The Controversial School Voucher Issue
An issue that has become more prevalent lately is that of the declining education that is received in public schools across America. I recently watched an interview in which various European high school students were given an exam from the United States which most American students seemed to struggle with. Not only were the European students exam scores incredibly higher but when asked to comment on the American exam a typical response was, “the test was very easy; if American students can not do the exam then they are very stupid.” In many countries in Europe, government funding for students is tied to the individual student and will follow them to the school they choose to attend. This creates competition amongst the schools, resulting in increased efforts in order to earn the students’ registration. Unlike public schools in America where there is great difficulty in removing a poor performing teacher, in Europe the teachers must perform well in order for the school to remain competitive and stay in business. This creates great incentive for administrators to only hire and keep teachers who perform well. The issue of introducing school vouchers across America would serve to move the country to greater resemble the competitive system found in Europe. There are still some downfalls associated with the voucher system, but would those downfalls provide a greater cost-benefit analysis in comparison to the current declining system?
3 comments:
Noah: would you have a problem with home schooling if it produced better test scores (because it tends to)?
Other than that, I'm going to recuse myself - I've done funded research on this issue
Dr. Tufte said that home schooling tends to produce better test scores. I believe that this can be true, but only if the kids are home-schooled correctly (sticking the kids in front of a TV while the parents pocket the money is NOT good homeschooling). Of course kids are going to be better students if their moms are involved in their academic lives and pushing them scholastically. If all moms would be that involved with their public-schooled kids, I think we'd have an even better result – great academics AND social skills. I think one of the biggest elements affecting this is parent involvement.
Agreed.
The next step then is what sort of incentive scheme produces the best results.
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