Every single young military family I know would be sending their children to the local public school if it weren't for free charter schools in the local area that are funded by Uncle Sam. Not that military families like us should get a break, what I'm saying is the children of honest, hard working people would be fucked if educational opportunities were left solely to the division of pay brackets. Especially since most young couples who have pre-school or kindergarten aged children aren't pulling in shit tons of money. As far as NCLB in general, I really don't know enough about the ins and outs of it to give an "educated" opinion...haha

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Did I say the government made the school bad? I don't get your point.

The school is bad from overcrowding, under funding and apathetic teachers.....what I said is if it weren't for programs that help pay for some/all of charter school tuition my son would be in the local school/babysitting service.

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ALL public schools get Federal dollars, charter or not.
The Department of Education isn't necessary for that to happen though.

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My point is it's a local problem, not a Federal one.
If you see money getting shuffled to certain places within your public system that's most likely a local decision as well.

Uncle Sam doesn't say "Hey you public school system, you need to start a charter school and I'll fund it more than the regular school" It doesn't work like that.

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I was just commenting on what Sabretooth said, not the entire program in general. That was pretty clear.



Since I can't afford tuition to a private school, I would be against making a two option system of shitty or not shitty. Seems reasonable to me. Sorry.

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Yes I know. Either you missed the point or I explained it poorly. If there wasn't funding to cover charter school tuition for me, I would have to send my kids to the public school. This isn't about the schools funding, what they do with their money etc. This is about tuition help for charter schools. I think it's a good idea.

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Oh...I thought we were arguing about the DoE.
Nevermind

So if you like Fed tuition funding for charter schools, something like a voucher system would be the ultimate expression of that, no?

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I don't know much about the voucher alternative. What does it involve?

As far as what I have seen here in Colorado when I went to the local charter schools and asked about tuition/fees they said that it was covered by the government. Some schools (according to classification/district?) were free for half day but charged a tuition fee for full day. I'm actually working on getting my daughter on a waiting list for next year and it's free for her too (as long as we can get her up to speed for the qualification tests). The local schools here sucks ball sack and though this sounds terrible, the main reason is that the teachers are super burdened by immigrant children who need extra help in reading/writing/speaking English along with higher student/teacher ratios. Now the charter school has tough entry tests (which keeps the standards high) but it is SOOOO much better than the public option. If I were to pay for it out of pocket I'd be fucked, well more accurately, my son would be fucked.

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Side note: until I left New York and had kids I thought public schools were great. Lew Port was a great school, especially compared to schools in Colorado Springs. What I wouldn't give to have a local school like that out here. I know it had/has its problems but it is a good school.

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Well, in a nutshell, we have a single-payer system for public education right now.
People pay their property and school taxes, that money goes to pay for public schools and sending your kids to school is "free".

A voucher system would allow parents to take their share of the public school taxes and apply it towards tuition at a private school of their choosing.

SO if you choose to send your kid to public school, they get your tax dollars, if not, they don't.

Obviously this would shift monies away from public schools and toward private schools. Conservatives love it, Liberals hate it.

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Honestly for me I would love it, though in terms of big problems for public schools, man it would take an already hurting system and just fuck it in the ear. That seems like a good gain for those lucky enough to get into charter schools but for kids in public schools, especially in overcrowded urban/suburban schools.....ouch.

side note.....when i'm typing a response and the quote is long or I get long winded the text box will flutter up an down from the top to bottom of the text with each letter I type. WTF? There is probably a really simple solution for this which will make me feel dumb.

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Not necessarily. The same thing already happens with charter schools. If you move your kid from your local school to a charter, the state funding for the student follows.

The reason why vouchers would never happen is teachers unions and their firm grasp on Democrat genitalia.
Their pension systems are underwater already...They can't take another hit.
Mind you, their concerns don't lie with education or children, rather with tenure and pensions.

I'm paying attention to NJ Gov. Christie's ongoing battle with the teachers union there...it's pretty nasty already.

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Right. My daughter is in a charter school, but it's part of LAUSD (which is IMO one of the worst public systems in the country). So they get their public funding while remaining mostly autonomous from the system.

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What those advocates of vouchers never say is that just giving you a smaller tax bill is not going to pay for your kid to go to a private school. So in reality, the voucher program would just accelerate the divide between haves and have-nots because only the rich would be able to afford the best schools. But the rich already could anyway, so really it would just give them a smaller tax bill

I don't consider myself rich.
I can't afford to send my daughter to a full time private school.
But I could afford it with vouchers.

But this is what has become of our public school systems, the lowest common denominator for all.
Everyone is equally screwed instead of some getting a better shot.

Otherwise it's unfair right?

Pfft I say. We deserve what we accept.

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You're not going to get 4 or 5 thousand dollars from a voucher. It's fantasy to think that. Since you're the one who has looked into this, how much is a year's tuition at a good school?

Obviously it varies from place to place. The private schools around here cater to the mega-rich. I doubt that's the case in WNY or other parts of the country.
That's the other flaw when discussing this...the (reasonably priced) alternatives aren't there because the (voucher) system isn't there.
So you're in effect asking a hypothetical.
I have no doubt the free market would supply the demand.

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I think over time, it would all balance out.

Right now, I'm paying $800 a year in direct school taxes to the City of Niagara Falls CSD. Obviously they're getting more in other state aid, but I don't know how much.

I have no kids right now, and none on the horizon. That's a LOT of free money they're getting when I don't use their system. I'm not too worried about it, since my dollars are helping someone else's kids.

Once I do have kids, I would kinda like the option to choose where the education dollars for my kids are spent. If I wasn't satisfied with the NFCSD, and decided I liked a private school better, I would like to be able to take that $800 a year and put it towards private school tuition. I know it wouldn't cover everything, and I'd still have to pay out of pocket, but I think that it would be fair to let me decide where that money went. Once my kid graduated, the NFCSD goes back to getting my money every year.

I dunno...I guess the frustrating part for me is I know we spend an ever increasing amount of money on education and every year less and less of it as a percentage goes towards actually educating our kids.
Public education for all is great, and I'm not advocating its elimination, it's just that we need a better return on the investment.
Teacher unions are a problem.
Tenure is a problem.
None of that will ever be addressed though...it's a sacred cow.



Pensions
Pensions
Pensions

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