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Comments on some specific points raised recently.
1. "A disproportionate percentage of private schools are elementary grades
only (which is relatively cheap)"
This is a red herring. When I quoted the average cost per student I used
the combined (k-12) school value ($9.2K), and not the average in private
industry, to avoid exactly this point. Still slightly cheaper than public
($10.3K), but the key point is they are in the same ballpark.
2. "Many (most?) private schools have at least some support from religious
organizations"
True for some (although less than one would think in recent years) but the
same can be said of public schools that receive a lot of cash and in-kind
support through PTA, community organizations, and parental volunteering.
3. "Public schools still have to transport private school students, adding
to costs."
NCES reports transportation costs at less than 4% of current expenditures.
Minor and trivial. Easy to add transportation costs to rural and
means-tested student vouchers.
4. "Assuming we settled at 50%, very few 'poor' parents will find that
sufficient to fund education for their kids."
Clearly. That's why 100% should be the equitable goal. Publicly funded
education should not be about subsidizing public education system or about
penalizing private one, but about spending equitably on similar children.
At the neighborhood of 100%, vouchers will easily cover the costs. And
Exeters tend to have endowments and grants, similar to Stanfords and
Harvards.
5. "ANY universal voucher plan negatively impacts funding of public
schools."
If your concern is the public school *system* that is, indeed, true. If
your concern is educating children, why is this relevant? Per students
funding can be easily maintained under variety of voucher plans.
6. "The 'cost per student' figure is pretty much useless in the context in
which it is being used. It doesn't cost ANYTHING to add a kid to a class
of 20 (well, maybe the cost of a book), and you don't SAVE anything by
removing 2 kids from a class of 24. For this reason, ANY voucher program
results in a net loss of funding at least 95% of the time."
I wonder how would most of you tolerate similar arguments from a student
in your Physics class. We all understand fringe effects but we also
presumably understand that fringe effects work both ways and are
statistically neutral or almost so. How far would it get your student to
argue the case of increase but ignore the case of decrease? What happens
when you remove 4-5 kids from a cohort of 28-30? Don't you suddenly gain a
whole class because you dropped just 4-5 students?