Just to add to your argument:

My sister-in-law spent two years teaching at a charter school. She quit because she perceived pressure to inflate progress reports. Charter schools are supposed to be synonymous with educational success, but hers was failing to produce the fantastic statistics or even anecdotal evidence that make for great movies. The fact is, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him/her drink.

School choice, as promoted by conservatives, is likely to draw off the most motivated families and students from our public schools. In other words, it will help students whose family situations already give them the highest likelihood for success, even in below average schools; families who already understand the importance of a good education and doing your homework every day. They inculcate values such as hard work and personal responsibility in their children.

Left behind will be the children who need excellent schools the most; those whose families are broken beyond repair or otherwise dysfunctional, whose parents not only don’t care if their children do their homework…they don’t even know if their children have homework. These are the parents who tell the teachers, “Don’t call me; I don’t want to get involved.”

Once those motivated families leave the public schools how likely is it that those parents will be activists for excellent public schools? How likely is it that the remaining families will step up to fill in the volunteer spots left vacant? How likely is it that the remaining students will step up and be role models and leaders?

Once those kids whose parents will take advantage of choice have left, the failing schools will disinigrate to the point they shut down. The remainder of the kids will go to other schools, as will the competent teachers, the rest of the staff will get a job pumping gas and the administrators will find some other civil service position to fail at.

I agree with the school board comments, one thing to keep in mind is the tendancy of unions to buy said elections. They tend to be the highest donors for certain candidates, who then amazingly vote for whatever the unions want.

We lock the best and the brightest and the most motivated into mediocrity (at best) so we can be “fair” to the unmotivated and those who just don’t give a damn.

Ok.

For the record, I support vouchers, charter schools, and privatization of the education system. The public school system worked until about 1965 or so. After that, it collapsed. Today public education is just a blackhole for tax dollars.

Having said that, I think you are addressing a reasonable concern. The problem is that there is not only very little motivation for conservative leaning educators to enter the public school system, there are also actual roadblocks to them doing so. In my state, teacher pay in public schools dwarfs what most private schools offer, so actual compensation isn’t the issue. The problem is, as you pointed out, the serious issue of student discipline and parental involvement. You can only suspend a kid so many times before you have to give up on them. If the parents aren’t around or don’t give a hoot, what can you do?

Additionally, most public school teachers in my area are more than slightly left-leaning. That includes principals and administrators who are involved in the hiring process. I’m not saying that it is as difficult for a conservative to be hired in the public school system as it is at the university level, but it is starting down that road. Administrators seem to want compliance with standardized test scores and that’s about it. Any variance from preparing kids for those tests is considered unacceptable and rapidly dealt with. I agree that wresting back control of the school boards is an important step, but how do we unload the baggage that is the liberal education establishment?

Anything short of that is tinkering at the edges – it’s rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

In point of fact, our ‘best & brightest’ shouldn’t be in public schools in the first place – they should be in private educational institutions where learning is the first (and pretty much only) goal, and where the zombies of “diversity” & “political correctness” are left far, far behind.

I didn’t realize that anyone was purporting that vouchers and charter schools were going to solve all the problems of education.

I thought all along that we were just saying that it was a common sense alternative that should be exploited.

Are you saying that we shouldn’t do something that won’t perfectly address the needs of every student? If not, what’s the point of your diary?

Proper grammar saves lives.

Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

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Ok, here is the situation on the ground where I live: Bronx, NY.

A few miles from me is one of the best public high schools in the United States: Bronx High School of Science. It has about 2,500 students and the per pupil cost was around $11,000 a few years ago (the most recent statistics I could find).

Closer are four private high schools; two independent and two religious. Tuitions range from the low 20s to the low 30s. All four together do not have as many students as Bronx Science. All four offer outstanding academics, as does Bronx Science.

How large a voucher or tax credit is deserved? If it is the same as the cost of Bronx Science, it will do poor children no good whatsoever. (I might add that Bronx Science has selective admissions and is probably harder to get into than any of the private schools mentioned.) If it is the same as the most expensive of the private schools, why shouldn’t Bronx Science also get an extra $10k or so per student?

And what would prevent the four private schools from simply increasing tuition by the amount of the voucher? Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut do give some direct aid to some private independent schools, but they prohibit the school from charging the students beyond what they get from tax money.

And why should the public be subsidizing inefficiently run schools? One reason Bronx Science is so inexpensive is that there really are significant economies of scale in education.

Finally, how would the vouchers get paid for? I know that seems like a silly question given that we are spending hundreds of billions bailing out Wall Street, but eventually we have to stop printing money. Is there any support for a tax increase to support a voucher program?

As an Orthodox Jew, I would love to see Jewish schools get some help. (One of the four private schools mentioned is indeed an Orthodox Jewish school.) But I have yet to see adequate answers to these practical questions.

Herodotus, Diogenes and Hermes, all together right here on RedState.

If your students are failing you get fired period….run it like a business…unions care about themselves it is the few that really care about the students and the biggest thing to remove is social programs….reading, writing, history and for God’s sake physical education for 45 minutes a day!

Reward success and you will have successful schools!