Race/Class/Gender/etc. Do they still matter?

[sapphi_snake]

mrstickball said:

They are supposed to offer a certain standard. That doesn't quite work out, though. The issue is that teachers are coerced to push through kids that aren't at proper levels of education, as they fear they will get fired, or funding pulled from the school. The idea of a voucher system is that if a school operates at a level that is grossly incompotent, then parents have an incentive to pull their kids out of that school and go elsewhere. If private schools are allowed to accept the kids, then these parents may not have to send their kids to school further than they do.,

Again, the problem is that the government is *supposed* to ensure that all public institutions are great and have a standard, but in general, that standard is circumvented because of fear of layoffs, firings, and other such things.

I don't have a problem paying public money to education. My problem is what I get for it. I have a problem that there are better schools out there in my area, yet I have to pay only for the crappy ones. If I want the good ones, I have to pay twice as much. Is that really fair? I would prefer to pay once, and have the best education possible for my kids.

Well, here in Romania part of the tax money you pay every year is for education. You don't pay directly to the school. It seems quite odd that your tax money goes directly to the school your kids go to.

The proble with your voucher sistem, as I said, is that there are going to be kids forced to go to the crappy schools (because there isn't going to be enough room for all the kids in the better schools). This will lead to the crappy schools becoming even crappier. Also, what will be the schools' selection criteria for students? You may want your kid to go to a better school, but so will everybody esle. Right now the school from you district has to accept your kid. But why should that better school accept your kid and not soem other kid who wants to go there? And why should your kid get a place in that school and not some kid who actually lives in that better school's district?

I don't think this voucher system will change much. It seems like one of those "running away" solutions. I also bet there's gonna be a lot of cases of corruption regarding which kids get accepted to the better schools and which don't. Improving the schools seems like a much better ideea in the long run.

Regarding the teacher situation, a solution would be to evaluate them using different criteria, rather than the performance of their students.