Educational Vouchers

[rdsrds2120]

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....

There's a test for "statistical significance" (completely mathy) called Hypothesis Testing, which is what I assume they're talking about. I might read the actual semantics of how the study was conducted, someday.

edit for those who tl;dr Wiki:

A result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone, according to a pre-determined threshold probability, the significance level.

-rd

[thegreekdog]

Caveat - I will read the PDF.

We (mostly I'm talking about me) have decried that public schooling fails because of parents. This study and associated "things we've heard" about private schools (I mean, seriously, everyone knows they are better than public schools), belies my own views that school fails because of parents. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

[BigBallinStalin]

Caveat - I will read the PDF.

We (mostly I'm talking about me) have decried that public schooling fails because of parents. This study and associated "things we've heard" about private schools (I mean, seriously, everyone knows they are better than public schools), belies my own views that school fails because of parents. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

Their study showed that the programs which advocated for more effective teachers in public schools was bunk--or to put it nicely, "ineffective" and "not worth the costs compared to SCSF's voucher program."

To me, this study shows that if you provide people the incentive and inform them of the benefits (or if they already know of the benefits), then all you have to do is supply that demand. The SCSF goes out of its way to benefits its consumers; if the SCSF performs poorly, its donators stop donating (profit and loss incentives). The public schools don't really have to provide for their consumers (students/parents/taxpayers) because their income is derived from involuntary exchanges (taxes. No profit and loss incentives as seen with capitalism, or the markets). It's political/bureaucratic incentives at play, and in their finest.

[HapSmo19]

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

Maybe, but, it's only a tiny fraction compared to what Mercedes, Lexus and BMW "pull".

[jimboston]

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....

Yes... exactly.

Thank you for giving me the benefit of th doubt here.

2% might be a "small impact" a "minimal impact" or a "slight impact".

It would not be "no impact".

For there to be "no overal impact" the math would have to be closer to...

Overall Impact: 0%

... delving deeper based on race:

-0.5% for whites
0.5% for hispanics
5.5% for african americans

THERE CAN'T BE A 0% OVERALL IMPACT...AND STILL HAVE ALL THE RACIAL BREAKDOWNS BE POSITIVE.

Another possible option... if African Americans are significantly under represented....


Overall Impact: 0.02%

... delving deeper based on race:

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

These are (of course) made up numbers. The point being how these are defines... and also the percentage of each race represented in the study.

in NYC African Americans are not a small minority... so they should be proportionally included for a study to be valid.

[jimboston]

Caveat - I will read the PDF.

We (mostly I'm talking about me) have decried that public schooling fails because of parents. This study and associated "things we've heard" about private schools (I mean, seriously, everyone knows they are better than public schools), belies my own views that school fails because of parents. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

Their study showed that the programs which advocated for more effective teachers in public schools was bunk--or to put it nicely, "ineffective" and "not worth the costs compared to SCSF's voucher program."

To me, this study shows that if you provide people the incentive and inform them of the benefits (or if they already know of the benefits), then all you have to do is supply that demand. The SCSF goes out of its way to benefits its consumers; if the SCSF performs poorly, its donators stop donating (profit and loss incentives). The public schools don't really have to provide for their consumers (students/parents/taxpayers) because their income is derived from involuntary exchanges (taxes. No profit and loss incentives as seen with capitalism, or the markets). It's political/bureaucratic incentives at play, and in their finest.

AMEN

[jimboston]

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.

... or possibly to a poor study design.

Overall I like what the Executive Summary said... I justwant to (in my own mind) be able to validate the results. (I'm not a very trusting person.)

[jimboston]

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

Yes... the Public Schools would get less money.

Those school would also have fewer kids to educate, so their costs would (SHOULD) go down proportionally.

The whole fact that public schools CAN'T control their costs is a good example why we need programs like vouchers.

[PLAYER57832]

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

Yes... the Public Schools would get less money.

Those school would also have fewer kids to educate, so their costs would (SHOULD) go down proportionally.

The whole fact that public schools CAN'T control their costs is a good example why we need programs like vouchers.

WRONG

Because you assume that educating each student costs the same and that is the fundamental error.

What Florida REALLY shows is that private schools are more than happy to educate the kids without significant problems, particularly those on the upper ranks of intelligence and ability... but when it comes to kids who are less intelligent, who have serious disabilities, or behavior issues related to medical issues, or even just who come from a poorer, unsupportive background and home -- FORGET IT! Though the schools are theoretically not allowed to exclude those kids, in fact they do.

ALSO, public schools do very much provide many other services that many private schools do not.. ranging from providing lunches and breakfasts to specialized medical services. ONE student who I know about because its a friend of ours, in our district costs over $50,000. She (adopted, I will add), has many serious issues and has to be in a residential care program. The money comes out of the local public school budget.

[jimboston]

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

Yes... the Public Schools would get less money.

Those school would also have fewer kids to educate, so their costs would (SHOULD) go down proportionally.

The whole fact that public schools CAN'T control their costs is a good example why we need programs like vouchers.

WRONG

Because you assume that educating each student costs the same and that is the fundamental error.

What Florida REALLY shows is that private schools are more than happy to educate the kids without significant problems, particularly those on the upper ranks of intelligence and ability... but when it comes to kids who are less intelligent, who have serious disabilities, or behavior issues related to medical issues, or even just who come from a poorer, unsupportive background and home -- FORGET IT! Though the schools are theoretically not allowed to exclude those kids, in fact they do.

ALSO, public schools do very much provide many other services that many private schools do not.. ranging from providing lunches and breakfasts to specialized medical services. ONE student who I know about because its a friend of ours, in our district costs over $50,000. She (adopted, I will add), has many serious issues and has to be in a residential care program. The money comes out of the local public school budget.

1) Schools shouldn't provide things NOT related to education.

2) There SHOULD be a limit to the "specialized services" that schools are required to provide. Otherwise we might as well just open our wallets and forget it.

The job of Gov't is to PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY for kids to get an education. The job should not be to ENSURE all kids get an EQUAL education. If you can't follow what I mean by this statement don't ask... you need to have taken advantage of the OPPORTUNITY you received.

[PLAYER57832]

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

Yes... the Public Schools would get less money.

Those school would also have fewer kids to educate, so their costs would (SHOULD) go down proportionally.

The whole fact that public schools CAN'T control their costs is a good example why we need programs like vouchers.

WRONG

Because you assume that educating each student costs the same and that is the fundamental error.

What Florida REALLY shows is that private schools are more than happy to educate the kids without significant problems, particularly those on the upper ranks of intelligence and ability... but when it comes to kids who are less intelligent, who have serious disabilities, or behavior issues related to medical issues, or even just who come from a poorer, unsupportive background and home -- FORGET IT! Though the schools are theoretically not allowed to exclude those kids, in fact they do.

ALSO, public schools do very much provide many other services that many private schools do not.. ranging from providing lunches and breakfasts to specialized medical services. ONE student who I know about because its a friend of ours, in our district costs over $50,000. She (adopted, I will add), has many serious issues and has to be in a residential care program. The money comes out of the local public school budget.

1) Schools shouldn't provide things NOT related to education.

Those services came because kids who don't eat, are not healthy don't learn well. ALSO, when the services are provided in the school, there is assurance that it is the kids themselves who are eating the food, etc. Its harder to assure that in other formats.

BUT.. that really has little to do with vouchers. I include it only becuase these things are included as part of a public school cost per student figure and not for private schools.

2) There SHOULD be a limit to the "specialized services" that schools are required to provide. Otherwise we might as well just open our wallets and forget it.

Yeah, let's go back to the days when kids who are not perfect are just shoved in big rooms together with gaurds to watch.

AGAIN, that is not a voucher issue. It is just another example of why the figures get distorted so it seems like public education is more expensive than it really is for society.

I agree that there is a limit, but it needs to be thought out and put forward as a real plan that will work. Vouchers are not supposed to do that.

The job of Gov't is to PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY for kids to get an education. The job should not be to ENSURE all kids get an EQUAL education. If you can't follow what I mean by this statement don't ask... you need to have taken advantage of the OPPORTUNITY you received.

You are still avoiding the issues.

I disagree, but that is a different debate. MY issue is that you are claiming that public education is more expensive and ineffective, but that is only true because the data is skewed by outside factors. In truth public educaiton is CHEAPER and more effective than public education.

[jimboston]

[ MY issue is that you are claiming that public education is more expensive and ineffective, but that is only true because the data is skewed by outside factors. In truth public educaiton is CHEAPER and more effective than public education.

Really?

Wow... deep insite.

Idiot.

Learn to proof read what you type.
===

I know from first hand experience that Public Education (esp. in major cities) creates a lot fo waste.

There is NO WAY it is cheaper than efficiently run Private Schools.

It's certainly NOT more effective either.

[PLAYER57832]

I know from first hand experience that Public Education (esp. in major cities) creates a lot fo waste .

There is NO WAY it is cheaper than efficiently run Private Schools.

It's certainly NOT more effective either.

Well, sorry to confuse you with facts, but when you compare them on the same basis, compare LIKE students to LIKE students, then you find that public education actually does a very good job.

link: http://www.livescience.com/2575-study-p ... hools.html

After controlling for demographic differences among students and schools, the researchers found that public school students began kindergarten with math scores roughly equal to those of their Catholic school peers. By fifth grade, however, they had made significantly greater gains, equal to almost an extra half year of schooling, Sarah Lubienski said.

ALSO: link: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/se ... o=EJ794358

A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. In 2005, the "Kappan" published a report of the authors' research on student achievement in public and private schools, based on an analysis of the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Most people assumed that the higher average scores in private schools meant that private schools were more effective--an assumption that undergirds much of the current thinking surrounding education policies and reforms. Surprisingly, however, the data on a nationally representative sample of 30,000 students in fourth and eighth grades showed public schools to be outperforming private schools in mathematics achievement after student background factors were considered.

and... your pretense of privatization making things better is just wrong. Corporate invasion of schools has ruined them, not made them better except in very isolated "showpiece" places.

BUT, it is well documented that vouchers harm public education

The Death and Life of The Great American School SystemHow Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch
Summary
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

But hey... seems like you already gave your answer.. who cares about other people's kids and just don't spend more money on special ed kids. Never mind the data... a few people can always pick better schools.

[PLAYER57832]

and now for REAL solutions:

This is a limited study and based primarily on elementary education, but it puts forward some real fixes, real things that need to happen:
http://www.education.com/reference/arti ... es_School/
note how few of these parallel either the No child left behind, vouchers or other popular right wing ideas.

[jimboston]

You posted an article about a study (studies) not the studies themselves.

Interesting that omit some quotes...

One quote refers to "other unpublished studies"... and another was scomparing public schools to catholic schools (not to all private schools).

Very selective.

Ultimately RESULTS MATTER. The public schools aren't getting the results. I don't care if that is the school's fault or the parents fault.

I DO KNOW THAT I WOULD RATHER SEND MY KIDS TO A SCHOOL WHERE OTHER PARENTS ARE ENGAGED... as opposed to a public school that has no ability to control the behavior of their students... and no help from a large portion of the parents.

[PLAYER57832]

You posted an article about a study (studies) not the studies themselves.

The original article was not accessible to people without subscriptions, but I do intend to look more.

I DO KNOW THAT I WOULD RATHER SEND MY KIDS TO A SCHOOL WHERE OTHER PARENTS ARE ENGAGED... as opposed to a public school that has no ability to control the behavior of their students... and no help from a large portion of the parents.

WRONG.

You have a LOT of say about public schools. More than you do in private schools, who often simply say "you don't like it.. walk".