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

[sapphi_snake]

mrstickball said:

The thing is, with the voucher system at least some kids get a better education in the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is that due to no districts, there may be as many schools as needed to support children in a given area. You assume there can only be 1 good and 1 bad school in an area. This would not need to be the case. The crappy school would have to get better, as if it failed to do well, other schools could be created that would outperform this bad school. Again, it destroys the need of districts and instead focuses on how schools can specialize and improve, rather than merely stagnate or devolve due to their monopoly on education.

A voucher system would change a lot, despite your argument. With a virtual monopoly on students, public schools have very little incentive to be good, and make changes as needed to ensure kids get a good education. If that monopoly was taken away, they would have to either get better, or close up shop. You attacked the voucher system without providing any tangible arguments on how to fix our horrible education system.

As for teacher evaluations - unfortunately, the NEA is opposed to the idea of paying teachers via their worth, or fire them in most cases. That is one major hinderance to our education system: The NEA always believes that, no matter what, more money will fix education problems.

I still don't see how things would improve? People will send their kids to the other side of town to the "good schools". You still haven't answered exactly how the admission process would be? Schools cannot accept an infinite number of children. What will be the criteria of admission? These vouchers will lead to corruption where the "good schools" will accept students based on bribes. And not all parents can afford to send their kids on a school on the other side of town. And the kids of the parents who don't bribe will be stuck in the "poorer schools", schools who will still have no reason to get better, because they'll still be getting students (the kids that can't get into the good schools will have to go there). The biggest losers will still be the kids.

You're saying The crappy school would have to get better, as if it failed to do well, other schools could be created that would outperform this bad school. Who will create these schools? Will they just magically pop up? Wouldn't the money spent building a new school be better used to fix the existent one? And if this is so easy, why aren't crappy schools just closed now, and better schools being built in their place?

Fixing teh schools and making sure they're offering quality services is the best course of action. I may not give any specific arguments on how to fix your educationalk system, but I have provided arguments for why this voucher system is a terrible terrible solution, that won't really fix anything.