West Virginia moves in the Right Direction on Schools

[JagerIV]

West Virginia Just Passed The Nation's Broadest School Choice Law

For a state that couldn’t pass a modest measure on Education Savings Accounts just two years ago, it’s a breathtaking turnaround. What changed?

thefederalist.com

In summary, it is opening up the option for any student who attends a public school for a period of time to receive $4,600 dollars a year to go to paying educational expenses for homeschooling, private schooling, or tutors, with no needs or special circumstances requirements.

Its a small step, but, as the article goes into on the details, compared to how much power the teachers union previously wielded, its a big step in the right direction, and something that certainly should be built upon.

Of the about $12,000 currently spent per student, if we could get that up to about half in flexible education spending, including labor of homeschooling, I can imagine West Virginia possessing one of the best private school systems and leading the nation in mothers who are actually able to stay home and take care of their children. And maybe half the school budget too.

Big dream, true, but, hey, lets swing from the fences, and celebrate victories as they come. Not too much doom.

 

[ATP]

Parents should get all money - but it is good first step.

 

[Husky_Khan]

West Virginia Just Passed The Nation's Broadest School Choice Law

For a state that couldn’t pass a modest measure on Education Savings Accounts just two years ago, it’s a breathtaking turnaround. What changed?

thefederalist.com

In summary, it is opening up the option for any student who attends a public school for a period of time to receive $4,600 dollars a year to go to paying educational expenses for homeschooling, private schooling, or tutors, with no needs or special circumstances requirements.

Its a small step, but, as the article goes into on the details, compared to how much power the teachers union previously wielded, its a big step in the right direction, and something that certainly should be built upon.

Of the about $12,000 currently spent per student, if we could get that up to about half in flexible education spending, including labor of homeschooling, I can imagine West Virginia possessing one of the best private school systems and leading the nation in mothers who are actually able to stay home and take care of their children. And maybe half the school budget too.

Big dream, true, but, hey, lets swing from the fences, and celebrate victories as they come. Not too much doom.

Kudos on the thread title. Was that intentional or just turned out to be naturally right?

 

[Abhishekm]

Parents should get all money - but it is good first step.

Agreed. It is nice though. Who knows maybe by 2040 tying student funds to anything but the student will be the oddity.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

West Virginia currently ranks 47th or so in school performance, so they have *almost* nowhere to go but up. We'll see how it works out.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

For the record, I'm dubious about "school choice" as a concept.

Much of the superior academic performance of private schools comes from the one-two punch of having more resources because they can charge whatever they want and being able to simply expel any students who are low performers and/or discipline problems. Allowing parents to "choose" private schools doesn't help when they can't afford tuition even with this extra money and when the private school is free to reject their applications.

Hell, if I was a private school in West Virginia, I'd be tempted to immediately announce that we are raising tuition by $5,000 per year for all new students.

 

[ATP]

For the record, I'm dubious about "school choice" as a concept.

Much of the superior academic performance of private schools comes from the one-two punch of having more resources because they can charge whatever they want and being able to simply expel any students who are low performers and/or discipline problems. Allowing parents to "choose" private schools doesn't help when they can't afford tuition even with this extra money and when the private school is free to reject their applications.

Hell, if I was a private school in West Virginia, I'd be tempted to immediately announce that we are raising tuition by $5,000 per year for all new students.

Partially true.But difference is- public school in USA is leftist schit,when private only could be leftist schit.

 

[King Arts]

For the record, I'm dubious about "school choice" as a concept.

Much of the superior academic performance of private schools comes from the one-two punch of having more resources because they can charge whatever they want and being able to simply expel any students who are low performers and/or discipline problems. Allowing parents to "choose" private schools doesn't help when they can't afford tuition even with this extra money and when the private school is free to reject their applications.

Hell, if I was a private school in West Virginia, I'd be tempted to immediately announce that we are raising tuition by $5,000 per year for all new students.

It depends on the school more secular private schools yes they might put profit first. But religious schools are generally cheaper than other private schools because their first priority is to teach the kids the religion so there would be more push to allow poor students as long as are of the faith.

 

[Captain X]

The thing about allowing school choice is that it means schools will be forced to compete and therefore improve. As it is, a lot of public schools suck specifically because there is no choice unless you can afford to send your kid to a private school. For decades people have been screaming that we aren't spending enough money on schools, but the problem is, any money we throw at schools ends up going to administrators, school board, and sports, with the actual academic aspects being ignored. Unions make it hard to get rid of a bad teacher who is friends with the right people and easy to get rid of a good teacher who rocks the boat. Kind of like police that way. In any case, as there is no need for public schools to compete with each other in meaningful ways, any money we throw at them will not improve them in any way.

 

[Bear Ribs]

For the record, I'm dubious about "school choice" as a concept.

Much of the superior academic performance of private schools comes from the one-two punch of having more resources because they can charge whatever they want and being able to simply expel any students who are low performers and/or discipline problems. Allowing parents to "choose" private schools doesn't help when they can't afford tuition even with this extra money and when the private school is free to reject their applications.

While I see this accusation a lot, from the numbers I've seen this simply isn't the case. Do you have any figures on how often private schools expel students vs. public?

Private school's biggest advantage tends to be smaller class sizes that let teachers give more attention to each student. If you take a look at the top rated private schools you find ludicrously small classes, with things like one teacher for every five to twelve students allowing for extreme personal care.

https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-private-schools/

 

[ShadowArxxy]

While I see this accusation a lot, from the numbers I've seen this simply isn't the case. Do you have any figures on how often private schools expel students vs. public?

Most available information is on charter schools, which as you know are essentially public-private hybrids. Fully private schools aren't required to release the same stats.

In Washington DC, where charter schools are very popular and make up fully 41% of all "public" schools, information released by the D.C. Public Charter School Board indicates that charter schools as a whole expelled an average of 72 students per 10K, versus non-charter public schools expelling an average of one student per 10K; some individual charter schools had expulsion rates as high as eight percent.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Most available information is on charter schools, which as you know are essentially public-private hybrids. Fully private schools aren't required to release the same stats.

That's... an extremely bizarre definition of charter school that I've never heard before. Charter schools are fully public schools that don't charge tuition and are on government checks for funding. Their only difference is that they aren't beholden to the state school board.

What Is a Charter School? Is One Right for You?

Confused about charter schools vs public schools? Our detailed guild to the charter school definition walks you through everything you need to know.

blog.prepscholar.com

You may be asking yourself: what is a charter school? Chances are you've heard these schools mentioned in the media or by members of the community. Charter schools are a public school option offered to students in some areas.

 

[LordsFire]

There's basically no reason not to switch over to an entirely 'Charter' system, except for corruption. Good public schools (and there are some) can simply reorganize themselves to function as just another charter school for the district, and compete to be the best.

Thomas Sowell covers some key elements of the topic here (Yes I know the title doesn't look on topic, that's just because this went up right after his birthday):

 

[Von_Lohengram]

School choice as in parents choose which public school from the ones nearby to send their kids to and the schools funding depends on how many choose to go there is already the norm in several European countries like The Netherlands or Sweden.
This forcing schools to provide value for money or they loose "customers" is pretty much the openly stated goal.
Just another one of the examples of how Europeans may vote for Social Democratic tax levels, but unlike Americans who vote Democrat also expect value for their money. At least in the North, in the South people seem more willing to accept the State first and foremost existing for the benefit of State employees.

 

[S'task]

Much of the superior academic performance of private schools comes from the one-two punch of having more resources

This... doesn't seem to be the case from the data I can find except for a handful of States. The public school spending per child often exceeds that of the cost of private school.

Compare this: Per Pupil Spending by State 2021 (worldpopulationreview.com)
To this: Average Private School Tuition Cost (2021) (privateschoolreview.com)

There are SOME states where the inverse is true like in VA, for instance, average private school costs $14k while per student spending is $11k, and CA where it's $15k and $12k, but you also have situations where things are starkly reversed, NY for instance average private school costs $18k whereas per student public school spending is $23k, Illinois has an even greater contrast, with the average private school cost of only $8k, but per student spending at $15k!

Given this, I have to say that the idea that private schools do better because they have more resources just... doesn't follow? I think the more limited class sizes likely serve a much better reason for the better performance.

 

[gral]

Partially true.But difference is- public school in USA is leftist schit,when private only could be leftist schit.

Last year a guy said the following about the current state of Brazilian schools: 'Public schools teach you to be a leftist militant; private schools teach you to be a worm'.

 

[S'task]

Also, to follow up on my above post, there doesn't seem to be a strong correlation between public school per student funding and the quality of the public school system.

Going by Public School Rankings by State 2021 (worldpopulationreview.com)

The top five states are:
1. Massachusetts
2. Connecticut
3. New Jersey
4. Virginia
5. Vermont

Compare this to the per student spending top five from the earlier link:
1. New York ($23,091)
2. Connecticut ($19,322)
3. New Jersey ($18,920)
4. Vermont ($18,290)
5. Alaska ($17,838)

This... lack... or correlation between high spending and good schools. Finally, to utterly put a nail in the coffin of "per student spending is important" go look at the various testing breakdowns here: State Profiles (nationsreportcard.gov), and you'll quickly find that there is really no correlation between state spending per student, quality of schools, and success of education.

 

[Bear Ribs]

What I've observed is based mostly on anecdotes due to having family as part of the school system. That said, I've observed that funding does correlate to better performance at very low levels, up to the point where basic necessities like books, desks, etc. can be covered.

Past that it tends to not have any effect because the money gets diverted to vanity projects, increasing administration wages, sports stadiums, etc. Even then it can be a headscratcher how schools can possibly spend so much money. New York, given a classroom of 25, is spending half a million dollars a year per class. They should be able to replace school buses with limo service for the students and still have cash left over.

That said there are some caveats, genuinely expensive stuff does exist. Special needs students can be horrifically expensive compared to other students, both due to the extra training their teachers need and because you need a very low ratio of teachers:students to care for them, along with (often) medical issues on the side that require even more special training. Some classes are genuinely expensive to equip, a serious music class's instruments don't come cheap, especially if the school has a marching band. A library with 50,000 books at thirty dollars apiece (yes, it's going to be less for paperback romances but reference works can be quite pricey) and two dozen computers for research adds up to a bit of change. Chemistry labs need expensive tools, expensive safety gear, and expensive materials that are used up in experiments. However those things are still not remotely equal (and are largely one-shot costs, you don't buy a new library every year) to the bloat of ever-increasing administration costs and sports stadiums.

 

[JagerIV]

And I think notably there, most of the expensive stuff outside special needs really only come up with high school ish (more broadly, 13+) range. Schooling seems a really inefficient method of teaching primary school stuff: it's been a meme since Mockingbird times that parents who care can start their child with a 5th grade level of education entering kindergarten. While the kids who don't care and their parents don't care don't get anything out of it anyways.

I would not be shocked if something like 50% of education time is currently deadweight losses, and just wasting an immense amount of time.

I think too often school time is seen as a good in and of itself, rather than a cost. Simply having children in a school for 12 years is seen as a good being provided, when in reality every hour a student has to attend school is a cost pushed on the student and their loved ones. If we could privide as much education a student currently gets by 18 by the time their 15, so students graduate by grade 9, that would represent a superior school system, dramatically cutting the cost of education in labor hours alone per child, and giving the child 3 more years they can be productive, either by entering the workforce eariler or getting more education. Even at minimum wage levels, 3 additional years of minimum wage work is about 50,000 of more lifetime earnings.

And since years works tends to correlate with income as one builds skills and connections, those three extra years can be worth much more over a lifetime: a 4% income growth over 40 years of work takes one from starting out making 10k, so less than full time minimum wage, to retiring when making about $46k. Not a particularly aggressive or out there progress. Adding three more years of work however, so he gets his part time work out of the way by by his late 20s rather than early 30s, those three extra years of work actually net him a lifetime earning boost of about $150k. And if were spending something like $20k per year in teaching, cutting 3 years saves something like $50k in direct spending.

So, overall, teaching three years faster is like $200k on average in direct momentary benefits, not even getting to societal benifits.

 

[King Arts]

Why all this hemming and hawing over new ways to learn. We can look at other nations that score well on tests like Japan and just copy that it will be cheaper and faster than making some new unconventional method.