Greg Abbott signs Texas school voucher bill into law.

[iluvatar5150]

Many non-religious parents send their children to Christian private schools because the quality is so much better. Furthermore, the voucher can also be used for home school and online schooling. Still better than anything the public school system has ever offered.

Define “many”. Even where I live, where sending your kids to private school is a thing, it’s still comparatively few parents who do so. And it’s primarily the professional classes who do.

Also, the quality of Christian schools is not better across the board. Not even remotely.

Sorry, but $33k a year for middle school? You got ripped off.

She’s not old enough for middle school yet. Regardless, what I’ve seen of the school so far blows away any of the church-run schools I knew growing up.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Even so, home schooled kids still perform better than public schools.

The two points reasons I provided for private school performance apply to homeschool as well. Additionally, parents who are homeschooling simply to keep their kids out of public school or to avoid scrutiny (i.e. the "bad" homeschoolers) aren't going to have their kids taking the ACT.

I believe that the most significant result of this new law is that now public schools actually have to compete with other schools.

From a legal standpoint, public schools can't compete with private schools - as I said, they have to accept everyone, so the playing field isn't even to begin with. And with reductions in student count, they'll have even less money to work with.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

You get what you pay for. A good private school has to do something besides shield the kids from the existence of LGBT people.

Not necessarily. I send my kids to private school. The tuition is less that 5k per year with a discount if you have multiple kids attending. Public schools get roughly 3x the amount per student in taxpayer funding and they get little in return.

 

[iluvatar5150]

I believe that the most significant result of this new law is that now public schools actually have to compete with other schools.

That is the ideal that voucher proponents typically tout. Unfortunately, it ignores the realities of the education “market” that we’ve been able to witness since… basically formal education was created.

I’ve explained this a few times in other threads, but the TLR; is that profit is a poor motivator for developing educational excellence. Education is a labor-intensive service that’s hard to scale up, so outside of some remote/online initiatives, it’s never going to generate the sort of profits that real capitalists want. So the only way to make money at it is to charge more and cut expenses, which is the exact opposite of what you have to do to expand quality education to the masses.

This sort of competitive pressure that voucher proponents tout has existed in higher education since the federal government started handing out loans and grants in the mid 20th century to folks attending any accredited school. After 50+ years of this, do we have robust network of low-cost, for-profit schools challenging bloated elite institutions? No. What we have are a hodgepodge of for-profit trade schools, many of which are low quality and/or under-delivering in their job placement, and most of which are just as expensive as private schools. There are hundreds, if not thousands of for-profit alternatives to community colleges; there are no for-profit alternatives to the ivies or flagship state universities. The best schools have always been set up as charities or public goods.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Not necessarily. I send my kids to private school. The tuition is less that 5k per year with a discount if you have multiple kids attending. Public schools get roughly 3x the amount per student in taxpayer funding and they get little in return.

If the tuition is $5k/yr, it’s either an extremely limited school or it’s subsidized by some other source. Adjusted for inflation, my tuition in the 80’s comes out to about $5-6k/yr now; our “teachers” were nearly all parents who were wildly unqualified for anything more than lunch monitoring; sports were minimal; and arts and other extracurriculars were virtually nonexistent.

 

[Pommer]

Private school vouchers are now law in Texas. Here’s how they will work. - The Texas Tribune

Texas will give participating families about $10,000 to pay for their kids’ private schooling. Other details about the program, set to launch in 2026, are unclear.

www.texastribune.org

I think this is amazing. Hopefully this becomes a trend with more states.

Bringing our unique brand of healthcare-funding to schools will fix everything (somehow)!

 

[Oompa Loompa]

The two points reasons I provided for private school performance apply to homeschool as well. Additionally, parents who are homeschooling simply to keep their kids out of public school or to avoid scrutiny (i.e. the "bad" homeschoolers) aren't going to have their kids taking the ACT.

From a legal standpoint, public schools can't compete with private schools - as I said, they have to accept everyone, so the playing field isn't even to begin with. And with reductions in student count, they'll have even less money to work with.

So the problem are the kids, not the schools.

 

[BCP1928]

So the problem are the kids, not the schools.

How did you reach that conclusion?

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Who is complaining about school meals? Why are you so opposed to poor black kids going to a better school?

I still waiting for you to ask me if I still beat my wife.

 

[jacks]

Private school vouchers seem to work for Sweden and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, a staggering 70 percent of all schools are private, and 90 percent of the private schools are religious. The Dutch Constitution secures equal funding for all schools, presuming they adhere to statutory regulations. This funding amounts to approximately $6,465 per primary student and $8,321 per secondary student. (Note: these are amounts from 2019.)

 

[Aryeh Jay]

So is it then your position that poor underprivileged minority children shouldn't have an opportunity to go to a better school if it mean money isn't coming from your pocket? But public schools using your tax money to normalize wierd sex stuff to children is fine? Well, unless you live in Texas, it shouldn't effect your wallet.

Funny, my parents were Republicans, I was raised a Republican, I have been a voting Republican since 1990. I also went to public school in Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. I can say from experience that Reagan and Bush didn't care about the quality of our education or school food. I still keep ketchup packets in case I need to add a vegetable to dinner.

staff edit

 

[iluvatar5150]

Private school vouchers seem to work for Sweden and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, a staggering 70 percent of all schools are private, and 90 percent of the private schools are religious. The Dutch Constitution secures equal funding for all schools, presuming they adhere to statutory regulations. This funding amounts to approximately $6,465 per primary student and $8,321 per secondary student. (Note: these are amounts from 2019.)

I don’t think you can make comparisons like this across countries without examining and controlling for the myriad differences between the way the two nations handle things. Even within the US, “private religious school” could mean a large, Jesuit-run institution with impeccable credentials or it could be a small independent Baptist school with 100 students k-12 and a curriculum that teaches young earth creationism and the Lost Cause.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Other states have tried this, and it's been something of a failure.


What is TX planning on doing differently from the other states that have had the outcome of "70% of the funds ending up being a rebate for well-to-do families that were already privately schooling their kids to begin with" and virtually no improvement for the others that did manage to find a different district to take their kids to. (which, in and of itself, is pretty impractical)

Keeping in mind, the voucher amounts are always strategically set an amount that only bridges the gap between "have to send to public school" and "now able to send to a private school" for a very tiny percentage of people.

If a parent is making only 30k/year, and a private school is $11k/year, getting a $8k voucher is a meaningless gesture, they still can't send their kid to the private school. And other surrounding public schools have capacity limits just like any other institution (where people who live in the district get first dibs).


I get the reasons why some parents would find it appealing if they haven't done a deep dive into how those systems play out...they're thinking "I can get my kids away from the environment that's teaching them all of these social ideologies that cut against the values we're trying to raise them with".

But how that actually works out is, their kids are still going to be getting the same stuff they don't like, but now the public districts are underfunded.


To put it more succinctly, if parents think they're going to get their kids away from the "woke stuff" (which is a sentiment I can somewhat sympathize with), if you get into a school voucher/"choice" environment, the kids will be getting the exact same stuff, just in an environment where the teacher:student ratio is 1:35 instead of 1:20 (which ends up disadvantaging kids in the classes and materials that do actually matter)

 

[FireDragon76]

I have no strong feelings either way on this issue. I only did a year of private schooling as a child, and it was at a working-class private school that was nonsectarian. The education I received there was better than the public schools, which involved alot of bussing into the inner city. I went there for a few months and it was too stressful to continue going, it was affecting my grades and my mental health.

It's clear many people, even people that aren't necessarily conservative Christians, are unhappy with what passes for schooling in the US, and many school systems resist institutional reform. On the other hand, public schooling provides a minimal level of education for all Americans, even if it is inefficient and doesn't have very good outcomes relative to what we spend on it. It's clearly a system in need of reform.

The United States spends more per student on public education than most other industrialized nations, but its educational outcomes are often mediocre by comparison, leading many experts to conclude that the U.S. has relatively low cost-effectiveness in education.

Key Points:​

Spending Levels:​

• According to OECD data (e.g. Education at a Glance reports), the U.S. consistently ranks among the top 5 in terms of education spending per student in both primary and secondary education.
• The U.S. spends over $13,000–$15,000 per student per year on average (depending on the level), which is well above the OECD average.

Outcomes (Relative Performance):​

• On international assessments like PISA(Programme for International Student Assessment), U.S. students tend to rank:
  • Mid-tier in reading
  • Below average in math
  • Average in science
• This puts the U.S. behind countries that spend significantly less, such as Estonia, Poland, and South Korea.

⚖️ Efficiency/Effectiveness:​

• When comparing educational outcomes relative to spending, the U.S. is often seen as inefficient:
  • Nations like Finland, Japan, and Canada achieve better or similar outcomes with less spending per student.
  • Analysts often cite systemic inefficiencies, socioeconomic disparities, fragmentation across states, and unequal school funding as contributing factors.

Factors Affecting Efficiency:​

• Inequities in school funding and student access
• High administrative costs
• Teacher salaries and benefits vary widely
• Less time in core instruction compared to top-performing nations

Summary:​

The U.S. ranks very high in education spending, but only average or below-average in student performance, which puts it low in cost-effectiveness compared to other industrialized countries.

 

[wing2000]

Private school vouchers are now law in Texas. Here’s how they will work. - The Texas Tribune

Texas will give participating families about $10,000 to pay for their kids’ private schooling. Other details about the program, set to launch in 2026, are unclear.

www.texastribune.org

I think this is amazing. Hopefully this becomes a trend with more states.

...because it has worked so well in Arizona.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Not necessarily. I send my kids to private school. The tuition is less that 5k per year with a discount if you have multiple kids attending. Public schools get roughly 3x the amount per student in taxpayer funding and they get little in return.

lol there it is:

"Poster who already sends their kids to private school and will now get to do so for free thinks voucher program is the bomb!"

Something that was touched on, but not highlighted enough, IMO, is that vouchers are discriminatory. Private schools can reject students for almost any reason and even though they are subject to some regulation with regard to discrimination enforcement of those regulations is lacks and difficult. So, those "poor little black kids" you mentioned earlier, for "reasons", *wink, wink*, get rejected by private schools at 6 times the rate of white students.

 

[wing2000]

Many non-religious parents send their children to Christian private schools because the quality is so much better. Furthermore, the voucher can also be used for home school and online schooling. Still better than anything the public school system has ever offered.

I attended both Christian private schools up to grade 10 then transferred to a public school. Our public shool provided a better education.

 

[Laodicean60]

Students from wealthier families (i.e. those who can afford to send their children to private schools)

Isn't this what vouchers are for?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Isn't this what vouchers are for?

Presumably, if you're making an argument for vouchers, there aren't any vouchers to level the playing field yet.

Also, as pointed out multiple times in the thread, vouchers don't help that many people go to private schools who would otherwise attend public schools, because vouchers rarely cover the full cost of private school tuition.

 

[Laodicean60]

Presumably, if you're making an argument for vouchers, there aren't any vouchers to level the playing field yet.

Also, as pointed out multiple times in the thread, vouchers don't help that many people go to private schools who would otherwise attend public schools, because vouchers rarely cover the full cost of private school tuition.

Yes, but those who do benefit. I don't understand everyone's argument against the Texas voucher program because they aren't doing away with public schools unless it's just tit for tat.