Big Issues

[ACPlayer]

Here is the fundamental problem with the school vouchers.

It does not help most people.

A private school in NY costs upwards of 20K a year. A few thousand dollars in school vouchers is unlikely to swing the ability of average parents to send their kids to these schools. The rich parents would get a rebate they dont really need at the expense of the public schools.

There are of course constritutional issues if tax payer money is going to non-profit churches that are running schools.

I think that the system of local govts running local schools from local tax dollars is in general a good idea.

This assumes of course if you believe that every child should have access to education -- as I do.

[lehighguy]

I've seen lots of successful school that provide educational benefits for much less then 20k. My own school and many others I know of are good examples. We did better with far less then our local towns were given.

Also, with the administrative costs of places like the BOE removed you could provide much higher amount in voucher money to kids then they recieve when they go to public school.

Lastly, in this system everyone would get an equal scholarship rather then children from wealthy school districts having an unfair advantage.

School vouchers would help poor children in bad schools the most. Hence why DC area schools were the first to institute them (opposed by Dems of course they wanna keep the poor black people in DC stuck in their crappy schools so they can clean thier houses and do their laundry).

[Jakesta]

[ QUOTE ]
Phys-ed should be completly eliminated

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Stupid idea. Phys-ed is a very valuable part of the curriculum. Have you seen how many fat kids there are these days? God, they are like soooooooooo fat. It's going to cost us lots of money in the future if we don't take care of the problem now.

Every kid should have to do 1 hour of Phys-ed, every day, in their public school. This is far more important than a class like Health, or a double lunch period.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you seen how many fat kids there are these days? God, they are like soooooooooo fat.

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ummm... i suppose if it weren't for gym class, all the others would be fat too... next time, think before you call someone else's idea stupid. geez. (look at the RoI on phys-ed, and you'll understand my point)

[fluxrad]

We don't need physical education in school. We need physical activity in school.

I don't care how you get that done.

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is the fundamental problem with the school vouchers.

It does not help most people.

A private school in NY costs upwards of 20K a year.

[/ QUOTE ]

Vouchers would do far more than simply provide a subsidy to rich folks who send their kids to private school.

It would create a system where *public* schools had to become competetive in order to get those vouchers. And it would also create new private schools that competed for those vouchers too without charging a penny more. There might even arise private schools that offered such a good deal they would give a rebate to parents while still giving their kids a solid education. (This goes without saying since many private schools currently operate for less $ per child than public schools.)

Current public schools are beholden to administrators and the teacher's union and the school board. These entities have lots of very important agendas, none of which include actually educating children.

With vouchers, these schools would overnight become beholden to *parents* and no one else.

School vouchers might possibly be the best single policy we could implement to help this nations' poor underclass (other than eliminating all public spending on health care [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).


natedogg

[lehighguy]

Also, since I just read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/op...7tierney.html?

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
We don't need physical education in school. We need physical activity in school.

I don't care how you get that done.

[/ QUOTE ]

good point. PE is the biggest waste of money in our public schools these days (well, maybe not THE biggest, but it's a big one.) and 90% of the time in a PE class, the students are sitting on their asses, learing sports that require little expertion, or walking slowly around the track, happy to get a D. it's a joke, and one that's too expensive to continue. perhaps we could have high school PE classes that are more like college sports classes- you take volleyball, for example, and really learn to PLAY it.

[lehighguy]

What was the point of PE anyway. Kids would get a lot more out of having extra recess. At least then they'd play sports. If anything PE should be like a sports program that taught kids how to play lots of different sports.

[Jakesta]

That's a good idea. My point wasn't that they need PE, but just that they need to be exerting themselves for an hour a day during school- Volleyball, basketball, soccer, whatever. Just something instead of sitting on their ass and drinking Cokes that they bought from the machine down the hall because the school district signed a deal with the company.