Arizona Families who bail on public school will get $7,000 per kid

[smartdegree]

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/01/schools...ucher-law/

Interesting development.  Many pros and cons.  

Pros: 
1) Lots of middle-class families in the US send their kids to private school.  This will help with private school expenses.  $7K is enough to shave off roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of private school.  

2) Will ease the burden on public school capacity.


Cons:  
1) Potential for abusing the system.  The poorest families might have an incentive not to send their children to school at all (i.e. just call them home-schooled and collect $7K a year).   This might end up with a subgroup of people having no education whatsoever, mimicking sh*th*le countries.  

Any other pros and cons you can think about?

For what it's worth, I tend to be center-leaning when it comes to politics.

[withrown]

Another potential con - excuse to further defund public schools due to lower attendance.

[Vle045]

We have Something similar in Ohio. It’s called EdChoice. Families can get 6,000 for 9-12 and l think it’s 2,000 for k-8. But it’s based on whether your local school is failing. It does not apply to homeschooling at all.

[bjcheung77]

That's a good chunk of change! Depending on the state you reside in, I thought it would be less than that... something like in the hundreds (not yet a grand) for each grade level. This can be an option for the "latter" years to fund an inexpensive Associates or Bachelors for the student...

[dfrecore]

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/01/schools...ucher-law/

Interesting development.  Many pros and cons.  

Pros: 
1) Lots of middle-class families in the US send their kids to private school.  This will help with private school expenses.  $7K is enough to shave off roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of private school.  

2) Will ease the burden on public school capacity.


Cons:  
1) Potential for abusing the system.  The poorest families might have an incentive not to send their children to school at all (i.e. just call them home-schooled and collect $7K a year).   This might end up with a subgroup of people having no education whatsoever, mimicking sh*th*le countries.  

Any other pros and cons you can think about?

For what it's worth, I tend to be center-leaning when it comes to politics.

$7k is enough to pay for MANY private schools.  We looked at private K-8 schools that were all less than $7k in CA a few years ago.  Private high schools were closer to $10-$11k.  It would be nice if you opted to send your kid to a cheaper K-8 school if you could save the money and use it later for a more expensive high school.

It's all about market forces.  Public schools will have to come up with better plans to be able to compete. If this means having far fewer admins and more certified teachers, then that's what will happen.  If it means paying good teachers more or they're able to leave and go private, then that's what will happen.  It will take time.

But I'm also about states being laboratories of democracy.  You will either see AZ come up with solutions that mitigate the problems, or see something horrible happen, or whatever, and then other states can decide to do the same if they want, or try something else, or continue on with the status quo.  People will vote with their feet: if AZ is successful, and people are happy with this, then more people will move there.  If it sucks, people will leave.  No need to do anything else except watch and see.

[LevelUP]

One of the problems with the school system is teacher unions with their expensive pensions taking a large percentage of school funding.

If you have 30 kids, and 1 teacher, in lots of states that is $300,000 per year of funding. (10k per kid) Teachers aren't making nearly that much so where is all this money going?

In New York, for example, they are spending $30,000+ per student so that is $900,000 per year if the class size was 30 students. (a number of students are absent per day, so the real class size is around 26 students)

So I'm in favor of handing out vouchers for around 66% - 75% of what the current state is spending per student. 

We need some efficiency and competition in school.

[freeloader]

I understand the appeal of the market-forces argument for these vouchers/credits/whatever, but I think it’s a really reductionary argument that serves mainly to obscure the actual complexity.

The cheapest kids for a school system are those with no major problems (educational, cognitive, physical, etc) who are operating at or a little above grade level. The father you get from that “median” student, the more expensive, with the important proviso that kids above grade level cost less than those below grade level. Schools typically get more funding for special needs kids, but not enough to pay actual costs. The tax dollars allocated for “median” students effectively help to subsidize the more expensive students’ costs.

The students who will be able to take advantage of these vouchers and credits will be overwhelmingly, if not entirely, median or better students. By removing average and above-average students, the apparent “quality” of the public schools (based on things like test scores and graduation rates) will decline.

I looked at a bunch (9) of private schools (just a quick Google search) in AZ and looked at their tuition. Only one of them, a Catholic school, had tuition of less than $7,000 per year for Kindergarten or higher. In other words, the parents will still have to pay part of the cost of education. The poorest kids, regardless of how smart they are, will be unable to take advantage of these vouchers. Most of the schools that I looked at also required students to be fluent in English. In AZ, that’s no small thing.

Nationwide, private schools enroll disproportionately more white and Asian students and less black and Hispanic students. This AZ program will do nothing to change that. It will be a tool for white parents to take their kids out of more diverse public schools and put them in more affluent, whiter private schools.

Also, there already is a marketplace for K-12 education. If you don’t want you kid to go to public school, PAY for them to go to a private school. Can’t afford it? Work harder.

Philosophically, I also just disagree with these voucher programs. I was taught that the purpose of government was to do for the public those things which they cannot reasonably be expected to do for themselves. The military, police, fire department, aid for the very poor and disabled, etc, all fit into this. The government already guarantees access to an education in a public school. If you don’t like your school, move to a different district or state or pay for private education. If the argument is that people cannot reasonably provide for their kids a PRIVATE school education so they need government help, I will be waiting for my $50,000 check from the government because I want a Porsche 911 but I can’t afford it; I need some welfare, just like those AZ parents will be getting their WELFARE.

[dfrecore]

I understand the appeal of the market-forces argument for these vouchers/credits/whatever, but I think it’s a really reductionary argument that serves mainly to obscure the actual complexity.

The cheapest kids for a school system are those with no major problems (educational, cognitive, physical, etc) who are operating at or a little above grade level. The father you get from that “median” student, the more expensive, with the important proviso that kids above grade level cost less than those below grade level.  Schools typically get more funding for special needs kids, but not enough to pay actual costs.  The tax dollars allocated for “median” students effectively help to subsidize the more expensive students’ costs.

The students who will be able to take advantage of these vouchers and credits will be overwhelmingly, if not entirely, median or better students.  By removing average and above-average students, the apparent “quality” of the public schools (based on things like test scores and graduation rates) will decline.

I looked at a bunch (9) of private schools (just a quick Google search) in AZ and looked at their tuition. Only one of them, a Catholic school, had tuition of less than $7,000 per year for Kindergarten or higher. In other words, the parents will still have to pay part of the cost of education. The poorest kids, regardless of how smart they are, will be unable to take advantage of these vouchers. Most of the schools that I looked at also required students to be fluent in English. In AZ, that’s no small thing.

Nationwide, private schools enroll disproportionately more white and Asian students and less black and Hispanic students. This AZ program will do nothing to change that. It will be a tool for white parents to take their kids out of more diverse public schools and put them in more affluent, whiter private schools.

Also, there already is a marketplace for K-12 education. If you don’t want you kid to go to public school, PAY for them to go to a private school. Can’t afford it?  Work harder.

Philosophically, I also just disagree with these voucher programs. I was taught that the purpose of government was to do for the public those things which they cannot reasonably be expected to do for themselves. The military, police, fire department, aid for the very poor and disabled, etc, all fit into this. The government already guarantees access to an education in a public school. If you don’t like your school, move to a different district or state or pay for private education. If the argument is that people cannot reasonably provide for their kids a PRIVATE school education so they need government help, I will be waiting for my $50,000 check from the government because I want a Porsche 911 but I can’t afford it; I need some welfare, just like those AZ parents will be getting their WELFARE.

I was a parent that did not put my kids in school (I homeschooled them K-8) BECAUSE they were not average students.  If they were, it wouldn't have been an issue.  My daughter had/has dyslexia, and there was just no way the schools in my area could cope with that.  She did not read well until she was about 12.  Fortunately, we were able to work around this with intensive reading/spelling programs for all of K-8, plus doing TONS of oral work instead - if she couldn't read well, it did not put her behind, we just did things a different way. Schools LOVE output - lots of writing, worksheets, proving what you know with paperwork.  Instead, we were able to have discussions, listen to books on tape, etc.  My son was very advanced, and again, the schools were not capable of providing for that.  He was able to work ahead, without being put in classes with students much older than him, which would not have made us happy.

I know LOTS of people who pull their kids out of public school because the school does not serve them.  If you have average to above-average students, school is for them.  It's the kids who are not served by schools because they are "below-average" in some way that this benefits.

Plenty of people don't want to put their kids in private schools.  Lots of people WANT diversity.  Lots of people are perfectly happy with their local schools.  I'm guessing that if the state is currently spending more than $7k per pupil, that giving them $7k to "go away" will leave them with MORE money for the public schools, rather than less.  They're basically buying off everyone who they can, leaving them with more money in their coffers to spend however they'd like.  This may actually mean that they'll have more money for teachers, and better teacher/student ratios; but my guess is that they'll spend more on crap like Chromebooks that they lose track of, clear backpacks, and of course, administrators.  If you look at private schools, the administrator to teacher ratios are MUCH better than public schools.

[davewill]

I have two predictions:

1. In general, private school tuition will rise by about $7K per year.
2. A bunch of fly by night private schools will pop up to soak up the vouchers.

[smartdegree]

2. A bunch of fly by night private schools will pop up to soak up the vouchers.

Yes, we will see the birth of a new species, the K-12 diploma mills.  They will award middle school and high school diplomas based on "life experience" or with 100% asynchronous youtube videos.  Truly the school of hard knocks.  

They might even include a $5K "rebate" off the $7K tuition to boost enrolment. Hmmm... I think I've found a surefire business idea $$$$$$ LOL....