Those wacky cut-ups over at The Onion have identified another important trend ignored by the MSM:
Increasing Number Of Parents Opting To Have Children School-Homed
WASHINGTON—According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home.
Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children, and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society.
Thousands of mothers and fathers polled in the study also believe that those running American homes cannot be trusted to keep their kids safe.
“Every year more parents are finding that their homes are not equipped to instill the right values in their children,” Miller said. “When it comes to important life skills such as proper nutrition, safe sex, and even basic socialization, a growing number of mothers and fathers think it’s better to rely on educators to guide and nurture their kids.”
“And really, who can blame them?” Miller continued. “American homes have let down our nation’s youth time and again in almost every imaginable respect.”…
And here’s the best part: School-homers would never have the nerve to ask the rest of us to subsidize their choice with tax credits. Or would they?
It would be more humorous if it wasn’t true. A combination of educrats who feel the schools need to do everything (except apparently graduate kids from high school) and lazy parents who take no interest in their children’s education have given us the public education system we have.
Brad has been afraid of vouchers for years now. Won’t even consider it for low income families or on a trial basis in the worst school districts. Because if vouchers did show positive results, it would kill the big, bigger, biggest government philosophy he espouses.
Doug, as I’ve said very clearly over and over: Do what you want. Just don’t ask me to subsidize it by giving you a voucher or, worse, a tax credit.
Cindi Scoppe said it best: Why is a private school of any quality going to locate in a place that cannot support a grocery store?
We are running up against the erroneous belief that taxes are just fees for services. Everyone benefits from good schools, parks, and other quality of life benefits, regardless of whether they personally use them. Businesses with good jobs want to locate in communities with a good quality of life and good schools and a well-educated work force.
Hey, hey, hey, now, credit where it’s due… Cindi got that from ME. Ask her, she’ll tell you.
It’s one of my favorite ways to illustrate that these people who want to let markets work complete ignore the way markets actually work…
WHAT?
Though, I can’t imagine most families doing a good job home schooling. Fortunately, most don’t try. Many more use the option of private school, my family included.
And let’s make it plain, it would be criminal to “pay” most families for putting their kids in private school. But there are many parents who want better for their children, but can’t afford private school. Let’s find a way to give those folks some money, because some schools won’t ever be right (Allendale County among them).
And yes, there are some excellent accredited private schools in towns that barely have a grocery store.
Brad’s analogy regarding grocery stores neglects to take into consideration what would happen if parents had a voucher to pay for schools. You think if citizens got a voucher for $50 a week for food, that Publix wouldn’t build a store immediately?
The market will respond to the money. And competition will create better opportunities. Why do you think there are so many private schools locally? Because parents with the means to use them have decided they provide better value than “free” schools. Same for homeschooling parents. They don’t think the “free” schools provide an educational environment that matches what the parent can provide.
Meanwhile, those without options are stuck with what the government decides to provide – good schools where property taxes are high and crappy schools where the tax base cannot support them. And the typical educrat solution is to spend more on the crappy schools regardless of the results — year after year after year. And people like Brad will go on for year after year after year saying we should keep doing more of the same because any decade now we might see 1% improvement.
And to debunk the “grocery store” theory further – when I moved to Columbia in 1990 there was one grocery store on Two Notch Road in a couple mile stretch. Now there are at least a half dozen? Why? Because the money is there.
Same for vouchers. There are plenty of educational entrepreneurs who would jump at the chance to get the $10K or more per student the government schools get now. You’re telling me some bright person couldn’t figure out how to educate 100 students for $1 million a year? And specialize on literacy versus all the b.s. the schools have now?
Like I said, the biggest fear you have is that it might work. There is no downside for the worst school districts… they’re doomed already.
View the interview with Diane Ravitch, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” on booktv.com. It was very interesting.
I’m sure there are a lot of good private schools as well as some not so good. One big problem with sending tax dollars to private schools is that it could be providing for an ideology that would be detrimental to our country – unless we attach strings to the money. Then we would have to audit/supervise. This possibility is hardly ever mentioned. Why is that?
> with sending tax dollars to
>private schools is that it could be
>providing for an ideology that
>would be detrimental to our country
Yeah, the public schools don’t promote ANY ideology… no… never.
I was homeschooled for 4 years… High school… I turned out ok… It is not cheap… Not sure that means we should have gotten tax credits… The education system is bad enough without taking even more money out of it…
No one is going to get a voucher of sufficient size to support a private school–a good one, in Allendale, etc. Sure there are *boarding* schools in places with no amenities, but yowsa, those places are pricey!
Publix is not going to locate a store just because people have $50 a week to spend on groceries–it just takes a lot more money than that.
Also, private schools pick and choose whom to admit, and retain. Of course they will look better. Now you leave a ghetto of problem children. Nice solution.
Yeah, maybe I need to explain the supermarket thing further. Having worked in the newspaper business, I understand it, but I’m afraid some of my readers don’t.
It’s about population density. Cable TV won’t lay cable down a road without enough customers per mile (which is why they get satellite dishes), a newspaper won’t deliver on a route without enough readers per mile. And a supermarket won’t locate in an area that doesn’t have enough people with fistfuls of dollars.
The same would apply to starting a private school. You need enough density to have enough people who would want to pay for your service to make it worthwhile.
And that’s even making the wild supposition that the vouchers would be enough to pay the cost of educating a child at a private school, which it would NOT. NO ONE has proposed paying out that much in vouchers, or tax credits (although in this context tax credits are moot, since the population we’re speaking of in these sparse communities doesn’t consist of folks who pay enough in taxes to get the credit).
There are just all kinds of mathematical barriers to this mechanism working in the neediest areas. And that’s what it’s about, right? I mean, SCRG and the rest wouldn’t want the gummint to be sending checks to affluent folks in dense suburbs? Would they?
“private schools pick and choose whom to admit, and retain. Of course they will look better. Now you leave a ghetto of problem children.”–>This was one of the points that Diane Ravitch made.
In addition to the fact that a rural community can neither support a Publix or a good private school, it is very hard to get a good pool of teachers there. Often the husband (usually)locates with some form of private enterprise bringing his wife, a teacher, with him. A community has to provide two jobs, not just the teacher’s job. There are fewer reasons to locate in a rural community.
@ Doug – There are schools of a radical extremist persuasion. Or perhaps, you would not want to support education at all?
They want vouchers? Give them vouchers. Value of said vouches to be limited to the exact amount assessed for schools in their property tax.
You want to send your child to a private school, that’s fine. You want help paying for it? No.
@ Pat–I grew up in Aiken, where there were excellent teachers–the wives of the researchers and engineers at Savannah River Lab…
The days of the spinster school marm are over…
Kathryn, Aiken is a beautiful town and I’ve met some great people from there. Truly,”The days of the spinster school marm are over…”
Hiring great teachers can be such a complicated issue, but this is not to say there aren’t great teachers in places like Allendale – just that the competitive pool of applicants aren’t there.