100 Million for Religious Schools

[JoeyKnothead]

Caviar - the article doesn't say exactly how much of this 100 M goes to purely religious schools, but judging by the uproar, it may be quite high.

From the article here.

In a 225 to 195 vote, the House approved H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act. This legislation reauthorizes and expands the Washington, D.C. Federal private school voucher pilot program, under which millions of Federal taxpayer dollars — $100M per year over the next five years — are funneled into a voucher system which favors private religious schools over public and charter schools.

...religious schools, which, under this program, are allowed to discriminate in hiring and enrollment on the basis of religion.

...many schools that accepted voucher students did not meet accreditation and other quality education standards, and student achievement did not show statistically significant improvement.

For debate:

Is this a violation of church / state separation?

Could this money be better spent in improving the schools this program is designed to replace?

In a time when so many politicians, including the Speaker of the House, declare we must tighten the budget, is this a wise expenditure?

Is this just pandering to religious voters?

[East of Eden]

Care to show some of these studies you refer to?

In regard to my point that school choice even improves public schools, this is from Wikipedia:

Proponents argue that competition would increase the quality of both private and public education as it has for higher education with publicly funded state universities directly competing against private universities.[7] This is further supported by studies such as the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research "When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement" (2003) which concluded that schools facing a greater degree of threat from voucher competition made significantly better improvements than similar schools facing a lesser degree of threat from vouchers. Also, Stanford's C.M. Hoxby who has researched the systemic effects of school choice determined that areas with greater residential school choice have consistently higher test scores at a lower per-pupil cost than areas with very few school districts (see Hoxby, 1998). Hoxby found that the effects of vouchers in Milwaukee and of charter schools in Arizona and Michigan on nearby public schools forced to compete made greater test score gains than schools not faced with such competition (see Hoxby, 2001), and that the so-called effect of cream skimming did not exist in any of the voucher districts examined. Hoxby's research has found that both private and public schools improved through the use of vouchers.[8][9][10][11] Also, similar competition has helped in manufacturing, energy, transportation, and parcel postal (UPS, FedEx vs. USPS) sectors of government that have been socialized and later opened up to free market competition.[12][13]

[Wyvern]

Care to show some of these studies you refer to?

In regard to my point that school choice even improves public schools, this is from Wikipedia:

Proponents argue that competition would increase the quality of both private and public education as it has for higher education with publicly funded state universities directly competing against private universities.[7] This is further supported by studies such as the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research "When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement" (2003) which concluded that schools facing a greater degree of threat from voucher competition made significantly better improvements than similar schools facing a lesser degree of threat from vouchers. Also, Stanford's C.M. Hoxby who has researched the systemic effects of school choice determined that areas with greater residential school choice have consistently higher test scores at a lower per-pupil cost than areas with very few school districts (see Hoxby, 1998). Hoxby found that the effects of vouchers in Milwaukee and of charter schools in Arizona and Michigan on nearby public schools forced to compete made greater test score gains than schools not faced with such competition (see Hoxby, 2001), and that the so-called effect of cream skimming did not exist in any of the voucher districts examined. Hoxby's research has found that both private and public schools improved through the use of vouchers.[8][9][10][11] Also, similar competition has helped in manufacturing, energy, transportation, and parcel postal (UPS, FedEx vs. USPS) sectors of government that have been socialized and later opened up to free market competition.[12][13]

First off charter schools are public schools. Do you have any evidence that the quality of higher education has increased or does this snippet ignore that private universities have been in the US longer than public universities. From all appearances graduation rates have not significantly increased nor have the costs decreased as you say competition will always foster. Hoxby is correct greater choices foster better performance which is one of the reasons here in MN where there is a great number of educational choices both public and private consistantly score in the top five test scores while at the same time costing only a bit over half of what you pay to educate your children in NM. According to your study here it is not vouchers which increase schools performance it is competition. I would also say the study as it stands is very limited in which it only guages immediate changes and makes no mention of performance over time. As far as the mention of competition in governmental controlled manufacturing, energy, transportation and post all of those sectors have been dominated by private concerns for as long as they have existed. Can you name even one government owned manufacturer? Other than Amtrak and local transit can you name any public transportation. I thought competition was supposed to lower costs and yet the USPS seems incapable of turning a profit even though it continues to increase the price of a stamp.

[East of Eden]

I guess you missed the part that said he was not charged or convicted.

They why did Ayers say he was 'free as a bird and guilty as hell'?

[micatala]

I guess you missed the part that said he was not charged or convicted.

They why did Ayers say he was 'free as a bird and guilty as hell'?

Moderator Comment


I have not gone back to see where this first came up in the thread, but this issue is clearly off-topic.

Please review the Rules.


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