Jane Galt on changing the education system:
Democrats complaining that a voucher system would lead to massive stratification by income leave me slightly flabbergasted. In what way could our educational system possibly become more stratified than it already is, short of just pulling poor kids out of school entirely and sending them to work in the coal mines at age six? Is it really conceivable that kids in inner city schools could get a worse education even from some awful fly-by-night unit where the books are written in Swahili, than they are currently enjoying right there at PS 82? I mean, at least they might learn a little Swahili…
[T]he programmes introduced to help the poor and needy . . . the magnet schools, the special education, the smaller class sizes, and so forth . . . somehow always end up captured by middle-class parents who are motivated, and know how to game the system. In fact, it’s almost an iron law: if you introduce a good programme into any school system, almost no one will benefit from it except middle class parents. All of these well-meaning schemes are, in fact, a bigger subsidy to middle class parents who don’t need it than a voucher would be; at least they won’t be getting any more public funds than low-income kids. Charter schools initially started in the hopes of helping needy kids, if they are good, end up with their lotteries flooded by every middle class parent who is willing to spend 45 minutes each way driving little junior to school.
Meanwhile, the teacher’s unions are making sure that any teacher with experience gets to transfer out of low-income schools as soon as they have dried out behind the ears.
Given these political imperatives, how could a voucher system possibly be worse?
Update: Jane Galt expands on her arguments here.
4 Comments
“…how could a voucher system possibly be worse?”
Because it doesn’t address the underlying problems she outlines. Instead, it places yet another barrier to quality education for poor and lower-middle-class kids ON TOP of those that already exist. Thus, worse.
Yes, the current system is messed up, but that doesn’t mean that any change made will lead to an improvement. You could change the phrase “a voucher system” in the last sentence above to “a massive increase in the amount of protein in school lunches,” or “mandatory daily searches of all students’ persons and lockers” or “enforced prayer” and have the same amount of logical coherence.
I did got to the article linked above, and still couldn’t find anything resembling an argument in favor of vouchers beyond “the current, voucherless system is no good.”
Yeah, nobody’s ever managed to explain to me how vouchers are not just another program that’s going to “end up captured by middle-class parents who are motivated, and know how to game the system.”
Jane Galt, in another blog post written as if she was reading these comments, says:
I agree with that, too, more or less.