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Sunday, December 15, 2013

Henry M. Levin — Vouchers — a disaster for schools


No significant improvement in achievement and increased social stratification.

Lars Syll
Vouchers — a disaster for schools
Henry M. Levin | distinguished economist and director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University

12 comments:

  1. "... and increased social stratification."

    And that was the real motive all along.

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  2. The government-backed counterfeiting cartel, the banking system, is alone sufficient to cause social stratification.

    Why? Because those who already have wealth such as land, mineral rights, etc. are allowed to borrow new purchasing power into existence in order to gain even more. Meanwhile, the less so-called creditworthy or non-creditworthy such as redlined blacks are left behind - cheated with their own stolen purchasing power.

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  3. When the voucher system was up for a vote as a proposition in California, I found that all of our lower middle class workers were thinking of voting for the proposition.

    When I explained to them that the vouchers did not mean "the voucher shall pay for school in full," and that a school did not have to accept a student that showed up at the door with a voucher, they suddenly changed there mind, and saw the voucher system for what it was - a subsidy for the rich.

    The voucher proposition was defeated (barely if I remember correctly)

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  4. @ Dan,

    Give me a break, schools were a disaster long before vouchers.

    Schools are still operating largely on the factory mindset, blessed by our corporate overlords who desire docile and submissive workers writ large. And that isn't to say I support those fronting for the voucher movement. I don't. It's just more of the same dis-empowering drivel pushing. And I swear, your social cohesion obsession scares the shit out of me. Wasn't that a primary tenant of Stalin, Hitler and Mao?
    ____________________________

    On a tangential note is there anything our national government does you don't cheerlead for?

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  5. Social cohesion? We had plenty of that when the family farm and family businesses were the norm. Why? Because free men will unite when necessary to stay that way.

    Otherwise, let's celebrate voluntary diversity and justice, not social cohesion.

    And if you're afraid the Earth can't bear liberty, it's license the Earth can't bear, the license of banks to drive a mad rat-race of waste, destruction, and growth for the sake of usury.

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  6. No no no.

    Private schools have great existing infrastructure.

    Exchange left to right :

    1. Vouchers for Obamacare

    2. No abortion for medicare n obamacare

    3. Reduced payroll taxes for job guarantees.

    4. Derivative market restraints for lower taxes

    5. Open immigration for open access to markets

    6. ....

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  7. .... public schools are overcrowded


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  8. Instead of vouchers allowing tuition to be a deduction would be a start. Private schools are not tax deductible ...right

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  9. Lessons learned in Sweden about vouchers are interesting to note but it is hard to assume those patterns may replicate and extrapolate to other societies without a big leap in imagination.

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  10. Godwin's Law tip o' the hat to Malmo's Ghost!

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  11. @Six,

    If you build it, he will come?

    The Devil works best through hierarchies, I'd bet, while God can work from the bottom up.

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  12. Over the course of the last 30 or 40 years the US system of public education has become more about employing teachers and related school bureaucracy than in educating students.

    Students need to be taught how to think not what to think.

    Get rid of tenure, and pay teachers on a meritocracy basis to attract the best & brightest. The pay should be high enough for top performing teachers to lure some of the mathematics whiz kids away from Wall Street.

    More school choice is needed.

    The Public School System and the Teachers Union enjoy a virtual monopoly which is why they are so opposed to charter schools and federally funded school vouchers that offer competion to the current system.

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