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Re: [Phys-L] Private schools



Imagine you applied the same logic to restaurants. You would end up with a pre 1989 Eastern-Europe type of establishments where there was essentially no difference between government restaurants and "private" restaurants. Except for those that operated under black market rules.

First, let's remember that current voucher discussions in this country peg vouchers at 20-50% of the public school per-student cost. In places like Sweden or Belgium they are equal to a full per-student cost. Only then you can argue that they must be acceptable as payment in full.

Second, if they *must* take students on first come first serve basis, it defeats any idea of specialized schools. Why not declare the few things that are not permitted (if any!) and let schools define themselves as they want? Why force dance schools to accept people without any selection? Or technology schools? As long as the vouchers are on the order of public school cost, private schools will fight to get as many reasonably qualified students as they can.

Third, why should the abide by all school regs? We already have such schools -- the public ones. The whole idea is to relieve them of such regulations. Except narrowly defined restrictions, similar to those applicable to housing rental in the private market, I see no reason to do more.

But what about the special ed kids or the ELL kids, one might ask. Well, those should get a higher value vouchers based on the
"problem" -- essentially like today's discussion about "weighted funding." There will be plenty of interest to provide these services at a fair price, and still probably cheaper than today's public cost. Further, public schools should be full participants in the new game of attracting students. Berkeley, after all, is not less significantly attractive than Stanford.

I repeat -- look at Sweden. Belgium. Holland. Denmark. Why do we insist on imitating only the German model?

On 7/10/2012 4:23 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
This is pretty close to what those (of us) who favor vouchers think that it should work.

The only thing I might have a minor quibble about is the "first come - first served" idea. That is too easy to manipulate by letting certain people get information before hand and fill up the spots before the general public is informed. I have seen this with our neighborhood schools. You arrive at the registration area at the published time only to find that registration was opened an hour earlier "to make it easier for people to get to work" - and of course only a select few knew that would happen. I would favor a lottery instead.

Bob at PC

________________________________________
From: phys-l-bounces@mail.phys-l.org [phys-l-bounces@mail.phys-l.org] on behalf of John Mallinckrodt [ajm@csupomona.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 4:26 PM
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] Private schools

I have long toyed with a voucher system that works SOMETHING like this:

Give EVERY parent a voucher worth what we decide as a people we are willing to pay for one year of education at each level. Those vouchers could be accepted ONLY by schools that agree to live by a number of rules including

1) The voucher must be accepted as payment in full.

2) The school must take students on a first come, first served basis and the school must accept a set of strict rules governing expulsion.

3) The school must comply with all federal and state guidelines applicable to public schools (e.g., regarding handicapped students, Title IX, testing, etc.)

In this model, there would be no real distinction between "public" and "voucher-accepting private" schools. All such schools would be in competition, but the intent is to insure that that competition would be carried out on a level playing field.

There are clearly flaws in this model and I would be interested in hearing criticisms and/or suggestions for improvement. (I'm equally sure that there will be criticism based on the whole idea of creating a level playing field, but I'm unlikely to be moved by them!)

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona

On Jul 10, 2012, at 1:02 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

Why would you not extend it to "anyone"? The idea of a voucher system is that every stakeholder has the ability to vote with their feet. I would assume that every school (public, private, charter, magnet, etc.) would have certain minimum state mandated standards relating to content, number of meeting days, number of contact hours, etc. - but after that I would hope that it is up to the parents to determine where their child is to attempt to attend. ...
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