactional, and I can have either good, not-so-good, or bad choices in front of me, and I can choose on the basis of my purchasing power and those choices.

In that instance, giving me a voucher to use costs my neighbor absolutely nothing, except perhaps in the end, it could cause inflation in the sector, I suppose.

However, if I am having a heart attack, "hospital choice" means very little. This is why encouraging patients to be "responsible consumers" has failed to rein in costs in that sector, at least in part. It's not the same as other commodities. If you close the local hospital because you incentivize non-emergent care to OTHER settings, you've effectively gutted something that served a unique role in the community.

Education, similarly, is not the same as other commodities. I have a pretty clear idea what Angie meant about her local magnet school.

ANY siphoning of funding from public education is going to shave "extras" which are not legally obligated from the public system. It will not "improve" public schools-- but it could serve to make them environments where only low-income, transportation-limited, and disabled children are educated. THOSE are the children that private schools don't have to accept or accommodate. So they don't.

Looking at school funding as a simple "let the dollars follow the child" is very simplistic, and it ignores something fundamental. It's patently ridiculous to expect equal "achievement" from diverse individuals, yes?

Well, it is likewise patently ridiculous to expect that each child requires $10,000 annually to educate. Maybe that is what a funding allocation gives to the local school for each student. But the reality is that an "average" student may cost only 6,800 and some medically fragile, 2e students might cost that same school 45,000 annually.

Private schools will not take on such students. What happens when public schools are left only with students whose needs can't realistically be met for the funding that they receive?

Magnet schools, enrichment, specials for all kids-- all of that WILL go, because they are legally obligated to that medically fragile child.

Classmates who CAN leverage other options will at that point.

That is how vouchers endanger public schools.

Make it illegal for private schools to accept vouchers unless they comply with non-discrimination, disability accommodation and LRE requirements that public schools have to follow, and then I might support vouchers.

I probably still wouldn't support them for religious instruction, from a non-establishment stance, but that is me personally. Economically, I might be more on board if the playing field were level. As it stands, however, letting private schools cherry-pick lower-cost students is a horrible idea.

I am not entirely opposed to vouchers in instances where both the local public school and parents jointly, and unanimously decide that a child's needs may be better met in another setting-- be that home school, private, or a charter.


Charter schools (mostly) already DO have to do those things that public schools must under the law. Some of them find ways to skirt those laws, however, in order to juice their stats and-- at least in some cases-- to siphon money from local educational provider (LEP) to a corporate contractor who provides a turnkey "system" for the charter's use on some annual/term-by-term basis.

So they take on children who are disproportionately not low-income, disabled, etc. The kids who cost 6800 annually to educate, in my example above. Only the corporate partner gets all of the 10K that "follows the child" in such cases.


I don't know what the answer is, and I agree that the system as it is now fails a fair number of students-- but--

it also provides for an even larger number of them. That is why I think that undermining it or 'radical disruption' is a bad idea in this sector-- much as it would be in healthcare.

If you're having a heart attack, you don't want to be turned away from the nearest hospital because "we're rebuilding a better hospital, the old way wasn't working."

I have been following this thread and topic for some time.

HowlerKarma, that reads and explains your view perfectly.
You presented some issues I have never fully considered.

Could you please march yourself to DC and explain these things to the people in charge. Somehow I believe you would come up with better answers then they would.

Hear, hear, HK!

Dear VR00,

As others have taken your thread away from your original focus (asking DeVos about gifted education), please indulge me as I consider some facts which may refute recent hypothetical scenarios posted.

Fact set 1:
- According to wikipedia, about 87% of children in the US are educated in public schools. The number 81 million was given.
- The number of students attending private schools was given as approximately 5 million. (See footnote 5.) Figures may not add up perfectly due to these resources providing data from different years.

Fact set 2:
- According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), about 13% of all public school students receive special ed services. The number 6.5 million was given.

Analysis:
If 13% of public school students have a disability, doing the math would indicate that about 87% of students (70-75 million students) in public schools do not have a disability.

To quell the fears of those concerned that having DeVos as head of the US Department of Education may result in draining public schools of all students except those receiving special ed services... there simply is not capacity for approximately 70-75 million students to leave public schools for voucher-subsidized opportunities in other schools. Private schools (currently serving approximately 5 million pupils) would need to more than double... more than triple... more than quadruple... they would need to increase capacity 10-fold to 12-fold. This is logistically unlikely.

Does anyone have other facts which make this scenario seem likely to occur? If not, there may be no need to worry, panic, or catastrophize.

Possibly we might be able to channel our energies toward seeing what may be done to support the growth of gifted kids under this administration.

I'm pretty sure what HK is saying is that in a district with 12k spending per student per year if even 5% of those kids were to go to a charter there would still be 12k available per remaining student, but the special ed population would now be a significantly larger percentage of the whole and therefore each special ed kid would get significantly less funding than they would have previously. The only way to fix this would be to raise taxes.

Also, your stance does not take into account growth of the private school sector and assumes that there will be no new schools. If this is the case then the vouchers would just be used students currently at private school who can obviously to some extent already afford to attend.

Personally I would probably benefit from vouchers. We send our son to a private gifted school we can't really afford and could use all the help we can get. I still am against vouchers. I would never want my kid to have a better education at the expense of another. In fact, the way things are now, the money the district would be spending on my son this year is now extra they can use to educate the other kids. I would also rather return my son to an inadequate public school education than have a penny of taxpayer money go towards education at a religious school. I firmly believe in separation of church and state as an indispensable aspect of our constitution.

I'm not sure if I follow your math...?

If 13% of students receive special ed services (13/100)...
and 5% of students NOT receiving special ed services leave...
there are 13/95 or 14% of students receiving special ed services...
some may say 1% is not a significantly larger percentage of the whole.

This was neither stated nor implied. What was stated was that in order to drain public schools of the approximately 87% of students not receiving special ed services, private schools would need to grow 10-fold to 12-fold.

I am not aware of any proposed requirement to utilize a voucher; It is my understanding that parents are empowered to make a personal choice for their families.

Would you treat a student and their family differently if you learned that the student attended your child's school, utilizing a voucher?

Yes and no. In general, this would be reflected in the school district's "expenditure per pupil"... regardless of how that money is spent (it may not be spent on academic education of students per se, but may be spent on a range of items, from sports equipment to payment of union contract pensions and health benefits for retired teachers, etc). Interested families can review their public schools' budgets.

It remains to be seen, how much DeVos may influence the Department of Education, and how much the Department of Education may influence DeVos.

I am a product of public schools... but not public schools of today. Frankly, I don't see why education is a federal government concern. (just like I don't see why school calendars are based on the old farming calendars of the past when today's work places are on a year round schedule - how many of us deal with the endless summer planning agony every year?)

I would like to see the school administration bloat gutted and teachers that are more enabled on a local level. What works for a community in a large city is not going to be the same for a small town in the heartland.

I would support school choice regardless if people want to use it for a religious school or not as long as the school meets the federal standards - even religious people pay taxes, why shouldn't they have an option for vouchers for a religious school if they don't want to have their children in a public school where their beliefs are not supported when they have to pay their taxes for education too? I personally grew up in a non-religious home (with one parent from an Eastern religious background while other grew up in a Christian community - so my exposure to religion is very non-traditional) but just because I don't strongly support any religious school, to me, does not invalidate vouchers for religious schools...

That is what I resent on a personal level - that I have to pay taxes and then be expected to blindly accept the influence of public schools on my children's education with very little say in their education there. I can support some taxes I pay for the general funds to run a school locally (and not the administrative bloat) but allow some of the money to be used to support my children's education as I see fit, with a school whose view points fits mine. I resent that someone in DC tells ME what they want my children to learn and at what pace they should learn it at, and disregard whether that fits in what I want my children to learn or their natural learning curve.

I'm not following the projections on how charter schools might supposedly impact the public schools or special education in remaining public schools.

I am a governing board member for a charter school. I'm not the most versed in education finance because I haven't gone through that training yet, but I can see some flaws in logic as compared to what I know.

A charter school functions within a district. The district provides support services, things like insurance, legal review of contracts, personnel advice, payroll, interpretation of confusing educational laws to ensure compliance, technology support, etc. The district receives payment for these services. In my experience, the district receives X amount of state dollars per in-district student, and the charter school receives a contracted amount of it.

Every student received the same amount of funding, however extra money for Title 1 is received through grants. It's separate from the amount per student the district receives form the state.

Students transfer in and out between charter and public all the time, it's a wash as far as funding.

As far as charter schools growing, virtual charter schools have the capacity. They need a teacher or a learning guide per X number of students. When open enrollment periods end, the school knows how many staff to hire for the coming year.

If there was a mass exodus, in my state, schools would have a major problem the first year because teacher contracts are renewed unless they get written notice - which is due before the open enrollment period ends. If a school had more teachers under contract than they had enrolled students, there would be a big problem. It would be hard for charters to staff to meet the needs of larger enrollment too when teachers are under contract to teach elsewhere (although many virtual charter teachers are also fulltime bricks&mortar teachers)

Well said!

I agree with many of your thoughts, however I am personally a fan of summer break. I highly value having 2 months for child-driven learning, camps, veggie gardening, travel, family time, vacation...

That said, I must reflect once again on what changes DeVos may bring about in the Department of Education...