Vouchers, part II

When I wrote something about vouchers I didn't intend for it to be a two-parter, but Paul was good enough to post a lengthy comment, which I appreciate, even though I don't agree with Paul. But his comments were interesting enough that I wanted to repost them here and write a response that wouldn't be hidden in the comment dungeon.

I wanted to take the time to respond because Paul is essentially arguing a version of the free market line about education, that if you just give the money directly to students to spend where they wish, the market will create a wealth of great and diverse schools for kids to choose from. I want to be respectful to Paul because he took the time to show up here and read what I wrote and consider it seriously, which I genuinely do appreciate--it's why I blog. But I have to say that what Paul is arguing is a dangerously deceptive line of thinking.

Before I go any further, here's Paul's comment.

I have been a proponent of a voucher program even since reading Milton Friedman's writings on the subject. In this case, I am talking about a universal voucher program: every kid gets a voucher and the voucher can be spent only at an accredited school. The voucher system in Ohio is a bastardization of the concept -- badly conceived and poorly implemented. The basis for my belief in vouchers is simple: if each individual family can make their own rational decisions where to send their kids to school, then only schools that deliver what is needed will get kids and their money. Effective schools will thrive and ineffective schools will die. This is the core concept of a free market system.

There needs to be standards of course. A school must be licensed by the government to accept vouchers as payment. To be licensed, the school must show that it has faculty accedited to teach, it must offer a curriculum that meets certain basic standards, and it must demonstrate that it is effective in educating kids in the basics. I do not propose any change in the way teachers are licensed or schools are evaluated in terms of performance. However, there would be some teeth behind the evaluation: a school which fails to perform at the "Excellent" or "Effective" level would lose its license to accept vouchers.

Any kid may take his/her voucher and use it to pay for 100% of their education in any school licensed to accept vouchers. A regional transportation network would be developed to allow a kid to go to any school within a reasonable distance (e.g. 25 miles) at no cost.

I think the outcome of such a system would be a mixture of boutique schools that have perhaps only a few hundred students, all the way to regional organizations which operate many buildings and serve many grade levels. We have one of these boutique schools here in Columbus. It's called Metro High School. It specializes in math and sciences, and accepts only 100 kids for each of its four grade levels (9-12). Right now, each central Ohio school system is given a quota, based on the current size of the system (i.e. Columbus City Schools with 56,000 students gets the most slots). It has no competitive sports or performing arts facilities because it chooses to allocate all of its budget to basic education requirements and advanced study in math and science.

With 400 students and vouchers worth $10,000/student, this school would have a budget of $4 million/yr. Assuming a student/teacher ratio of 20:1 and $75,000 in salary an benefits, payroll would be around $2 million once a few administrators and staff are added. Figure a $10 million building, and the annual financing and operations cost would be about another $1 million. That leaves $1 million/yr for supplies, transportation, equipment and all kinds of good stuff. The same kind of philisophy could be applied to a school specializing in arts, or gymnastics, or foreign language/culture studies (imagine a school in which only Mandarin Chinese is spoken, for example).

Another configuration might be a regional school organization that can serve let's say 50,000 kids. All those vouchers would generate $500 million of income for the organization. Such a system might offer a broader diversity of programs, including some which require considerable capital outlays, such as athletic and performing arts facilities.

Other schools might offer vocation programs for kids who choose that kind of education. Our country cannot be one of only engineers and burger flippers. We need folks who are ready to take on the highly skilled production and service jobs a strong economy requires: Computer and communications technicians, manufacturing technicians, transportation system specialists, etc.

Other than the tradition of the thing, I don't know why we have let K-12 school systems grow into these bureaucratic, monopolistic, and generally poorly performing entities. We can have food stamps without dictating where people can buy food with them. We can have Medicare without restricting a person's choice of which licensed doctors or accredited hospitals can provide their care.

When our kids graduate from high school, they are free to apply to the college of their choice. Do we, or our kids, suddenly become more capable consumers of educational services when the kids graduate from high school?

Every kid deserves an education, and I'm willing to pay taxes to ensure that every kid gets the opportunity, just as I help pay for food stamps and Medicare. But let's get rid of the K-12 education monopolies.

The idea behind Paul's logic is the basic free-market myth that the market can solve any social problems. I'm an American, and I believe in markets. But the market model simply doesn't work for schools. You can't profit from schools.

If every student were armed with a voucher of $10,000 (and that's a number Paul threw out, but a pretty high one--for the sake of argument, let's use it, but understand that would require shifting a lot of local tax revenue to the state) and schools openly competed for those dollars, lots of things would happen. Lots of kinds of schools might open up catering to student interests. But would that be a narrow interest? I can envision some fantastic arts-oriented schools opening up. But would art and music be part of the curriculum at all schools, no matter where a child went? If we create a system of niche schools do we sacrifice the idea of a well rounded liberal education? Still, the idea of parents choosing from a wide variety of schools is an attractive idea on the surface, especially when we consider the plight of poor students who may be stuck in schools offering a bare bones education in run down facilities, while their suburban counterparts benefit from much better conditions?

It's this idea of the market somehow levelling the playing field that is so dangerous about vouchers. Let's be honest about it: this wouldn't happen under any universal voucher system. Just because students are subsidized by the state, doesn't mean schools will be obligated to keep tuition under that $10,000 pricetag. There will be $20,000 schools. There will be $15,000 schools. And there will be $10,000 schools. How do you think they will compare? And which ones will poor kids go to?

If anything, universal vouchers will make schools less equitable, not more. And less efficient.

I've often thought that the "pilot" programs offered by people like Voinovich were actually Trojan Horses, cynically using vouchers to benefit a few poor urban students in order to create more favorable impressions towards them. Then the right would move towards a more widespread system of vouchers, shifting massive amounts of state money to private and parochial schools. It's clear that vouchers combine a couple of right wing ideologies--the desire to fund religious institutions with public money, and the power of the market over everything.

Whatever problems public education has, vouchers would only make them worse.

In the interest of time, I'll let it go there.