I’m not in complete agreement with his ideas, but they’re interesting enough that they should find a wider audience and I don’t think the format will help at all with that. (Nor do I think repeating the suggestion that a significant number of public school children suffer PTSD as a result of interactions with teachers will establish his credibility, but that’s not a question of format.) Of course, it’s up to him.

I’m very interested in implementation because without a good plan the theory is pretty useless. And not knowing how the system will work (and whether the outcome is likely to be better or worse, cheaper or more expensive) is a pretty good reason for the money not to just follow the kid.

In theory the money could, but who knows whether enough schools could function in such a system to actually educate the kids presently served by the public school system?

But even establishing that in theory the money could follow the kid doesn’t mean it really ought to follow the kid.

In theory our common public schools could be a lot better and could probably better serve our educational and cultural needs. Having a high percentage of the population attend schools that taught common core beliefs and values in addition to delivering solid academic instruction appeals to me more than a system of everyone doing their own thing in isolation. There’s some cultural danger, I think, in sharing no public institutions, and schools are one of the few that we do have.

And in theory, tax payers providing one institution to all in the community is a much different concept than providing everyone a check to purchase what they want. I’m not sure that vouchers are theoretically superior.

In theory improving the public schools we have seems great, and yet, I think you doubt it could be implemented. The theory is much easier than the implementation, you’ve got to admit.

Let’s separate theory from implementation: I’m primarily interested in the theory – that is, is there any reason not to let let all kids have vouchers. Put differently, is there any reason to not have the money follow the kids? I don’t think so, and I’ve yet to see a strong arument against it.

By implementation, I mean how do we get there from here. That’s a very different question, and not one that particularly interests me. I’ve already voted with my wallet. FWIW, I think that charters and the leading edge of the end of the public school system as we know it, and it can’t come a moment too soon for me.

BTW, I think your criticism of Malcolm’s writing style was over the top.

“I think the format makes you look kind of wacky and bureaucratic, or maybe worse yet, like an frustrated underemployed lawyer. “

Come on! It would be quite easy to pick apart your writing!

The taxpayers already subsidize school. Vouchers expand the range of options available to parents for the use of that subsidy. A better analogy would be Food Stamps which recipients can redeem at A&P alone (by analogy with the current system) versus Food Stamps redeemable at any qualified grocery store (tuition vouchers).

And yet even though I can afford to eat at a nice restaurant occasionally, I don’t consider it hypocrisy to oppose “restaurant vouchers” which would allow poor people to eat at nice restaurants. Do you?

I’m calling BS on these numbers unless this was from some pre-zero tolerance study or definition of physical fight and weapon were seriously expansive.

Malcolm, I think the idea that you seem to be advancing, that most of the students’ disabilities are brought on by the school staff is crazy talk. I’m not particularly convinced by your out of context quotes. I think that bad methods in early grades may contribute to over-labeling kids with learning disabilities, but the social and emotion claims you quotes are outrageous.

This exactly the kind of stuff that makes school choicer seem crazy.

You have a pretty nice idea but you try to sell it with information that will seem absurd to most of the people who read it. To every graduate of public school who didn’t experience the kind of things you are claiming, you’ve discredited yourself completely.

How about we judge private and public schools by exactly the same standard, namely the difference that they make in student achievement and nothing else.

This objection applies with equal strength to the current system, which started with two or so years of compulsory attendance.

(NDC): “the part about kids testing at grade level standard …leaves a big whole in education for kids with special needs.”
(malcolm): “Two responses:
4.1) Many sp-ed conditions are iatrogenic (or, nosocomial).”
(NDC): “4.1) I think it’s possible that some are, but I don’t think it’s many.”

The two largest categories of sp-ed in Hawaii are “emotionally handicapped” and “specific learning disability” (usually reading and Math).

Hyman and Penroe, Journal of School Psychology.

Several studies of maltreatment by teachers suggest that school children report traumatic symptoms that are similar whether the traumatic event was physical or verbal abuse (Hyman, et.al.,1988; Krugman & Krugman, 1984; Lambert, 1990). Extrapolation from these studies suggests that psychological maltreatment of school children, especially those who are poor, is fairly widespread in the United States….
“…schools do not encourage research regarding possible emotional maltreatment of students by staff or investigatiion into how this behavior might affect student misbehavior….”
“…Since these studies focused on teacher-induced PTSD and explored all types of teacher maltreatment, some of the aggressive feelings were also caused by physical or sexual abuse….The results indicated that at least 1% to 2% of the respondents’ symptoms were sufficient for a diagnosis of PTSD. It is known that when this disorder develops as a result of interpersonal violence, externalizing symptoms are often the result (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).”
“While 1% to 2% might not seem to be a large percentage of a school-aged population, in a system like New York City, this would be about 10,000 children so traumatized by educators that they may suffer serious, and sometimes lifelong emotional problems (Hyman, 1990; Hyman, Zelikoff & Clarke, 1988). A good percentage of these students develop angry and aggressive responses as a result. Yet, emotional abuse and its relation to misbehavior in schools receives little pedagogical, psychological, or legal attention and is rarely mentioned in textbooks on school discipline (Pokalo & Hyman, 1993, Sarno, 1992).”
“As with corporal punishment, the frequency of emotional maltreatment in schools is too often a function of the socioeconomic status (SES) of the student population (Hyman, 1990).

Clive Harber
“Schooling as Violence”
Educatioinal Review V. 54, #1.

Furthermore, according to a report for UNESCO, cited in Esteve (2000), the increasing level of pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil violence in classrooms is directly connected with compulsory schooling. The report argues that institutional violence against pupils who are obliged to attend daily at an educational centre until 16 or 18 years of age increases the frustration of these students to a level where they externalise it.

Clive Harber
“Schooling as Violence”
Educatioinal Review, V. 54, #1.

“…It is almost certainly more damaging for children to be in school than to out of it. Children whose days are spent herding animals rather than sitting in a clasroom at least develop skills of problem solving and independence while the supposedly luckier ones in school are stunted in their mental, physical, and emotional development by being rendered pasive, and by having to spend hours each day in a crowded classroom under the control of an adult who punishes them for any normal level of activity such as moving or speaking.

Kohn
“Constant Frustration and Occasional Violence”
American School Board Journal, September 1999.

“…(M)any well-known adolescent difficulties are not intrinsic to the teenage years but are related to the mismatch between adolescents’ developmental needs and the kinds of experiences most junior high and high schools provide. When students need close affiliation, they experience large depersonalized schools; when they need to develop autonomy, they experience few opportunities for choice and punitive approaches to discipline…”(Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education, Stanford University)

Brockenbrough, et. al.
“Aggressive Attitudes Among Victims of Violence at School”
Education and the Treatment of Children, V. 25, #3

Violence at school is a prevalent problem. According to a national survey of school proncipals (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1998), over 200,000 serious fights or physical attacks occurred in public schools during the 1996-1997 school year. Serious violent crimes occurred in approximately 12% of middle schools and 13% of high schools. Student surveys (Kann et al, 1995) indicate even higher rates of aggressive behavior. Approximately 16.2% of high school students nationwide reported involvement in a physical fight at school during a 30-day period, and 11.8% reported carrying a weapon on school property (Kann et al, 1995).
Research on victims of violence at school suggests that repeated victimization has detrimental effects on a child’s emotional and social development (Batsche & Knoff, 1995; Hoover, Oliver, & Thomson, 1993; Olweus, 1993). Victims exhibit higher levels of anxiety and depression, and lower self-esteem than non-victims (eg., Besag, 1989; Gilmartin, 1987; Greenbaum, 1987; Olweus, 1993).

Linda M. Raffaele Mendez, et. al.
“Who Gets Suspended From School and Why: A Demographic Analysis”
Education and the Treatment of Children V. 26, #1

Results showed that the over-representation of Black males that has been cited consistently in the literature begins at the elementary school level and continues through high school. Black females also were suspended at a much higher rate than White or Hispanic females at all three school levels.

Justice Clarence Thomas,
ZELMAN, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF OHIO, et al. v. SIMMONS-HARRIS et al.,Concurring.

The failure to provide education to poor urban children perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, dependence, criminality, and alienation that continues for the remainder of their lives. If society cannot end racial discrimination, at least it can arm minorities with the education to defend themselves from some of discrimination’s effects.

Richard Rhodes
Why they Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist

Criminal violence emerges from social experience, most commonly brutal social experience visited upon vulnerable children, who suffer for our neglect of their welfare and return in vengeful wrath to plague us. If violence is a choice they make, and therefor their personal responsibility, as Athens demonstrates it is, our failure to protect them from having to confront such a choice is a choice we make, just as a disease epidemic would be implicitly our choice if we failed to provide vaccines and antibiotics. Such a choice-to tolerate the brutalization of children as we continue to do-is equally violent and equally evil, and we reap what we sow.

Roland Meighan
Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications
Educational Review

The issue of social skills. One edition of Home School Researcher, Volume 8, Number 3, contains two research reports on the issue of social skills. The first finding of the study by Larry Shyers (1992) was that home-schooled students received significantly lower problem behavior scores than schooled children. His next finding was that home-schooled children are socially well adjusted, but schooled children are not so well adjusted. Shyers concludes that we are asking the wrong question when we ask about the social adjustment of home-schooled children. The real question is why is the social; adjustment of schooled children of such poor quality?

“The second study, by Thomas Smedley (1992), used different test instruments but comes to the same conclusion, that home-educated children are more mature and better socialized than those attending school.” …
“12. So-called ’school phobia’ is actually more likely to be a sign of mental health, whereas school dependancy is a largely unrecognized mental health problem

(malcolm): “4.2) PPC does not address the threat to Earth posed by Earth-crossing asteroids. Must every proposal be universal in scope to merit consideration?”
NDC): “…you probably do need to consider that special education parents are a pretty powerful lobby, and that special education is one of the most complicated and costly areas of public education. Not building in a way for special education students and parents to benefit will prove problematic as will building it in without bankrupting your system.”

PPC removes no currently available options, By subsidizing escape options at a rate less than the current regular-ed budget, the busget which remains in the system for the students who remain in the system goes up.

(NDC): “If the program delivers academically and doesn’t involve anything illegal itself, why would we need to demand more than that…?”

I anticipate the objection that parents might not properly supervise their kids. I don’t think it’s a real concer. Quite the contrary.