School Voucher Program Fails to Deliver

[Earthling]

Well, that's a dumb comment by Cato.

Has the converse of this statement ever been true?

The provincial rich people of Franklin County (and even the outer sprawl of Centerburg and Johnstown) will never send their kids to a school like Tree of Life. They will never send their kid to a school that focuses on Jesus more than academics.

I don't think you've got any justification behind this. At best, you're simply splitting people into two categories to make a tautology, that "rich people who don't send their kids to Jesus-y schools, don't send their kids to Jesus-y schools." There are people who are wealthy or have a lot of income, by definition rich in the general sense, who do send their kids to such private parochial schools.

That's actually one thing I wonder about the voucher programs: If every student is given a voucher worth equal value, what incentive do these private programs have to produce ESL and Special Education programs, since these inevitably raise the costs for students?

psst... you want to know a secret... that's the point. Get rid of them ESL immigrants, vaccines cause autism but Jesus can cure ya, etc...

 

[Formaldehyde]

You also have to be very careful when measuring educational spending because it is very dependent upon the state. The ones with better educational systems tend to spend a lot more, while the ones with poor educational systems only spend a fraction of that amount:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...-new-york-schools-spend-most-money-per-pupil/

 

[downtown]

I'd be really careful with that line of thinking, since the correlation between state funding and academic performance (statewide) isn't very strong. New York and DC are not high achieving states, (and I think Wyoming is only average). Utah spends very little money, but they're a middle of the pack achievement state.

Poverty and minority population are much better correlated than spending. I can think of lots of other outliers on that chart.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm not claiming that if you spend a lot of money that you will have a superior system. I am claiming that the ones which do have superior systems tend to spend a lot more than the ones which are at the bottom of the list.That the national average is skewed by states which spend a lot.

Report Card on American Education:
Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform

But I do agree that societal issues regarding poverty and race are what really skews the results the most. That the big failure in the US educational system continues to be with educating the poor and disenfranchised.

 

[Cutlass]

So Connecticut is 6th on spending but 29th on outcomes. Which in a sense makes sense. It's a rich state that has locked its poor into small areas with crap schools.

 

[KMRblue1027]

NJ spends a ton (2nd overall) and IIRC from a thread earlier in the year it was 3rd in test scores so there's a connection there.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

I don't think you've got any justification behind this. At best, you're simply splitting people into two categories to make a tautology, that "rich people who don't send their kids to Jesus-y schools, don't send their kids to Jesus-y schools." There are people who are wealthy or have a lot of income, by definition rich in the general sense, who do send their kids to such private parochial schools.

Well, you are welcome to try and refute it. But I think what I describe makes sense.

And as for justification, I'll use what downtown wrote. He's familiar with the area, and he can contradict what I said if he'd like. I'm just speaking from what I know i the heart of Jesusland.

Columbus only has 2 secular private high schools...The Wellington School and Columbus Academy. Both are very small schools, and *very* expensive (CA's tuition is over 20,000 a year and Wellington's is over 18,000, more than virtually anybody pays for a year at Ohio State). Neither have special ed or ESL departments, and even a generous voucher would pay for less than half the tuition.

Columbus (let's define Columbus as inside the 270 Loop, which would be a reasonable commute for a Columbus Resident) has 5 Catholic Schools...Bishop Hartley, Bishop Ready, Desales, Bishop Watterson, and St.Charles. The latter three are well regarded academically, although also expensive (tuition ranges in the 6,00-9,000 range). Only Hartley has a reputation for being particularly Jesusy...Ready almost closed in the early 2000s because the % of Catholic students had dropped so low. These schools are attended by mostly richer families in the inner suburbs and in Franklin County (particularly St.Charles, which is kind of an Old Money Institution in the Columbus Area). None of these schools have special ed departments either.

When you leave the city, you'll find that most of the surrounding counties have one Catholic school, and a few other religious, non-parochial schools (Granville Christian, Licking County Christian, Grove City Christian, Tree of Life, etc). None of these are particularly well respected academically (not any more than the local public school, to be sure, especially not tree of life cause it's run by CRAZY people), nor are they particularly expensive (under 4,000) Families pick these schools primarily out of religiosity, rather than academic merit, although the Jesus school may be marginally better than a particularly poor rural school.

The well to do suburbs of Columbus, despite how unbelievably Jesusee it is (I mean, one church in Westerville requires two police officers to direct traffic), do not have Jesuee schools within it. Aside from those private schools the affluent in the area try to send their kids to New Albany Public schools first and foremost. But there are numerous well to do suburbs with well-funded public schools. Read up on the history of New Albany if you get the chance, it's interesting.

Once you get outside of suburban Columbus it becomes very poor, very fast. I work in and out of West Virginia and Southeastern Ohio, and there isn't much difference between the two. It's really poor, really white, and really religious. It's a different type of culture. A lot of the people in these locations place more premium on their values and religion than they do on intellectualism and education. And that is why it is much more common to find small, provincial, "crazy" religious schools in these locations. Even the Catholic schools are more "provincial" than the well respected institutions in the metro Columbus area.

Now, there's no universal truth, but as a general trend, you will see more crazy religious schools in poor rural areas than you will in affluent communities. And the religious institutions in more affluent communities will have a far greater focus on academics than the the schools that cater to poor religious folk.

And again, I can't bring any hard numbers to the table, and I'd welcome some statistics on your own (if there's even a quantitative method of determining how provincial a parochial school is), I'm speaking from what I know, and what I see in my day to day life.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

The spending is lopsided, not just between rich and poor (although remember that poor districts get state and federal matching funds), but between classroom and outside the classroom.

It isn't always rich school = spends more money, although rich schools can usually spend a far greater percentage of their money on classroom specific programs. My old school district in Ohio, which is a "rich" district, spends around 8,000 per student, less than the poorer rural schools surrounding it, and substantially less than Columbus City Schools.

So it is being wasted!

 

[Glassfan]

The original idea behind the voucher, was to give parents a choice beyond just public schools. The wealthy can afford private schools, but the poor have fewer options. Some of the big, urban public school systems are a nightmare of low achievement, violence and dream-crushing. Vouchers can give people of limited means some alternatives.

 

[downtown]

The well to do suburbs of Columbus, despite how unbelievably Jesusee it is (I mean, one church in Westerville requires two police officers to direct traffic), do not have Jesuee schools within it. .

That isn't really true now I thought about it. Granville Christian Academy is awfully Jesusy and thats smack dab in affluent, educated Granville. Tree of Life is in Canal Winchester I think, which (while not super rich) is hardly a provisional backwater. Worthington Christian is in a upscale suburb. LCCA, GCCA and Fairfield Christian are in more backwatery places I guess though.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

Granville is a nice area, that's for sure. But it's also very small, and sort of a suburb of Newark and surrounded by country. I'd be interested in knowing where the students from the Granville Christian Academy come from. I'm not familiar with that school either, how are its academic credentials? What is the tuition as well?

 

[downtown]

Granville is a nice area, that's for sure. But it's also very small, and sort of a suburb of Newark and surrounded by country. I'd be interested in knowing where the students from the Granville Christian Academy come from. I'm not familiar with that school either, how are its academic credentials? What is the tuition as well?

I grew up a few blocks from GCA. Their tuition is fairly affordable (less than 4,000), and it's academically stronger than say, Newark or Licking Heights...but certainly less so than Granville, Heath or Newark Catholic (the area's better schools). It's sponsored by Spring Hills Baptist, which is the main fundamentalist congregation in Licking County, and gets part of their bible curriculum from Bob Jones University. They draw from all over LC, including Granville and Heath...but mostly from Newark I imagine.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

I grew up a few blocks from GCA. Their tuition is fairly affordable (less than 4,000), and it's academically stronger than say, Newark or Licking Heights...but certainly less so than Granville, Heath or Newark Catholic (the area's better schools). It's sponsored by Spring Hills Baptist, which is the main fundamentalist congregation in Licking County, and gets part of their bible curriculum from Bob Jones University. They draw from all over LC, including Granville and Heath...but mostly from Newark I imagine.

Would you say that they try to draw from the upper class families in Ne'rk, or from more middle class/lower middle class families? It's tough to be academically stronger than Granville. It is an excellent school.