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#411
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
I happened to look at a page I'd turned back in _Market_Education_
_The_Unknown_History_ and stumbled back across something I'd forgotten about that is relevant to the segregation/integration discussion. Quoting from page 277: "Political scientist Jay Greene and his colleague Nicole Metler recently attempted to overcome this limitation by looking at the level of integration in school lunchrooms. Voluntary lunchroom seating patterns, they reasoned, are a much better indicator of true integration than are overall school-enrollment figures. What Greene and Mellow found is that private schools, particularly religious ones, produce much higher racial integration in their lunchrooms than do public schools." The citation in the endnotes is: Jay P. Greene, "Integration Where It Counts: A Study of Racial Integration in Public and Private School Lunchrooms," paper presented to the American Political Science Association, Boston, September 1998. |
#412
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"toto" wrote in message ... On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay" wrote: Not in government schools. I just want families to be able to choose schools where a prayer can be led someone, where the Ten Commandments can be displayed on the wall, and so forth, without having to pay thousands of dollars extra for a choice that in reality costs no more than it would cost a government school to educate the children. Here's a mainstream Jewish view: http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edt..._vouchers.html Your argument appears to be this one: Parents whose religious conscience precludes them from using the public schools are in effect taxed double when they also pay tuition for their children's mandatory secular education in denominational schools. The counter is that: In fact, all citizens, including single persons, childless couples, and retired couples, pay taxes to support public schools, regardless of use. No one is taxed to support a religious school any more than one is taxed to support a church or synagogue. A nice ostrich imitation, but not a logically sound argument. The reality is that families who send their children to private schools, and people who donate significantly to them, pay far more than their share of the total cost of our having an educated society, while those who do not help pay for private schools pay less than their share. Call it what you will, but in practical terms, the effect is just as unfair as double taxation whether it should technically be considered double taxation or not. (I posted a much longer argument regarding this issue excerpted from my book a few days ago.) However, tax subsidies to private schools which the public cannot control would truly constitute "double taxation" of other taxpayers; in fact, it would be "taxation without representation." Voucher tax dollars would be spent according to the policies and directives of a private school board, not through the decisions of a democratically elected and publicly accountable public school board. The same argument could be used to label food stamps "taxation without representation" since society exercises only very broad control over how the food stamps are spent. The reality, of course, is that vouchers have a quality control mechanism that has generally proven AT LEAST as effective as what the public schools have. That mechanism is direct accountability to the people who actually use the product or service (or, for children's products and services, their parents). There is no logical reason to think that we wouldn't get our money's worth. [Generally, schools are funded according to enrollment or actual attendance. When a parent sends a child to a private school, the local public school receives no tax funds for that child. No, the parent does not receive a credit; the taxes are instead diverted to police, fire, parks, etc.] Which is why I argue that the current structure takes unfair advantage of the minority who use and support private schools for the benefit of the majority, thereby violating the concept of the equal protection of the laws. The minority is stuck with a cost that would normally be paid by the taxpayers as a whole, and the majority gets to use the savings for other purposes. |
#413
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"toto" wrote in message ... On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:07:58 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay" How hard, and in how many places, have you looked? Are you really saying that the peer pressure issue has nothing to do with why some Jews and Moslems send their children to Jewish or Moslem schools? And if so, how do you know? I notice you leave out Hindus (maybe because there are not many Hindu day schools?) My dil is Hindu. My husband is Jewish. I live in a very diverse area which includes those of all these religions and more - Bahai, for example are numerous here. The only proselytizers are fundamentalist Christians. Some Catholics may proselytize in some circumstances though not among children as far as I know. Why does it matter? If anything, your apparent prejudice against religions that proselytize looks like evidence that you are trying to take advantage of the current situation to put non-prosylitizing religions in a stronger position compared with prosylitizing ones. That would violate the Establishment Clause. |
#414
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Donna Metler" wrote in message news "Nathan A. Barclay" wrote in message ... Unless MOST families send their children to such after-school activities, and do so for academic reasons rather than because the activities are something the children enjoy, what you are doing is demanding that families who want their children to study religion accept a special, extra burden above and beyond the burden that other families carry. You refuse to offer them the option of substituting a religion class for some other class that they consider less valuable (an art class, for example). That constitutes discrimination by government against the choice to study religion as an elective. Do a majority of families send their children to weekday religious education classes? The common practice where I grew up was Church and Sunday school on Sunday AM, Youth Fellowship (which was much more social than worship) for middle and high school kids on Sunday night, Choir practice on Wednesday night. This was mainline protestant churches. My impression (from very few data points; you likely have more than I do) is that families tend to either do something along the lines of what you describe or go all-out and send their children to religious schools. With religious schools, a religion class can be substituted for something else without really adding an extra time burden to the kids. In contrast, extra classes outside school would create an additional time burden, especially since it would involve an academic study rather than something done mostly or entirely for fun like ballet or soccar. Add to that the cost (if the teacher is a trained professional who needs to be paid accordingly) and logistical issues, and daily religious studies outside school are not exactly the world's most attractive option. I know a lot more parents who send their children to ballet class, soccer practice, or piano lessons during the school week than who send their children to weekday religion classes. Keep in mind that the distribution is not even. Members of some religious groups are more likely than members of others to send their children to religious schools or, if they can't do that, possibly arrange some other kind of relatively intensive religious instruction. Further, within any given denomination or congregation, the members most likely to send their children to such schools or programs would tend to be among the most devout, and I would expect usually among the most conservative. So the pattern we have is that a lot of families don't mind how the public schools handle religion at all, some would like to have something more like what the public schools used to be before the Supreme Court intervened, and some would prefer full-blown religious schools. Thus, the system taxes everyone the same, gives some families almost exactly what they want based on their religious viewpoints, gives some something pretty close, and gives a small but significant percentage something they dislike enough that they're willing to pay out of their own pockets to avoid using it if they have to. The practical effect is to establish religious groups, factions, and families that like the public schools in a favored position over those that dislike them and want schools where religion will play a significantly larger role. |
#415
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"toto" wrote in message ... On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 00:23:56 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay" wrote: "Donna Metler" wrote in message ... If it's only one class, couldn't this be accommodated by release time or via an after school program? The problem there is a matter of logistics. In a religious school, a religion teacher can teach five or six classes a day. The same would be theoretically possible with a "release time" format, but how do you make it work in practice if the kids are spread across three or four different public schools and even the kids at the same school have different schedules? And where would the classes be held? I'm thinking they wouldn't be allowed inside the school itself, although I'm not quite 100% sure about that. But if that is true, either there would have to be another building handy nearby to hold the classes in or transportation would have to be arranged (adding trouble and cost, and eating into time available for instruction). I can only say that for Catholics that problem is not an issue. The classes are held at the local Catholic schools nearest to the particular public school that is being accomodated. Or in the Church nearest that school. Transportation was by walking when I went to school. What kind of population density was involved, and what kind of density of Catholics? And what kind of walking distances were required? I don't know what kind of place you live in, but both the city I grew up in (Montgomery, Alabama) and the one where I live now (Huntsville) are largely dominated by single-family homes. That produces a much lower population density than apartment buildings several stories tall would. For a religion that isn't among the dominant ones, that can mean pretty long distances between churches. If this is not practical, then it certainly isn't practical for the child to be transported through your voucher system either. Cars? Carpools? School busses? But by the time you transport kids very far for a "release time" program, and then transport them back, you've eaten into a lot of the time that would otherwise be available for instruction. (And the same would be true for any non-trivial walking distance.) After-school programs have other logistical issues. The kids have to be transported to wherever the instruction takes place, and if one teacher would teach as many separate classes in a religious school, the classes would run until around 9:00 at night. More than one teacher? Then you turn a full-time job requiring one teacher into a part-time job for multiple teachers, which makes it a lot harder to have enough teachers with the desired level of training and experience. What makes you think that there are so many students that one class would not be sufficient? The school I went to. My high school Bible teacher taught something along the lines of five Bible classes a day plus the Chorus class. And that's just for grades 10-12 or maybe 9-12. Fewer classes would have been possible if we accepted a worse student-teacher ratio, but considering that public schools don't have lecture classes of fifty or a hundred or more students for History and Social Studies, why should such ratios be considered any more reasonable for Bible classes? The problem isn't as easy to solve as it looks at first glance like it ought to be. I went to those classes when I went to school. It certainly didn't seem to be a problem for the Catholic Church. I cannot see why other religions could not do the same thing. I'd have to know more about your situation growing up (including the answers to the questions I raised earlier) to address that issue. |
#416
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"Circe" wrote in message news:8hYEc.10917$Qj6.10251@fed1read05... Nathan A. Barclay wrote: That distinction has been in place for decades with regard to financial aid for college students, Missed the recent Washington state Supreme Court decision, did you? They specifically ruled that the state could refuse to fund a scholarship to an eligible individual because he wanted to use the money to study theology at a religious college without infringing that individual's free exercise. In this case, the Washington State Constitution specifically bars government financial support of religious entities. That's a state constitution issue, not a First Amendment issue. And if I lived in Washington, I'd be pushing for an amendment. The original goal of the Washington provision may have made sense at the time it was written, but when a state funds practically anything else that a college chooses to offer and a student chooses to study, singling out people who study religion to deny them funding seems grossly unfair. |
#417
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
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#418
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 12:46:56 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote: Not true. Why not simply allow the public schools to have the same small class sizes that promoted the learning instead of handing money to *new* schools that factor that in. Because it would cost more - at least in an "apples and apples" comparison where the same number of students are educated using public money either way. The voucher schools cost more. Read the stats I posted. -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#419
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 15:54:07 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote: "toto" wrote in message .. . On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 00:23:56 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay" wrote: "Donna Metler" wrote in message ... If it's only one class, couldn't this be accommodated by release time or via an after school program? The problem there is a matter of logistics. In a religious school, a religion teacher can teach five or six classes a day. The same would be theoretically possible with a "release time" format, but how do you make it work in practice if the kids are spread across three or four different public schools and even the kids at the same school have different schedules? And where would the classes be held? I'm thinking they wouldn't be allowed inside the school itself, although I'm not quite 100% sure about that. But if that is true, either there would have to be another building handy nearby to hold the classes in or transportation would have to be arranged (adding trouble and cost, and eating into time available for instruction). I can only say that for Catholics that problem is not an issue. The classes are held at the local Catholic schools nearest to the particular public school that is being accomodated. Or in the Church nearest that school. Transportation was by walking when I went to school. What kind of population density was involved, and what kind of density of Catholics? And what kind of walking distances were required? The town had a population of about 10,000. I can't say how many were Catholic, but there were a sizable proportion. We had a sizable population of Jewish people as well. Very few apartments, but on the east coast where the houses are closer together. Once reason why I like living in the midwest is elbow room is better. I don't know what kind of place you live in, but both the city I grew up in (Montgomery, Alabama) and the one where I live now (Huntsville) are largely dominated by single-family homes. That produces a much lower population density than apartment buildings several stories tall would. For a religion that isn't among the dominant ones, that can mean pretty long distances between churches. If this is not practical, then it certainly isn't practical for the child to be transported through your voucher system either. Cars? Carpools? School busses? But by the time you transport kids very far for a "release time" program, and then transport them back, you've eaten into a lot of the time that would otherwise be available for instruction. (And the same would be true for any non-trivial walking distance.) You don't transport them back. It's the last period of the day that they are released for and then they return home, not back to school. After-school programs have other logistical issues. The kids have to be transported to wherever the instruction takes place, and if one teacher would teach as many separate classes in a religious school, the classes would run until around 9:00 at night. More than one teacher? Then you turn a full-time job requiring one teacher into a part-time job for multiple teachers, which makes it a lot harder to have enough teachers with the desired level of training and experience. What makes you think that there are so many students that one class would not be sufficient? The school I went to. My high school Bible teacher taught something along the lines of five Bible classes a day plus the Chorus class. And that's just for grades 10-12 or maybe 9-12. Fewer classes would have been possible if we accepted a worse student-teacher ratio, but considering that public schools don't have lecture classes of fifty or a hundred or more students for History and Social Studies, why should such ratios be considered any more reasonable for Bible classes? My Catholic School classes had 60 to 65 students to one teacher, but then the nuns expected a different kind of behavior than a public school teacher would have gotten with the same number of students. The problem isn't as easy to solve as it looks at first glance like it ought to be. I went to those classes when I went to school. It certainly didn't seem to be a problem for the Catholic Church. I cannot see why other religions could not do the same thing. I'd have to know more about your situation growing up (including the answers to the questions I raised earlier) to address that issue. -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#420
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School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
"toto" wrote in message ... On 2 Jul 2004 08:45:20 -0700, (abacus) wrote: Fine by me. I honestly don't care. But why is it that the private schools provided that smaller class size - if indeed that is the reason for the improvement - while the public schools did not? And why is it that you object to allowing parents more options for their children's education? Money Follow the money into those schools and guess where it goes. In addition, voucher accepting private schools often don't have to meet the same standards for accountability public schools do. While this is OK when parents are paying the bills, when you're asking the public as a whole to do so, it seems like a bad choice to remove that oversight. And when you're using public school "accountability" as a way to select students, sending students to schools without any official oversight seems like a step backwards. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_vouchers_070 1.html "There have been other voucher system problems. In the past four months, among the problems The Post has reported we n Two voucher-taking schools in Jacksonville were simultaneously being run by people who were already being paid publicly financed salaries to run charter schools. One of the directors listed identical addresses and phone numbers for both of her schools. n Another McKay voucher-taking school in Jacksonville saw its state money cut off after department officials found that 14 students getting McKay vouchers there were actually enrolled in local public schools. The state learned of this only after a parent complained about her inability to transfer her McKay voucher to a different private school. n The operator of a failed Boca Raton charter school that still owed the Palm Beach County School District $126,000 reopened his school as a private school and then received $22,000 in McKay vouchers. n The operator of a Tallahassee school for dyslexic children nearly doubled her per-student tuition in the years since the McKay program was created - so that parents now receiving a voucher will be paying as much out of pocket, about $5,000, as they were before vouchers were created.... " "Bush's press office also continues to defend the voucher programs. "The vast majority of schools are providing a quality education for Florida's students, who are learning at unprecedented levels," Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre said Tuesday in responding to the Bartow arrests. Asked what proof the state had of this, DiPietre did not respond. The state does not track the academic progress of students on McKay or corporate tax credit vouchers, the schools' curricula or the teachers' qualifications. "For all the positives they keep talking about these schools, they're getting overwhelmed by corruption and people trying to scam the system," said Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein of Delray Beach. " -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
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