It’s autumn, and drab autumn at that. A summer-long drought means dull colors and rain from a couple nearly-spent hurricanes is bringing down the limbs with the leaves.
The schools are in full swing and Congress is heading back to Capitol Hill, also thinking about education. Everyone in government wants to spend more on education, but of course, Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on how that should be done. Democrats want to hire more teachers; Republicans want school vouchers.
The idea driving the school voucher movement is choice. If your school district is going to spend $5,000 per student, Republicans think parents should get a $5,000 voucher for each child and send their kids to the school of their choice – religious or secular, small or large. The schools, run as private enterprises, would have to compete for those parental choices. Encourage excellence through economic incentive, right? Straight out of Capitalism 101.
I’m all for improving school quality, but I’m not sure vouchers are the shortest distance from Point A to Point B. If we were to go to a voucher system, I think within five years we’d be hearing the terms “voucher-plus” schools and “voucher-only” schools. “Voucher-plus” schools will be those schools which take student’s voucher and parents kick in some extra money, let’s say another $5,000 a year, to ensure their child has the best teachers, facilities, computers, et cetera. After all, this is about excellence through competition, and what better investment of public and private funds than education?
But what if you can’t afford the $5,000 on top of your voucher? Then your child will wind up going to what will be known as a “voucher-only” school, where the per-student spending is limited by the size of the voucher. These may not be the best-run schools in town. They won’t be able to afford the best teachers or the best computers, but if that’s all you can afford, that’s where your kids will go. Where’s the choice in that? Where’s the excellence?
Let’s look at another possible scenario. Suppose a voucher-driven school district has five private schools each competing for excellence. In this school district, there are three students who have learning disabilities and are confined to wheelchairs. These students get a $5,000 voucher, like everyone else, but the special facilities and special instruction these students require will cost a school $50,000 per student, per year. None of the five schools will want to enroll these wheelchair-bound learning-disabled students, because to do so would mean offering a lower level of services and instruction to the rest of the students. That would make the school uncompetitive and the special costs for the handicapped students will be even harder to bear.
Well, I suppose students with special needs can be given bigger vouchers. But what if these three students with special needs all select different schools? The school district taxpayers will have to pay three times over for special facilities and instruction. Is that fair?
The problem here is the very old tension between efficiency and fairness. The military prizes efficiency; it is not known for fairness. Hippie communes prize fairness; they are not known for efficiency.
It is extraordinarily frustrating to watch tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of an inefficient and plodding school system. I recognize that and feel the same frustration. But the closer we get to efficient, the further we get from fair, and the founding principle of American democracy is fairness, not efficiency.
Any parent who is still disgruntled has a last resort: read to your kids, check their homework, take them to the library.
Efficiency vs. Fairness
It’s autumn, and drab autumn at that. A summer-long drought means dull colors and rain from a couple nearly-spent hurricanes is bringing down the limbs with the leaves.
The schools are in full swing and Congress is heading back to Capitol Hill, also thinking about education. Everyone in government wants to spend more on education, but of course, Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on how that should be done. Democrats want to hire more teachers; Republicans want school vouchers.
The idea driving the school voucher movement is choice. If your school district is going to spend $5,000 per student, Republicans think parents should get a $5,000 voucher for each child and send their kids to the school of their choice – religious or secular, small or large. The schools, run as private enterprises, would have to compete for those parental choices. Encourage excellence through economic incentive, right? Straight out of Capitalism 101.
I’m all for improving school quality, but I’m not sure vouchers are the shortest distance from Point A to Point B. If we were to go to a voucher system, I think within five years we’d be hearing the terms “voucher-plus” schools and “voucher-only” schools. “Voucher-plus” schools will be those schools which take student’s voucher and parents kick in some extra money, let’s say another $5,000 a year, to ensure their child has the best teachers, facilities, computers, et cetera. After all, this is about excellence through competition, and what better investment of public and private funds than education?
But what if you can’t afford the $5,000 on top of your voucher? Then your child will wind up going to what will be known as a “voucher-only” school, where the per-student spending is limited by the size of the voucher. These may not be the best-run schools in town. They won’t be able to afford the best teachers or the best computers, but if that’s all you can afford, that’s where your kids will go. Where’s the choice in that? Where’s the excellence?
Let’s look at another possible scenario. Suppose a voucher-driven school district has five private schools each competing for excellence. In this school district, there are three students who have learning disabilities and are confined to wheelchairs. These students get a $5,000 voucher, like everyone else, but the special facilities and special instruction these students require will cost a school $50,000 per student, per year. None of the five schools will want to enroll these wheelchair-bound learning-disabled students, because to do so would mean offering a lower level of services and instruction to the rest of the students. That would make the school uncompetitive and the special costs for the handicapped students will be even harder to bear.
Well, I suppose students with special needs can be given bigger vouchers. But what if these three students with special needs all select different schools? The school district taxpayers will have to pay three times over for special facilities and instruction. Is that fair?
The problem here is the very old tension between efficiency and fairness. The military prizes efficiency; it is not known for fairness. Hippie communes prize fairness; they are not known for efficiency.
It is extraordinarily frustrating to watch tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of an inefficient and plodding school system. I recognize that and feel the same frustration. But the closer we get to efficient, the further we get from fair, and the founding principle of American democracy is fairness, not efficiency.
Any parent who is still disgruntled has a last resort: read to your kids, check their homework, take them to the library.