"Let the money follow the child," say choicers repeatedly, but the more honest plea would be "Let your money follow my child." But that's not how they present it. Take this quote from today's Washington Post piece: “It’s the parents’ money to use as they see is best,” said Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio. “We don’t necessarily see it as taxpayer money.”
I think that this is a big part of why that slogan of "getting your tax money back" hasn't been used in Florida, where vouchers are being very aggressively pushed. It's much more about, "empowering parents' choice" (at least in the political communication I've seen).
Also, I wouldn't think that reminding people of whose money is going toward vouchers would be a very effective way to push against them, because many of the people who this message might resonate with are going to be equally frustrated with their money going toward funding public school programs that they disagree with.
Agreed. With a local district, they have a local board they can holler at or run for, and the local public school can't throw them out for being on the wrong side of one of these disagreements, but I agree that some voucher fans don't really get that. I'm not sure how we ever get back to the ideas of pluralistic democracy.
As a thought experiment that extends the voucher/privatization logic, suppose all of the school taxes were eliminated & replaced by a student loan program. We are already close to that in higher ed and can see who would be on board.
The politicians would be thrilled to hand out the tax cuts while creating profit opportunities for lenders and loan servicers. School operators would be able to freely adjust tuition to capture their preferred market and ROI. Note that ROI is not necessarily $ but could be numbers of disciples or indoctrinated minds.
With parents on the hook for repayment (along with students) they’ll be far more engaged. There’s motivation to ensure the school delivers good value for the $ and that their kids fully participate & don’t check out. It’s human nature to appreciate something you paid for vs something free. Teachers benefit from engaged students & spend less energy on those who just don’t want to be there.
Of course, as we learned during the pandemic, the daycare function of schools is probably even more important to parents than the education. That’s another business opportunity - low cost, no frills warehousing of kids with no interest in education & parents unwilling to invest in their learning.
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating this. Here is the real thought to chew on: in China, they have as many students just in their top 10% as we have in total.
I think that this is a big part of why that slogan of "getting your tax money back" hasn't been used in Florida, where vouchers are being very aggressively pushed. It's much more about, "empowering parents' choice" (at least in the political communication I've seen).
Also, I wouldn't think that reminding people of whose money is going toward vouchers would be a very effective way to push against them, because many of the people who this message might resonate with are going to be equally frustrated with their money going toward funding public school programs that they disagree with.
Agreed. With a local district, they have a local board they can holler at or run for, and the local public school can't throw them out for being on the wrong side of one of these disagreements, but I agree that some voucher fans don't really get that. I'm not sure how we ever get back to the ideas of pluralistic democracy.
As a thought experiment that extends the voucher/privatization logic, suppose all of the school taxes were eliminated & replaced by a student loan program. We are already close to that in higher ed and can see who would be on board.
The politicians would be thrilled to hand out the tax cuts while creating profit opportunities for lenders and loan servicers. School operators would be able to freely adjust tuition to capture their preferred market and ROI. Note that ROI is not necessarily $ but could be numbers of disciples or indoctrinated minds.
With parents on the hook for repayment (along with students) they’ll be far more engaged. There’s motivation to ensure the school delivers good value for the $ and that their kids fully participate & don’t check out. It’s human nature to appreciate something you paid for vs something free. Teachers benefit from engaged students & spend less energy on those who just don’t want to be there.
Of course, as we learned during the pandemic, the daycare function of schools is probably even more important to parents than the education. That’s another business opportunity - low cost, no frills warehousing of kids with no interest in education & parents unwilling to invest in their learning.
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating this. Here is the real thought to chew on: in China, they have as many students just in their top 10% as we have in total.