Another Reason to Support School Choice

Without commenting on the legal reasoning behind the Supreme Court's 6 to 2 ruling today in the case of Brian Schaffer et al v. Jerry Weast, it does constitute a further argument for school choice. As the Washington Post explained:

The Supreme Court, using a Montgomery County, Md., case to resolve a long-running, hotly contested national dispute, ruled today that the nation's school systems are not legally obliged to prove the adequacy of individualized educational programs set up for disabled children. Rather, the court said, it is up to individual parents, when dissatisfied, to demonstrate a program's inadequacy.

On the other hand, if parents had vouchers they could use them to select schools whose programs they believe are adequate to their children's needs. Vouchers transform parents and children into customers who can shop around. It is a simple universal truth that people are treated better as customers than they are as supplicants.

Comments

[Eric the .5b]

Isn't that pretty much the way it works in general? When some government service is provided inadequately, it doesn't usually (ever?) fix itself without people poking at it.

A lot.

And then the particular service-providers usually try to resist any demands to shape up.

[M1EK]

Yeah, because private schools will just JUMP at the chance to educate disabled kids for the money contained within a voucher. Give me a freakin' break. Most private schools today don't educate severely disabled kids even if you pay full tuition.

When all you have is the school choice hammer, every education problem looks like a nail?

[kevrob]

M1EK points out that the cash value of a voucher won't persuade private schools to take students with special needs. In the government system, each of those students brings with him to a school additional funds, in the form of extra federal and state funds. There is no reason that those funds could not be transformed into vouchers, so that, if a school took a regular student the voucher would be worth x, and the special needs student's voucher would be worth x + n.

Kevin

[nmg]

I was just about to ask, why wouldn't a voucher system take that into account and provide a bigger voucher for parents of disabled kids? Is that so hard to imagine considering we currently allocate more for their "seat" already?

Or is it that when all you have is the coercive centralized schooling hammer, every alternative looks better and so you must resort to illogical arguments?

nmg

[M1EK]

It's not just the direct money for those kids; it's the fact that public schools HAVE to take them; private schools don't have to, and in most cases, don't want to. Even at full tuition, they won't make money on those students.

Consider the normal public school student's $6000 or whatever as probably $4500 for him and $1500 spread out to subsidize the special ed kids, who probably cost more like $15,000 or $20,000.

[joe]

kevrob, the "additional state and federal funds" don't begin to cover the additional costs of a high-needs special needs student.

If you can bring yourself to speak to an administrator who works in a public school system, try running that theory by her, and see what she says.

[cdunlea]

You seem to be reading what you want into the case, Ron, because it had nothing to do with school choice, but everything to do with to what extent school districts must cater to students with special needs. And the SCOTUS came down, corectly, on the side of the professionals.

Before I get flamed by "keep govt out of the schools" types here, I will confess that a very close relative of mine is indirectly involved in the exact same type of school case; she's an occupation therapist who prepares IEPs for sped kids. One kid's parents in a very wealthy school district has been bitching with the district for years, saying Little Johnny's special needs aren't being met. They maintain the kid has everything wrong: hyperactive, autistic, etc. when years of testing shows the poor kid's just dyslexic fer crying out loud. Still, three lawyers and four OTs later, these people swear the school system isn't helping their kid they way they like it, and want the school (read: us taxpayers) to pay for pricate teachers and loads of therapy. The case is going to court now, despite dozens of professional witnesses saying the IEP is satisfactory.

Then again, after today, maybe not.

[Lisa Snell]

Florida and Utah have school voucher programs designed for special education children. The Florida program has been around for five years with more than 15,000 special education kids receiving vouchers equivalent to what the state and federal government spent on their special education in the public schools in 2005. Most kids in special education have reading-based disabilities. However, even the small number of $20,000 kids with severe disabilities have a portable voucher. 54 percent of special ed kids are in the first and level 1 Matrix, with 2 percent of participants in level 5 Matrix. Parental satisfaction is high. Florida has created lots of new school capacity for special-ed kids. A wide variety of schools from schools specializing in dyslexia or autism to Catholic schools to academic non-sectarian schools have participated in the program. In 2002 there were 101 schools participating and in 2005 there were 703 schools participating in Florida. These kids have the right of movement between public and private schools and they are customers.

[UncleBuddy]

I have to admit that I was once an avid supporter of school vouchers...then a thought occurred to me: School vouchers may do for private schools what Section 8 housing vouchers did for private multi-family housing.

No thanks.

[cdunlea]

if a school took a regular student the voucher would be worth x, and the special needs student's voucher would be worth x + n.

Not to beat the dead horse here, but where the social development and future integration of a sped student is at stake, no frickin' way will a voucher/private school will assume the liabilities and costs; which, as my previous post will point out, include the hidden costs of litigation.

[Ron Bailey]

M1EK:

Consider the case of Massachusetts. In 2003, the state average expenditure for "regular day students" was $7,009 per year and the state average for "special needs" pupils was $14,354 per year.

BTW, as of 2002, nearly $420 billion was spent annually on 48 million students in public elementary and secondary schools yielding an average of $8750 per pupil annually.

Finally, you miss the point that if all students had vouchers (and there certainly could be differential amounts for special needs students)that competition in education would encourage educational innovation and lower costs.

[MP]

It's not just the direct money for those kids; it's the fact that public schools HAVE to take them; private schools don't have to, and in most cases, don't want to.

The general solution to this, as I've mentioned before, is to not allow schools that accept vouchers to be selective about their students. This can be combined with the typical proposal (as stated by kevrob) giving special needs students larger vouchers.

If you can bring yourself to speak to an administrator who works in a public school system, try running that theory by her, and see what she says.

joe,

I'm sure kevrob was refering to (or should have been referring to) all funding sources, not simply federal/state subsidies to systems that are predominantly locally funded.

[crimethink]

the "additional state and federal funds" don't begin to cover the additional costs of a high-needs special needs student.

Then how are the additional costs covered? Santa Claus?

The general solution to this, as I've mentioned before, is to not allow schools that accept vouchers to be selective about their students.

...and you will quickly find no private schools willing to accept vouchers. If you want to strangle school choice in its crib, this would be an excellent strategy.

[allan evans]

Private schools are private for a reason. They can be selective in who they accept or reject. Then teach in the manner they wish. Maybe, maybe, you might find some that would be desperate enough for paying students to agree to total acceptance. But on the whole, why would a private school give up its very reason for existing in the first place?

[Captain Awesome]

Did anyone read Lisa Snell before posting?

[Fabius Maximus]

CPT Awesome,

Of course not. That would have ruined their arguments.

QFMC cos. V

[Kris]

Cap'n Awsome,

I'm waitin' fer joe & M1EK to directly argue against Lisa Snell's comment 🙂

The voucher system seems pretty good to me. (Not as perfect, but good)

The problem with vouchers seems to be that we'er already conditioned to a public school system. Voucheres are likely the way to go. I dunno, I'm already teacing my (kindergarden) daughter all kinds of stuff she is not part of her curriculum (like sounding out simple words, rat, cat, it, bit, lit, nad more.) this is the kind of stuff teacher's get pay'd for damnit!

[Kris]

I am the king of grammer 🙂

[Serafina]

Here is an evaluation of the Florida voucher program for special education students. Parents seem very satisfied with it. As far as costs go, 80 percent of participating families have additional tuition costs, and 29 percent pay more than $1000 above the voucher. Students were far less likely to be victimized in their new schools, and more likely to receive the services parents sought for them.

The private schools are allowed to discriminate in admissions, and they aren't held to the same set of standards that ties funding to these grades, nor are they are obligated to hire certified staff.

[Serafina]

Thinking about the Florida numbers, if private schools can't provide special services for what public schools spend educating these kids--and private schools have much lower teacher salaries, less testing and other regulatory costs--it sure seems that Florida is underfunding its public school special education.

Parents are paying more to get a better education for their kids, something they can't do at the public schools.

I think the taxpayers are getting off cheap.

[quasibill]

Pedagogy tells us that there are many different learning styles. The entertainment market (and the internet) tells us that there are almost an infinite number of interests for people.

Why is this relevant? Well, studies have shown that kids learn when they're interested (duh). One study in particular showed that a popular video RPG helped teenage boys learn algebra very quickly with little supervision - they wanted to know which spell was better, and needed to reverse engineer the formulas, etc.

Teaching professionals recognize this, and attempts have been made in public schools to introduce this sort of specialization. In Philly, they set up a virtual school (in the sense that it was not a separate structure from a larger school) to cater to boys who were sports oriented. Unfortunately, the large bureaucracy swallowed it whole (as well as the failure to make it a separate school), and while this 'experiment' still is on the books to the tune of several million a year, there is essentially no such program.

Large, centralized bureaucracies can't manage such small experiments. It's an established fact.

On the other hand, there are several small charter schools who are working on the same model and are doing very well with underserved ESL students. Teachers will tell you smaller classes are better. Principals will tell you that smaller schools are easier to manage. But politicians will tell you bigger schools are cheaper, which allows them to funnel the money saved to their campaign contributors.

And yet the die-hards believe that someday, if we give them even more money, these public schools will suddenly become paragons of efficiency and competent governance.

[M1EK]

"Finally, you miss the point that if all students had vouchers (and there certainly could be differential amounts for special needs students)that competition in education would encourage educational innovation and lower costs."

I assert as many others do that unless schools accepting ANY vouchers are forced to accept ALL vouchers, most would pass on the more difficult special ed students altogether.

Lisa Snell, that's interesting news - I'm from Florida and I had not heard of this change. I'll go read up on it.

[theCoach]

I am all for an honest test of vouchers for schooling - I have a strong suspicion that its effectiveness will vary between rural and urban schools. Florida is a good testing ground, but I think you can pretty much throw out the results in Utah, as Utah is not your typical state - but if it works there, good for them.
With that said, you do havee the additional problem with (voucher + special needs allowance) funding in that private schools will expend a lot of energy finding the most profitable students at the margins (if private health care is any indication).
And you have a problem that libertarians would rather not think about. It is feasible that a voucher system will further defund public schools, leaving the kids with the least attentitive parents (the ones that really need the most help) with the losing end of the stick. I understand the desire of libertarians to punish people for making bad choices, but not the children of people making bad choices.
(I also suspect that a voucher system will offer very little that could not be combined with hybrid public school system that negotiated contracts for teaching services, but supplied the public schooling infrastructure - there could certainly be innovations in buildings and infrastructure, but probably not outweighing the cost of planning and maintaining multiple (duplicate use) buildings in most areas).

[Serafina]

Vouchers would do very little for students in rural areas, especially in states that constitutionally prohibit public money going to sectarian schools.

[M1EK]

oh great, my two links about the florida experiment got crapcanned into moderation. Well, google it yourself; suffice to say opinions are very mixed; some have said it's great because parents like it; others have said it stinks because the vouchers don't cover full cost in many (most?) circumstances, so the poorest kids can't go.

[Jennifer]

I'm already teacing my (kindergarden) daughter all kinds of stuff she is not part of her curriculum (like sounding out simple words, rat, cat, it, bit, lit, nad more.) this is the kind of stuff teacher's get pay'd for damnit!

Unfortunately, you're wrong about "what teachers get paid for." You're using phonics to teach your daughter how to read; phonics has been abandoned by most public schools today, in favor of "whole word" reading. Which is yet another reason our educational standards are in steep decline.

[Serafina]

Phonics hasn't been abandoned by reading instruction in public schools by any means. It's alive and well and boring some students to tears and helping others build basic reading skills. Schools are using a variety of teaching methods.

[nmg]

Did anyone read Lisa Snell before posting?

Why should they? The facts be damned. Hell M1EK has *asserted* that no private schools will bother to serve special needs kids so therefore it's true. Nevermind that competition in any industry always finds a way to serve niche markets. Never mind that current public education costs are skyhigh precisely because there's no motive to manage costs or actually negotiate honestly with our taxpayer dollars over the demands of the unions. No, it's simply impossible that any school could end up specializing for that segment of the market.

Good grief. Anyone who tries to claim that competition will result is even lowered service quality for consumers is a fool, pure and simple. The facts be damned. We MUST not allow school choice because... because.... umm.... well... I can't figure out their reasons but reason certainly doesn't play a part.

nmg

[M1EK]

"Nevermind that competition in any industry always finds a way to serve niche markets."

Cab drivers here won't serve disabled customers unless the city _makes_ them. They're expensive (i.e. unprofitable) - and there's no obvious way for somebody to make enough money to make it worthwhile while still charging a small enough fee that those perspective customers can actually afford to pay.

We learned this the hard way. (Yes, I was on the city commission that had oversight responsibility for cab services).

Parallels are pretty freakin' obvious. The market, in fact, is usually pretty damn BAD at serving expensive niches.

[Captain Awesome]

If I understand:
It doesn't work for taxis in this city. Therefore, the data on a working experiment must be invalid for schools in Florida?

[Jadagul]

TheCoach: While part of me wants to agree with you, I suspect that 95% of those kids aren't going to learn anything, but will disrupt classrooms and keep other kids from learning. So it's unfortunate, but getting them out of the system might be a good thing.

[joe]

'the "additional state and federal funds" don't begin to cover the additional costs of a high-needs special needs student.

Then how are the additional costs covered? Santa Claus?'

No, crimethink, they're "covered" by raiding the overall operating budget, to the point where some schools have had to cancel entire programs.

Which the schools are compelled to do by state law, under the "free and appropriate" standard.

If private schools were similarly required to accept these students, and similarly required to cover their educational costs beyond the value of the vouchers, then we'd have a parallel.

[M1EK]

Captain Awesome,

"Good grief. Anyone who tries to claim that competition will result is even lowered service quality for consumers is a fool, pure and simple"

was the (sarcastic) statement that I was responding to. It's a generalized statement, so I responded with a counterexample from the real world which disproves it. Dig?

[Pas Cher Adidas Chaussures]

Like the fact that you said.Writting so well