Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi have co-authored a couple of books. One of them, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke, includes a plea for school vouchers:
Warren and Tyagi point out that families buy homes they cannot afford in order to live in a neighborhood with better schools. Their proposed solution, however-to institute a public school voucher system with wider choice-is less carefully thought out.
Who knew that Warren was a champion of this great conservative hobby horse? I’ll bet that gets her a few votes at her confirmation hearing.
A Guest
I’ll bet that gets her a few votes at her confirmation hearing.
You are a dreamer, aren’t you?
cat48
Mistermix she’s getting old too so hate on her ass too!
Steve M.
A public school voucher system.
No money for Catholic schools. Sorry, the earth doesn’t move for people like K-Lo.
Joe Bauers
I’ll bet that gets her a few votes at her confirmation hearing.
Because honest application of principle to carefully discerned fact is a hallmark of the modern Republican party?
matoko_chan
but vouchers don’t work….why would she buy into that?
there is zero evidence supporting vouchers.
Napoleon
This is a subject I could write 10,000 words on but shorter version is she is right about why people try to get into expensive areas, and the reason those expensive area’s schools metrics are good have nothing to do with them being intrinsically better, but simply because they end up with a lower percentage of students that would tend to drag those metrics down. So you are paying for nothing other then having your kids hob knob with wealthier kids then they would have otherwise.
david mizner
She thinks people ought to be able to send their kids to the public schools of their choice — no government funding for religious schools.
Her idea is untie education from geography and therefore make it unnecessary for people to pay a lot for a house in order to get access to good schools.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but it’s not the kind of voucher program that turns on conservatives.
jwb
@matoko_chan: Didn’t you read the previous post? It’s because she’s a Boomer. Also, I’m sure you can show us studies about how getting old affects IQ and so old people are on an evolutionary dead end, or something. Come on, be creative.
mistermix
@david mizner: Do you think that kind of subtle distinction is going to matter to the vouchers crowd?
4tehlulz
Obviously, this means she’s insufficiently liberal and her nomination would be another slap in the face to liberals.
jhe
Warren is interesting because she uses data to try to understand the phenomenon of increasing debt among the middle class and comes up with a thesis that rings much truer than the “Americans are stupid and lazy” argument. The short version is that in the face of 30 years of flat real income laid against disproportionate increases in costs of the things that enable a family to pass on middle class status (education, health care, education) families have taken on debt to try to pass middle class status on to their kids.
Despite the “two-income trap” which she eloquently describes, the fact that we’ve dropped to 12th in the proportion of college educated suggests that they’re failing.
On th subject of the post, I’ve always been ambivalent about voucher systems. I suspect that a well-implemented one would be a good thing and actually disliked by conservatives.
david mizner
@mistermix:
It’s not really a subtle distinction.
Senator: Do you think parents should be able to use the voucher to send their kids to private schools?
Warren: No.
In any case, she’s not up for Secretary of Education. She doesn’t do Wall Street’s bidding, therefore No Votes for Her! from the (more) corporate party.
Napoleon
@matoko_chan:
I take it from what he quoted she is not advocating vouchers because they work at making schools better but because people think they can get better schools regardless of where they live (whether that is true or not) and so don’t over pay for housing.
mistermix
@Napoleon: It’s more complex than that. Richer districts have more money to spend on individual programs for students with learning disabilities, so if your kid has a disability, they’re more likely to get help, and if they don’t, your kid’s teacher won’t be spending all his or her time focusing on the learning disabled kids in the classroom. And richer districts have parents who are more invested in the success of their kids in school and more likely to volunteer for the school, support the teachers when their kid has disciplinary problems, support bigger school budgets, etc.
This may not be true in all districts, but it’s certainly the case in Rochester and its suburbs, where the rich suburban districts far outperform the city district.
Danny
Elizabeth Warren is actually pretty conservative on a number of issues. She’s a firm believer in pulling yourself up from you bootstraps and personal responsibility. The fact that Republicans hate her because she crusades against corporations screwing the little guy tells you a lot about the modern GOP.
PurpleGirl
I have a friend who intensely researched the public high schools in and around Baltimore just before her daughter would be going to high school. She and husband ended up buying a “new” house in an older area but which was in district for the high school they wanted their daughter to attend. This house was older and a bit smaller than the one they were leaving. But its location was the key for the daughter to attend an arts magnet school.
The key to changing the school quality situation is to untie schools from property taxes
WereBear
It’s not just the money spent on the students, though obviously they need books and a ceiling that doesn’t fall on their heads. It’s expectations and support that really distinguish performance.
Parent A works two jobs and their spouse died because of lack of health insurance so the high schooler who should be thinking about college knows they need a scholarship but have to babysit the younger ones when they’re not at their own afterschool job.
Parent B might work long hours too, but there’s childcare for the littles and SAT camp for the highschooler who also has time for the sports and extracurricular activities that look so good on that college app.
They can be equally intelligent and driven young people. But who is going to go further?
mistermix
@david mizner: Maybe if she agreed to mandate a holographic picture of Jesus on every credit card? Just spitballing here.
Xenos
@PurpleGirl:
But that tie is one of those exceptional American things that is completely impractical, but now that everyone with any means has rearranged their lives to take advantage of it, there is nobody left with any power who will seek to change it.
TR
She believes in vouchers?! Why would Obama nominate her?! OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH!
PeakVT
I agree with Warren that school funding needs to be decoupled from geography, but I don’t think vouchers are the way to do it. Instead of funding schools with revenue from local property taxes, the money should be collected and distributed at the state level.
However, that still wouldn’t solve the issues of a state like Mississippi, where funding is inadequate everywhere.
Omnes Omnibus
@Xenos: Making a change from a property tax funded school system would take time. Central funding would need to be phased in… Wealthier districts would need to be assured that little Jennifer and Justin will not be leveled down to match the poor districts… The list goes on.
It is a good idea, but execution is, as always, the sticking point.
Mike in NC
If every voucher comes with a free bible!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: King James, New Standard, which bible?
PurpleGirl
@Xenos: Yeah, I know. I was raised in NYC but I’ve watched the situation in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties where the richer areas with higher taxes or better commercial tax bases have better schools compared to poorer communities. For example, Roosevelt (LI) compared to its neighboring communities — there is little commercial property and the homes are smaller and older so the taxes are “lower”. (There are many problems with the Roosevelt schools but the tax funding is a basic problem for the district.)
david mizner
@mistermix:
Now you’re talking.
Alternatively, a simple, disavowal under oath of every word she’s spoken and written for the last 20 months ought to get her one or two GOP votes. (Word is, Olympia hasn’t categorically ruled out supporting her.)
QDC
@Napoleon:
How would you choose your child’s school, then? Or are all (or most) school districts interchangeable in your view? This is a question of some practical import to me.
R-Jud
@Omnes Omnibus: The Dr. Seuss Bible!
one two seven
I had really been enjoying this book until I got to this chapter. Though her voucher scheme isn’t as bad as conservatives who want to funnel public money to religious and for-profit enterprises, their scheme is so poorly thought out its laughable it was even published.
If every parent were given the voucher to let their child attend school wherever they wanted, how would that alleviate school inequality, wouldn’t the demand for the quality schools just outstrip the supply and leave the majority of kids out in the cold and back in their inferior classrooms? And how would poor people be able to transport their children to these high quality exurban school districts? Busing? Who pays for that and how do you logistically bus students who attend schools randomly all over a metro area?
None of these questions are even broached in the book.
Omnes Omnibus
@R-Jud: I am not sure that choosing that bible would persuade Republican senators to vote for Warren, which, I believe, was the stated goal.
arguingwithsignposts
This whole debate ignores the swath of Americans who *cannot* move to get into a better school district (i.e., the working poor). Even within districts – in larger ones – there is disparity between schools.
R-Jud
@Omnes Omnibus: In that case, it had better be the King James all the way.
Shame, though.
Omnes Omnibus
@R-Jud: True enough. On the other hand, I don’t know that it matters since they won’t vote for her anyway.
toujoursdan
How would this work?
If you have an excellent school district or school surrounded by a poor school district (i.e., Highland Park, TX surrounded by Dallas ISD, or Beverly Hills surrounded by LAUSD) and there isn’t enough seats, are they auctioned to the highest bidder? Are kids put on a long waiting list?
It seems far simpler to decouple schools from local property taxes and equalize them across the nation. But the most politically influential people (white in rich school district) would fight it tooth and nail.
NonyNony
@Napoleon:
Oh come on now that’s waaaay too simple. I mean I agree that dynamic does occur, but the fact that you’ve moved away from students who “drag those metrics down” generally means that you’ve moved into a different culture of education. One where generally the parents put a high value on education, set expectations for their kids that are high, and that results in a greater peer pressure to do better in school. It also spills over into teachers who have higher expectations for their students, which also leads to better outcomes.
Just by moving your kid from a poor performing district to a better performing one you’ve already shown that you’re one of those parents who puts a high value on education, but you aren’t going to be able to fight against the peer pressure at a poor performing school (from the students who actually have a negative value of education – often reinforced by their parents) nor do you have to fight against the lowered expectations that the teachers at that school have for their students. So at the individual level parents who move their kids to a better performing district probably will get a better education for their kids than if they stay in a poor performing district.
What that inevitably means is that poor performing districts get worse and worse as parents who care about education and have the ability to move move out of the district and leave behind parents who don’t have the ability or who just don’t care.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
As long as the vouchers are used for other public schools, I could compromise on that issue. But if parents want to take public school money out of the system and spend it on private schools, fuck that.
Emma
Omnes Omnibus: actually, there’s an easier way. The federal government looks at the highest spending district in a state and gives matching funds to all those that do not reach that level. DIRECTLY to the district, not going through the state government. Tell the states some of the taxes sent to the federal government will be returned in that fashion. And tell them to suck it up. Call it the Equal Education for all Citizens Act.
And now I need to have my head examined for believing any administration would try it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus #24:
I can haz LOLCat Bible? Kthxbai.
Napoleon
@QDC:
The quality of their offerings and course studies. I would litterally ignore the test results because there are so many factors that go into what kind of test results you get., with the exception that I would stay away from anything testing in, say, the bottom 1/4. By the way, it just so happens that the district I live in actually has a lot of cheap housing (also some very expensive housing), a fairly large immigrent population, yet still test pretty good, and has great offerings and course studies.
http://www.greatschools.org/ohio/mayfield-heights/Mayfield-City-School-District/schools/
@mistermix:
I did say I could write 10,000 word on it. By the way a perfect example of a school district that actually doesn’t do that great in state testing but I would guess is the best system in this area (north east Ohio) is this one that I believe was subject to a PBS show a few years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaker_Heights_High_School
Svensker
@mistermix:
We saw this up close and personal when our son was growing up. When he was young we lived in Hoboken which, at the time, had the 3rd worst school performance in the state (the mayor thought that was a GOOD thing, because they weren’t the worst! I kid not). So, the schools were terrible, but the school budget was one of the highest in the state. The teachers were (mostly) all relatives of mobsters, but the students were only poor kids from the projects, whose parents were not very involved in the education process. The mobster kids all went to Catholic schools. So, very high budget school, but the teachers were terrible, administration was skimming off huge amounts of money and kids weren’t benefiting — but their parents weren’t involved enough to change the system.
We moved to one of the richer suburbs (in order to take advantage of better schools). Schools had a high end budget, but lower than the Hoboken schools, but the parental involvement was intense. Teachers were great, everything was topnotch.
That was an abject lesson that higher budgets don’t necessarily mean better schools — if the school administrators and teachers are crooks who don’t give a shit about the kids.
Roger Moore
@Svensker:
I guess that means it’s vital to keep the Republicans away, then.
caune
Why would you need vouchers for Public Schools? Aren’t they free? Is she really saying there should be open enrollment in Public Schools?
burnspbesq
I went to school in one of those richer NJ suburbs that Svensker refers to in her earlier comment. Our schools were nationally known for quality.
Every year, the voters dutifully trooped to the polls and approved the school budget and the high property taxes required to fund it. People understand the correlation between school quality and real estate value, and are willing to protect their investment when given the opportunity to do so.
More importantly, people want what’s best for their kids. If my kid hadn’t gotten into the arts charter school in our county (which is also very highly ranked academically), we would have moved – there was no way he was going to the high school in whose attendance district we reside.
The long term solution to the problem of variable quality in public schools is to invest enough so that (to stay with your example) every school in Rochester can be as good as Penfield or Brighton. We’re a long way from that, and vouchers are a potential interim solution. The issue for the left, of course, is that vouchers effectively create a market for schools, and the unfortunately widespread belief that “market = evil” causes cognitive processes to shut down before any serious thought takes place.
burnspbesq
@toujoursdan:
Damn right we will. The states (or the Feds) can and should mandate minimum levels of spending that are applicable across the board, and use grants or some other redistributive mechanism to ensure that every school district has that minimum amount to spend. But if the residents of a particular community are willing to tax themselves to have more, who the fuck are you to tell them they shouldn’t do that? Why is it necessary to grind down the top in order to raise the bottom?
Sheila
Whatever happened to magnet schools? They worked well here in Milwaukee for quite a long while. Does this mean that Elizabeth Warren is not the only qualified person in the US to head the consumer protection agency?
aretino
No, it won’t get any votes from Republicans. But it will give Saint Russ an excuse to join the GOP filibuster.
toujoursdan
@burnspbesq:
Because if you don’t, America will still have an economically apartheid system.
YellowJournalism
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I haven’t read her book, but from what I’ve read of her opinion on this, I think that’s exactly what she’s proposing. Where I live, we have a passport system in the school district where the majority of school funding is tied to the attending student. It allows students to attend any school they want in the city. This includes religious schools (Catholic, Jewish, Sikh, and oh noes! Muslim) and specialized schools, like performing arts schools and French-immersion schools.
The majority of people actually pick the public school closest to their home. Part of the reason is the busing costs. IIRC, you are responsible for any transportation outside of your immediate area. (This is the part where I think there would be problems implementing such a system into the poorer areas of the US, including both rural and urban regions.)
Of course, we pay a lot more in taxes here, but I would say that this is one of the areas where it pays off. I just think that people would bitch less about taxes if they actually paid attention to the benefits coming out of it.
ETA: Charter schools are included in this program, but they are regulated more than those in the US, according to some of the teachers I’ve worked with up here.
NobodySpecial
@toujoursdan: To some people, feature, not a bug.
Elizabelle
@Danny:
Agreed there.
It’s sad that all the labeling and polarization — practiced and perfected by the Republican party (looking at you, Karl Rove and Frank Luntz) — depicts people as one-faceted across the board.
When the actual situation is so much more interesting.
burnspbesq
@toujoursdan:
Let me say this as plainly as I know how.
Nonsense.
Do you think for one second that people who can afford private schools will keep their kids in public schools that aren’t delivering? Or are you planning on banning all private schools in your little dystopia?