Educational Vouchers

[BigBallinStalin]

(gleaned from marginalrevolution.com)

Abstract:

In the first study using a randomized experiment to measure the impact of school vouchers on college enrollment, we examine the college-going behavior through 2011 of students who participated in a voucher experiment as elementary school students in the late 1990s. We find no overall impacts on college enrollments but we do find large, statistically significant positive impacts on the college going of African American students who participated in the study. Our estimates indicate that using a voucher to attend private school increased the overall college enrollment rate among African Americans by 24 percent.

PDF

[BigBallinStalin]

Mostly Anti-Voucher:

Vouchers is not a savior for public schools in any way shape or form OR a saviour for any but the same kids who already get all the advantages. That is the real reason many want the public school system to fail. To better ensure that their kids will get the leg up. It has nothing to do with providing a quality educatio for anyone else.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85681&p=1998825&hilit=vouchers#p1998825

I still hold that most of Obama's supporters (not just the "elite" liberals that exist to be the right's boogeypeople) are against vouchers, in that they take away funds that would be spent on public education, hopefully making these schools better. I'm not sure if I'm in step with that (prep school kid here, though I hated it) but I am rather certain it is the will of the people who voted for Obama. And while that should not be the onus for all public policy

Vouchers would make the schools better than what they are now cause they would put competition in to the market and competition creates the need for your product to be better than your competitors. Bases on this with vouchers more schools will form and publics schools will have to step it up to keep up with the better levels of education.

Also better levels of education will keep us up with education in the rest of the modern world.

I bet only around 25-50% of Baraks voters even know about the idea for vouchers and those that do only know a very small portion about them which will tend to be bad. Thats what happens when you get told by other people. They leave out parts of the story and just tell you the worse to make it seem more interesting. (everyone does this not just liberals, not trying to attack anyone here)

Actually vouchers corrupt the market.
When you have underachieving participants only gaining access to these elite schools because of legislation, then the curriculum has to adjust (read lower) itself to those youths.
It doesn't happen immediately, but it does happen.
Schools work through merit, and sufficient consequences for failure. Schools don't work on coddling, improper achievement and acquiescence.
It was a d bag program, and it's probably the only thing Obama has done right.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85681&hilit=vouchers&start=15#p1993665

The vouchers would cause schools to be better so that kids would take their money to the best school they could get into. It would cause teachers to be better because they would have to compete with the private schools. In the long run this is better for everyone. European countries, alot of them, have charter schools and better educated kids than America.

It would also create more private schools that are not all Christian cause there is a new market for them by allowing kids more choices so producing more demand.

Doesnt matter if it only works for a few kids cause were still saving money.

We could lower taxes if we did this.

Nice dream. What really happens is that a few more kids would get into the better private schools, particularly in big urban areas. The few kids left in the public schools would be those not lucky enough to get into a private school. Some just plain unlucky, some with issues that need attention -- maybe they aren't the absolute best students (not necessarily dumb, but needing help with disabilities, etc.), maybe they have behavior issues. A lot of the same problems public schools have to deal with. Drugs in families, poor nutrition, etc. Except, now its JUSt those kids.

meanwhile the public school system dies. It has no funding now, so is even worse. Private schools, not having the competition of a public education step out into extremes. In some cases, just plain, good education. A lot, however will turn religious (look elsewhere to see). Donors like to pour money into teaching kids their values. Always have, just there were limits. Now, though, parents will accept this because the alternative is a truly horrible public school system.

Instead of a unifying education, the country will be even more divided. Not just between the "haves" and "have nots", but also religions, political affiliation. Those in small areas, without the funds to support more than one school will have even less choice. Instead of voting for school boards, etc, its now a profit enterprise or, a religious school (or both). Parents might be able to "walk with their feet" IF they have the ability to transport their kids, IF they can get their kid in (now competing with EVERYONE else), etc.

Furthermore.. how long do you really think those vouchers will last? It is, after all, supporting a bunch of wholly private companies. Sounds a lot like conflict of interest...

ETC.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85484&p=1993572&hilit=vouchers#p1993572

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7FS5B-CynM good topic to go here about Obama. School vouchers are a Republican thing and Obamam is opposing that even though it helps kids get a better education, its cheaper, and he kept his own kids out of the public schools. And he completely went against campaign promises... If this were a republican the press would be all over his ass.

Sorry, but school vouchers are not a solution to poor public schools. They only work for the few kids lucky enough to get into a private school, IF there even are any private schools nearby. And they tend to take out a few better kids and leave the rest to flounder.

Republicans support it because it is a Christian Right desire, so they don't have to subject their kids to things like Evolution.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85484&p=1993384&hilit=vouchers#p1993384

Unfortunately, many of the so-called "fixes" like vouchers won't work because all they do is draw off some of the better or just plain luckier students and take money from the schools.
....

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=60834&p=1541079&hilit=vouchers#p1541079


Voucher Skeptics:

A voucher system of school choice is good public and educational policy for several reasons.

I'm not really on the voucher program bandwagon at this point. I DO see some plusses to it, but there are a lot of negatives, as well (not the least of which is that I believe most of the support for it comes from religious folks who want help in supporting their schools). I don't believe that is your personal motive, recognizing that you are a deeply religious individual, but it seems to be a theme.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=174133&hilit=vouchers#p3805333

Next he'll be conceding points that are superfluous to the discussion. Sucker doesn't know that that's just proof you're wrong about everything.

that's actually a pro debate strategy. it makes you look reasonable and open-minded without detracting from your main argument.

Damn right...

Also as far as vouchers go; arent they just a messier form of state funded education?

Im torn on the issue since I do like incentivising higher quality education; but how much does this really work? And how different is it from simply increasing funding for public schools?

The above are genuine questions; my gut instinct tells me this is just publicly funded education (which im a HUGE fan of) dressed up differently - how much "choice" or "freedom" will this really bring? I pick bugger all; the only certainty I can see is that the advertising agencies will be rubbing their hands together in glee at the prospect of all the schools wasting thousands on local advertising... Roll caps, standardised curriculums, and the huge standard deviation on individual pupil performance will all blur the incentives such that the gains are likely to be outweighed by the inefficiencies (cf. generic public funding).

I am kind of sitting on the fence thou, so someone other than Scotty stands a chance of convincing me

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=174133&p=3808395&hilit=vouchers#p3808132


Now what's your position?

I may not have stuck all the way through the first time, caught the ending the second time. My bad.

And although I may have apparently unjustly accused somebody of making assumptions based on race, I still hold that most of Obama's supporters (not just the "elite" liberals that exist to be the right's boogeypeople) are against vouchers, in that they take away funds that would be spent on public education, hopefully making these schools better. I'm not sure if I'm in step with that (prep school kid here, though I hated it) but I am rather certain it is the will of the people who voted for Obama. And while that should not be the onus for all public policy (apparently, if all policy were derived from polls, Israel would be at war with Iran right now. Thank G_d somebody's got some sense)
a) It's hard to describe doing what the majority of people who elected you probably want you to do as "spitting on them
b) The mothers in the video are criticizing policies that they dislike. That's democracy. They might be wrong, they might be right, I may agree with them and still support Barack.
c) Sorry I thought that you assumed that all black people are Democrats.

Seems to be skeptical enough about vouchers, so spurgistan goes in this category.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85681&hilit=vouchers#p1993436


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________





Pro-voucher:

A voucher system of school choice is good public and educational policy for several reasons.

First and I think most importantly, it reduces the economic inequity, where rich people can afford to send their kids to a private school, while the poor have no choice. Obviously, vouchers will not eliminate all of the results of prejudice and economic disadvantage, but it cannot help but mitigate against them.

Second, everybody complains that the public schools are overcrowded. Enabling more students to go to other schools will reduce the crowding.

I think I'll stop there for now. These are the most obvious arguments that come to mind, and I'm too tired to formulate more at the moment. Besides, I'll probably get enough stimulating debate (along with all the invective and name-calling) on this much.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=174133&hilit=vouchers#p3805043

I may not have stuck all the way through the first time, caught the ending the second time. My bad.

And although I may have apparently unjustly accused somebody of making assumptions based on race, I still hold that most of Obama's supporters (not just the "elite" liberals that exist to be the right's boogeypeople) are against vouchers, in that they take away funds that would be spent on public education, hopefully making these schools better. I'm not sure if I'm in step with that (prep school kid here, though I hated it) but I am rather certain it is the will of the people who voted for Obama. And while that should not be the onus for all public policy (apparently, if all policy were derived from polls, Israel would be at war with Iran right now. Thank G_d somebody's got some sense)
a) It's hard to describe doing what the majority of people who elected you probably want you to do as "spitting on them
b) The mothers in the video are criticizing policies that they dislike. That's democracy. They might be wrong, they might be right, I may agree with them and still support Barack.
c) Sorry I thought that you assumed that all black people are Democrats.

A. The term is Shitting on them, and that is what he has been doing since day one. Everything he has done is a lie. The war in Iraq, he lied about that. Jacking up taxes, he lied about that too... Lets not forget the notion that there would be no pork in his bills, and no lobbyist in his cabinet. Yep, another lie. One after another, lie after lie. Now, his promise to use what works over what doesn't in regards to education, yes, one more lie. Make no mistake, he, along with his socialist agenda do not want an intellegent and free thinking society, they want dumbed down drones that go along with what ever they say... You know, like "Vouchers are bad!" Give the parents a voucher to get their kids into the schools that THEY want their kids to go to and you will see diversity, intellect and prosperity flourish, I promise you.
...

Freedom isn't as easy to attain as a box of government cheese, but it sure is more satisfying.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85681&p=1993723&hilit=vouchers#p1993594

I still hold that most of Obama's supporters (not just the "elite" liberals that exist to be the right's boogeypeople) are against vouchers, in that they take away funds that would be spent on public education, hopefully making these schools better. I'm not sure if I'm in step with that (prep school kid here, though I hated it) but I am rather certain it is the will of the people who voted for Obama. And while that should not be the onus for all public policy

Vouchers would make the schools better than what they are now cause they would put competition in to the market and competition creates the need for your product to be better than your competitors. Bases on this with vouchers more schools will form and publics schools will have to step it up to keep up with the better levels of education.

Also better levels of education will keep us up with education in the rest of the modern world.

I bet only around 25-50% of Baraks voters even know about the idea for vouchers and those that do only know a very small portion about them which will tend to be bad. Thats what happens when you get told by other people. They leave out parts of the story and just tell you the worse to make it seem more interesting. (everyone does this not just liberals, not trying to attack anyone here)

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=85681&hilit=vouchers#p1993455

[rdsrds2120]

How does a voucher program even work? I don't feel informed enough to comment until then.

-rd

[BigBallinStalin]

Well, rds, I'm glad you asked.


In a study conducted by Matthew Chingos (Brown) and Paul Peterson (Harvard), they examined the voucher program in elementary schools for students in the 1990s and compared that the outcomes of 2012 (college enrollment).

The voucher enabled the student to enroll in a private school through means of a lottery but only after passing through their filtering mechanism (tests, eligibility, etc.).

People got angry about the voucher program (something about vouchers violating 1st Amendment's establishment cause). Then, the private philanthropists (you know, those cold-blooded, evil capitalist pigs!) created SCSF and said, "f*ck it, we'll cover a portion of the costs for the select few to go, and then we'll see how it works."

(pages i to iii)

show

What's interesting that this voucher program was extremely cheap yet yielded large results. (Spend about $1700, and you double the enrollment rate of African Americans from poor communities--from about 3.5% to about 7%). (p. 20)

Then they caution:

Although "New York City public schools spent more than $5,000 per student, as compared to $2,400 at Catholic schools (Howell and Peterson 2006, 92)," ..
and..
although "The voucher offer also has a much larger impact than does exposure to a more effective teacher," ....

can this voucher program be scaled up?

In other words:

show

[jimboston]

1) College Vouchers are different than Private School Vouchers

2) Your study is contradicting itself...

Point A) "We find no overall impacts on college enrollments."
Point B) "we do find large, statistically significant positive impacts on the college going of African American students"

So either the population studied is very small, which would make the results meaningless.... OR there must have been a corresponding DECREASE in college enrollments of non-black students... OR they are lying.

[BigBallinStalin]

A few questions for you, jimbo:

Did you read the PDF?

Did you at least the executive summary?

Do you know what the difference is between "overall impacts" and "categorical impacts"?

What kind of voucher did the SCSF facilitate?

[jimboston]

A few questions for you, jimbo:

Did you read the PDF?

NO

Did you at least the executive summary?

NO

I assumed your OP was a sufficient summary. If the quotes are accurate it's enough for me to pass judgement.
I'm the fucking PRESIDENT OF JIMWORLD... I don't have time to get into the details. Give me the meat!

Do you know what the difference is between "overall impacts" and "categorical impacts"?

Yes

I know enough to know that you can't have a categorical impact without it affecting the whole. You could have an overall impact... with some subcategories experiencing no change... but it can't be the other way around.


What kind of voucher did the SCSF facilitate?

College

[BigBallinStalin]

Spend 5 to 10 minutes explaining to jim what he got wrong, thus depriving him of the opportunity to educate himself, or...

tell jim to read the executive summary.














































Hey, Jim. Read the executive summary.

[patches70]

Maybe you should summarize better so that people don't have to do a bunch of pesky reading and investigating on their own. Tell people what they should think damn you!

[rdsrds2120]

Maybe you should summarize better so that people don't have to do a bunch of pesky reading and investigating on their own. Tell people what they should think damn you!

[PLAYER57832]

(gleaned from marginalrevolution.com)

Abstract:

In the first study using a randomized experiment to measure the impact of school vouchers on college enrollment, we examine the college-going behavior through 2011 of students who participated in a voucher experiment as elementary school students in the late 1990s. We find no overall impacts on college enrollments but we do find large, statistically significant positive impacts on the college going of African American students who participated in the study. Our estimates indicate that using a voucher to attend private school increased the overall college enrollment rate among African Americans by 24 percent.

The voucher systems described are NOT equivalent to the ones proposed.

This is not much different than simply saying that private schools send more kids to college than public schools. They do. They also get to pick their kids, attract higher-income and more educated families.

AND... vouchers pull money from the public schools.

[BigBallinStalin]

Maybe you should summarize better so that people don't have to do a bunch of pesky reading and investigating on their own. Tell people what they should think damn you!

I know you're being sarcastic, but I probably should follow that advice. People can be way to easy to manipulate. It's almost as if they want to be because they're so damn lazy.

[BigBallinStalin]

(gleaned from marginalrevolution.com)

Abstract:

In the first study using a randomized experiment to measure the impact of school vouchers on college enrollment, we examine the college-going behavior through 2011 of students who participated in a voucher experiment as elementary school students in the late 1990s. We find no overall impacts on college enrollments but we do find large, statistically significant positive impacts on the college going of African American students who participated in the study. Our estimates indicate that using a voucher to attend private school increased the overall college enrollment rate among African Americans by 24 percent.

The voucher systems described are NOT equivalent to the ones proposed.

This is not much different than simply saying that private schools send more kids to college than public schools. They do. They also get to pick their kids, attract higher-income and more educated families.

AND... vouchers pull money from the public schools.

I have no idea which proposed vouchers you're referring to, but you're free to be as vague as you like.

The SCSF isn't a private school. You've really got your criticism muddled here.

I don't think you know the difference between a zero-sum exchange and a mutually beneficial exchange, nor do you understand taxes and public spending on education.

[Baron Von PWN]

Interesting topic. Makes me wonder what the education system might look like if all parents simply received education vouchers, and then could send their children to whatever school they thought worked best for them. There could still be national standards that schools had to follow, maybe government auditors for the school programs. Something along the lines of you have to teach these things to be eligible for the vouchers.

[BigBallinStalin]

Interesting topic. Makes me wonder what the education system might look like if all parents simply received education vouchers, and then could send their children to whatever school they thought worked best for them. There could still be national standards that schools had to follow, maybe government auditors for the school programs. Something along the lines of you have to teach these things to be eligible for the vouchers.

In NYC, the SCSF ran a filter on all applicants to test for eligibility. The SCSF would then front roughly 2/3 of the tuition to private schools for those who passed.

From what I recall, it wasn't clear how much discretion the eligible applicants and the SCSF exercised in regard to the choice of which school to attend. I'm assuming the SCSF filtered a list of eligible private schools, and then offered this list to the eligible applicants, who then chose. If that's true, then what's interesting is that the SCSF acts as a competitive gateway between the producers (schools) and consumers (students). If certain producers don't meet SCSF standards, then they incur the loss of being ineligible to receive the voucher students.

A more interesting program would be having more SCSF-type organizations competing and/or cooperating with each other and--if public schools meet their various criteria--, then public schools would have to compete for better students. Of course, public schools have odd incentives, in that their revenue is determined not by profit-and-loss incentives in the market, but from bureaucratic/political incentives.

Therefore, the issue of scaling up the SCSF voucher would be manifold. One the one hand, you'd have consumers in the market of vouchers pursuing these subsidies/scholarships, while producers (public and private schools) would be competing to meet the standards of the voucher-gateways (SCSF-types). On the other hand, you'd have traditional holders of power (politicians/bureaucrats) who may be unwilling to relinquish such a significant chunk of their control over the flow of direct funds to select schools. They'd probably resist this transferal of power from themselves to a more competitive environment. It's also possible that they'd sabotage the voucher program in order to justify a regression back to their traditional role of power (e.g. stricter, arbitrary regulation over the voucher programs in order to cripple their effectiveness, or dump more funds into public schools to grant them an unfair advantage, etc.).

Of course, the above public choice concerns do not apply if the politicians and bureaucrats are all-benevolent, altruistic central planners who truly know what is best for the Common Good and who are not at all selfish. In other words, they're not self-interested, or if they are, then they're something like 90% altruistic and 10% selfish.

[jimboston]

OK... you're RIGHT BBS... I should have at least read the ES.

I have done that now.

I understand the comment about college vouchers was completely misguided... my bad.

I still don't see how they can state there was no "significant overall impact"... but there "was a statistically significant impact" to African American students. This statement fails the logic test... UNLESS 1) African American students were underrepresented... or were only a small fraction of those tracked... OR 2) there was some corresponding DECREASE in college enrollment of non-AA students.

I admit NOT reading the whole study... so perhaps my question / concern is answered therein. (Is it?)

It would also be interesting to see how they solicited (advertised) for this program... and how they selected participants. Also... I assume the Private Schools had there own enrollment process which may have affected who participated.

I am generally PRO VOUCHER... my own kids attend a Charter Public School (which is taxpayer funded... but NOT run by a typical city/town or school district). I do have some concerns about a Blanket type voucher program.

My questions about the study come from comments I hear from anti-voucher people... and I would want to know that that study addressed these. Anti-voucher people will say that...
1) Parents who got their kids involved in this study are clearly MORE ENGAGED than your typical public-school going parent. So the program essentially just grabbed the "cream"... which makes it even harder to teach the rest of the kids.
2) That by participating in the program... the parents were "forced" to be more engaged than they otherwise might have been.... and this sku'd the results.

I don't "buy" these are reasons for NOT having vouchers. Parents and kids who WANT an education and are willing to be more engaged should have the opportunity to get that education. The public schools often make that difficult.

I also like the point about the cost of the Private School tuition being LOWER than the cost of sending the kid to public school.

I have FIRST HAND / PERSONAL knowledge of the waste in large public school systems... so this is NO SURPRISE to me.

Thank you for "forcing" me to educate myself on this study further. If you know the answers to my concerns please advise.... if it's too lengthy an answer (but you know it's contained in the study).. let me know and maybe I will read the whole thing.

Thanks

[Baron Von PWN]

Interesting topic. Makes me wonder what the education system might look like if all parents simply received education vouchers, and then could send their children to whatever school they thought worked best for them. There could still be national standards that schools had to follow, maybe government auditors for the school programs. Something along the lines of you have to teach these things to be eligible for the vouchers.

In NYC, the SCSF ran a filter on all applicants to test for eligibility. The SCSF would then front roughly 2/3 of the tuition to private schools for those who passed.

From what I recall, it wasn't clear how much discretion the eligible applicants and the SCSF exercised in regard to the choice of which school to attend. I'm assuming the SCSF filtered a list of eligible private schools, and then offered this list to the eligible applicants, who then chose. If that's true, then what's interesting is that the SCSF acts as a competitive gateway between the producers (schools) and consumers (students). If certain producers don't meet SCSF standards, then they incur the loss of being ineligible to receive the voucher students.

A more interesting program would be having more SCSF-type organizations competing and/or cooperating with each other and--if public schools meet their various criteria--, then public schools would have to compete for better students. Of course, public schools have odd incentives, in that their revenue is determined not by profit-and-loss incentives in the market, but from bureaucratic/political incentives.

Therefore, the issue of scaling up the SCSF voucher would be manifold. One the one hand, you'd have consumers in the market of vouchers pursuing these subsidies/scholarships, while producers (public and private schools) would be competing to meet the standards of the voucher-gateways (SCSF-types). On the other hand, you'd have traditional holders of power (politicians/bureaucrats) who may be unwilling to relinquish such a significant chunk of their control over the flow of direct funds to select schools. They'd probably resist this transferal of power from themselves to a more competitive environment. It's also possible that they'd sabotage the voucher program in order to justify a regression back to their traditional role of power (e.g. stricter, arbitrary regulation over the voucher programs in order to cripple their effectiveness, or dump more funds into public schools to grant them an unfair advantage, etc.).

Of course, the above public choice concerns do not apply if the politicians and bureaucrats are all-benevolent, altruistic central planners who truly know what is best for the Common Good and who are not at all selfish. In other words, they're not self-interested, or if they are, then they're something like 90% altruistic and 10% selfish.

I was more thinking a fantasy situation where there are no public schools only private schools funded through both vouchers and private funds. the state gives everyone vouchers worth a certain amount. These would be sufficient to cover most schools. Though if they want they can go to a higher cost school.

the state then, audits schools programs to ensure they meet certain standards.

[BigBallinStalin]

OK... you're RIGHT BBS... I should have at least read the ES.

I have done that now.

I understand the comment about college vouchers was completely misguided... my bad.

I still don't see how they can state there was no "significant overall impact"... but there "was a statistically significant impact" to African American students. This statement fails the logic test... UNLESS 1) African American students were underrepresented... or were only a small fraction of those tracked... OR 2) there was some corresponding DECREASE in college enrollment of non-AA students.

I admit NOT reading the whole study... so perhaps my question / concern is answered therein. (Is it?)

So, overall impact means that they aggregated the results to include ALL races.

Then, they delve past this Huge Average of ALL races by looking at each race/category and to see how they fare.

In other words, if you aggregate ALL the races, there's not much of an impact. If you separate that homogenous blob of ALL races into smaller homogenous blobs (i.e. one category per race), you can see a greater variation.

Makes sense?

It would also be interesting to see how they solicited (advertised) for this program... and how they selected participants. Also... I assume the Private Schools had there own enrollment process which may have affected who participated.

Well, from what I read, the SCSF simply filtered out the applicants and gave those who passed a list of schools to attend. How the private schools got on the SCSF list, I don't know. Maybe they met SCSF standards, or maybe it was arbitrary, or maybe the donors of those private schools also donated to the SCSF, so they encouraged the SCSF to bring particular private schools on board. Again, I'm not completely sure on this.

I am generally PRO VOUCHER... my own kids attend a Charter Public School (which is taxpayer funded... but NOT run by a typical city/town or school district). I do have some concerns about a Blanket type voucher program.

My questions about the study come from comments I hear from anti-voucher people... and I would want to know that that study addressed these. Anti-voucher people will say that...
1) Parents who got their kids involved in this study are clearly MORE ENGAGED than your typical public-school going parent. So the program essentially just grabbed the "cream"... which makes it even harder to teach the rest of the kids.
2) That by participating in the program... the parents were "forced" to be more engaged than they otherwise might have been.... and this sku'd the results.

(2) From what I recall, the study established two groups to control for those kinds of problems. They took one group whose parents immediately encouraged their children to sign up, and another group whose parents kind of floundered (after signing up, or they had their kids use the scholarship money a year later).

So, they separated those who were more committed from those who were less committed.

(1) Yeah, I agree on the first half, but I don't see why placing kids, who are smarter/more capable (within the given formal system of schooling), into clunky stupid schools somehow makes it easier to teach the rest of the kids. If anything, you'd want a more equitable level of kids who are at similar intellectual capacities (however that's measured). For example, it's difficult to teach a class with 10% who are lightyears ahead of the others, but they must be slowed down because 90% of the kids are still on page 1.

I don't "buy" these are reasons for NOT having vouchers. Parents and kids who WANT an education and are willing to be more engaged should have the opportunity to get that education. The public schools often make that difficult.

I also like the point about the cost of the Private School tuition being LOWER than the cost of sending the kid to public school.

I have FIRST HAND / PERSONAL knowledge of the waste in large public school systems... so this is NO SURPRISE to me.

Thank you for "forcing" me to educate myself on this study further. If you know the answers to my concerns please advise.... if it's too lengthy an answer (but you know it's contained in the study).. let me know and maybe I will read the whole thing.

Thanks

You're welcome, and what's fun about this study is that it looks promising. Of course, due caution should be exercised in scaling up this program, but at least it shows a proper way to implement vouchers and get positive results. It also illuminates avenues for understanding how to make vouchers more effective for particular categories of kids as well.

[BigBallinStalin]

Interesting topic. Makes me wonder what the education system might look like if all parents simply received education vouchers, and then could send their children to whatever school they thought worked best for them. There could still be national standards that schools had to follow, maybe government auditors for the school programs. Something along the lines of you have to teach these things to be eligible for the vouchers.

In NYC, the SCSF ran a filter on all applicants to test for eligibility. The SCSF would then front roughly 2/3 of the tuition to private schools for those who passed.

From what I recall, it wasn't clear how much discretion the eligible applicants and the SCSF exercised in regard to the choice of which school to attend. I'm assuming the SCSF filtered a list of eligible private schools, and then offered this list to the eligible applicants, who then chose. If that's true, then what's interesting is that the SCSF acts as a competitive gateway between the producers (schools) and consumers (students). If certain producers don't meet SCSF standards, then they incur the loss of being ineligible to receive the voucher students.

A more interesting program would be having more SCSF-type organizations competing and/or cooperating with each other and--if public schools meet their various criteria--, then public schools would have to compete for better students. Of course, public schools have odd incentives, in that their revenue is determined not by profit-and-loss incentives in the market, but from bureaucratic/political incentives.

Therefore, the issue of scaling up the SCSF voucher would be manifold. One the one hand, you'd have consumers in the market of vouchers pursuing these subsidies/scholarships, while producers (public and private schools) would be competing to meet the standards of the voucher-gateways (SCSF-types). On the other hand, you'd have traditional holders of power (politicians/bureaucrats) who may be unwilling to relinquish such a significant chunk of their control over the flow of direct funds to select schools. They'd probably resist this transferal of power from themselves to a more competitive environment. It's also possible that they'd sabotage the voucher program in order to justify a regression back to their traditional role of power (e.g. stricter, arbitrary regulation over the voucher programs in order to cripple their effectiveness, or dump more funds into public schools to grant them an unfair advantage, etc.).

Of course, the above public choice concerns do not apply if the politicians and bureaucrats are all-benevolent, altruistic central planners who truly know what is best for the Common Good and who are not at all selfish. In other words, they're not self-interested, or if they are, then they're something like 90% altruistic and 10% selfish.

I was more thinking a fantasy situation where there are no public schools only private schools funded through both vouchers and private funds. the state gives everyone vouchers worth a certain amount. These would be sufficient to cover most schools. Though if they want they can go to a higher cost school.

the state then, audits schools programs to ensure they meet certain standards.

I'm down for that.

If I had the power, I'd rob the federal government of its current control over education, and place it into the various States/provinces. Within each State, they're parishes/counties would implement various arrangements of these voucher programs---of the 100% private kind, or 50-50 public-private voucher kind, 100% public kind, the 100% voucher + government audit kind, etc. After a decade or two, we'd see what factors affect the outcomes, how they do so, and we'd have a database of information made available to other places who are trying to implement policies which are more conducive to their particular characteristics.


But of course the federal government practically crushes this avenue of discovery with its Department of Education and top-down legislation and regulation. From a practical perspective, I have no problem with public education per say, but I do have a problem with top-down federal approaches that encompass a huge swatch of different groups of people and which imposes restrictions on competition.

[jimboston]

So, overall impact means that they aggregated the results to include ALL races.

Then, they delve past this Huge Average of ALL races by looking at each race/category and to see how they fare.

In other words, if you aggregate ALL the races, there's not much of an impact. If you separate that homogenous blob of ALL races into smaller homogenous blobs (i.e. one category per race), you can see a greater variation.

Makes sense?

Yes and no.

If there is a significant impact on one race (i.e. Blacks) then there must have been some overall impact.

If that one race (i.e. Blacks) was represented in proportion to the population of NYC... and there was a "significant" impact on them, then there should have been (at least) a minor impact on the population of all races. The conclusion I draw is that Blacks were underrepresented.

[Army of GOD]

I agree with jimbo, but I feel like that has more to do with the wording of the abstract and not the study itself.

[jimboston]

I agree with jimbo, but I feel like that has more to do with the wording of the abstract and not the study itself.

Yes... I am probably splitting hairs at this point.

Likely just so I can read my own writing.

[BigBallinStalin]

So, overall impact means that they aggregated the results to include ALL races.

Then, they delve past this Huge Average of ALL races by looking at each race/category and to see how they fare.

In other words, if you aggregate ALL the races, there's not much of an impact. If you separate that homogenous blob of ALL races into smaller homogenous blobs (i.e. one category per race), you can see a greater variation.

Makes sense?

Yes and no.

If there is a significant impact on one race (i.e. Blacks) then there must have been some overall impact.

If that one race (i.e. Blacks) was represented in proportion to the population of NYC... and there was a "significant" impact on them, then there should have been (at least) a minor impact on the population of all races. The conclusion I draw is that Blacks were underrepresented.

Don't worry, guys. It's basic statistics.


I'll use an illustrative example. It goes like this:



The following number represents the percent change of high school students who attended college in 1990 and 2010.

2%

The above is an "overall impact." It aggregates all the data of each group and produces one number--essentially.


Let's delve deeper. Let's delve past the overall impact, and examine the percent changes for each group--based on race:


0% for whites
0.5% for hispanics
5.5% for african americans.


Based on the above, the impact for AAs was significant.


In other words, the overall impact (i.e. average/mean) is 2%. But the percent change for AAs was 5.5%, which was significant--to use their wording.



See?

[Army of GOD]

I think he understands that, but like him, I'm suspicious as to why 2% and 5.5% are "no impact" and "significant impact" accordingly while they're relatively close (granted, the percent difference is pretty fucking high, but still....

[BigBallinStalin]

I think he understands that, but like him, I'm suspicious as to why 2% and 5.5% are "no impact" and "significant impact" accordingly while they're relatively close (granted, the percent difference is pretty fucking high, but still....

I made up those numbers. I'm not sure what their number for "overall impact" was, nor do I know how many racial groups they used in order to drive down the mean.


I guess their writing is a good example of what not to do when writing about econometrics. Instead of "no overall impact," I'd have written "insignificant" or "hardly any impact," but it could be the case that their overall impact was actually 0%... maybe some of the racial groups incurred negative rates? I'm not sure, but this misunderstanding from you and jimbo is most likely attributed to their poor writing.