CICEM (cicem-usa.org) has as it’s purpose to help inform and assist to better understand traditionalist and classical liberal ideas for college students. It offers a free subscription to a student’s choice of any one of six publications.
The whole discussion of school choice begs the question that the government is a natural monopoly for secondary education. On what basis? As that is clearly a false premise, the argument is really about protecting union jobs, which is painfully obvious. The arguments for the utility of parental control of their children's education are all fine, but it's still a shame it's an argument we're forced by the government and public unions to make.
There is a fascinating experiment in school choice in Quebec. In the 1960s members of the Jewish community suggested to leaders of the province that instead of building new government schools to absorb the peak of the baby boom they offer vouchers covering 2/3 of the cost of educating a pupil to allow students to go to private schools. Due to the structure of education in Quebec at the time, with government schools run by a Protestant School Board and a Catholic School Board, the vouchers were offered only to non-Christian students for use in schools of non-Christian religions.
The effect on Jewish schools was huge, with increases of over 4 fold in enrollment. There were a variety of motivations of the parents - not just getting a Jewish education, but lower drug use and excellent teachers. There was a perception by teachers of secular subjects that these were the best schools at which to teach. In contrast to many religious schools in the US, the Jewish schools in Quebec paid the same as the government schools, and offered more holiday days, both those of the government schools and Jewish holidays, making working at these schools very attractive.
I don't know if anyone has written a proper history of this school choice experiment, but it would be a fascinating study. Both the families and the province seem to think this was a great success.
One of the core lessons was that the success of these schools depended on being able to offer pay that was competitive with that of teachers in government schools. The vouchers made that possible. In the USA, pay in many private schools is not competitive with pay in government schools.
Until you address the fact that public schools in urban areas aren’t actually set up to educate the young and are instead a way of funneling money to loyal Democrats, you won’t get very far. This needs to be stated repeatedly in public settings. In my experience people are afraid to say it.
CICEM (cicem-usa.org) has as it’s purpose to help inform and assist to better understand traditionalist and classical liberal ideas for college students. It offers a free subscription to a student’s choice of any one of six publications.
The whole discussion of school choice begs the question that the government is a natural monopoly for secondary education. On what basis? As that is clearly a false premise, the argument is really about protecting union jobs, which is painfully obvious. The arguments for the utility of parental control of their children's education are all fine, but it's still a shame it's an argument we're forced by the government and public unions to make.
There is a fascinating experiment in school choice in Quebec. In the 1960s members of the Jewish community suggested to leaders of the province that instead of building new government schools to absorb the peak of the baby boom they offer vouchers covering 2/3 of the cost of educating a pupil to allow students to go to private schools. Due to the structure of education in Quebec at the time, with government schools run by a Protestant School Board and a Catholic School Board, the vouchers were offered only to non-Christian students for use in schools of non-Christian religions.
The effect on Jewish schools was huge, with increases of over 4 fold in enrollment. There were a variety of motivations of the parents - not just getting a Jewish education, but lower drug use and excellent teachers. There was a perception by teachers of secular subjects that these were the best schools at which to teach. In contrast to many religious schools in the US, the Jewish schools in Quebec paid the same as the government schools, and offered more holiday days, both those of the government schools and Jewish holidays, making working at these schools very attractive.
I don't know if anyone has written a proper history of this school choice experiment, but it would be a fascinating study. Both the families and the province seem to think this was a great success.
One of the core lessons was that the success of these schools depended on being able to offer pay that was competitive with that of teachers in government schools. The vouchers made that possible. In the USA, pay in many private schools is not competitive with pay in government schools.
Until you address the fact that public schools in urban areas aren’t actually set up to educate the young and are instead a way of funneling money to loyal Democrats, you won’t get very far. This needs to be stated repeatedly in public settings. In my experience people are afraid to say it.