What would be the meaningful differences? We are saying, "here's a fixed amount you can spend, you can't charge more and here are the standards you have to meet. Oh, and you can't go out of business, since that would be disruptive to the child's education." It really seems like we've removed most of the advantages of a private school, but can't elect their oversight like we can with a public school. I see absolutely no benefit to having a bunch of disparate schools that have identical budgets and standards. We could do that with magnet schools.

EDIT: I should also add, that I think people overestimate how much vouchers can do to solve the problem, which is largely socioeconomic. Rich people would still live close to the best schools and even if poor people could send their kids there, they still deal with so many disadvantages. If all the best schools are an hour bus ride away, that's unfair to people who don't live in that neighborhood. If I still cannot afford extra curriculars or class trips, then I still cannot give my kids the same education. There's so many other things that figure into the education formula that are not just the school you attend or the teacher that teaches you. I think the best option is to increase people's engagement in their school systems (via school board elections, lobbying, PTA and so on) and get incentives to improve public schools.

The oversight is the parents saying I want my kid to go somewhere else. Individual decisions of the parents is quite a bit more valuable to me then the elected folks taking donations from the various teacher's unions.

I guess I'd like to hear specifically what a private school that is using fixed tuition dollars could do differently. How could they pay teachers that much more? If parents take their kids out and the school goes out of business, how does that improve the outcomes for the kids who didn't leave the school who's education has been disrupted?

EDIT: I should note that here in Fargo, no private school is paying teachers near what they are public schools. I went to look for assessment reports in the school district profiles, but the private school system is not listed.

> Rich people would still live close to the best schools and even if poor people could send their kids there, they still deal with so many disadvantages. If all the best schools are an hour bus ride away, that's unfair to people who don't live in that neighborhood.

That is a result of schools being funded by property taxes and levies. Our current system allows this to happen and switching to a system where the school is paid per student reduces the problem.

> I guess I'd like to hear specifically what a private school that is using fixed tuition dollars could do differently. How could they pay teachers that much more?

Most private schools have less funding than public schools so it would actually increase their budget. Public schools spend a lot of money outside the classroom on admin which most private schools don't find necessary.

Citation? The private schools in my area charge tuition well in excess of the county/city expenditure per student.

[Fairfax County Public Schools, $16,000/pupil/year: http://www.insidenova.com/news/education/fairfax/fcps-per-st...

Madeira School (girls prep school), $45,000/pupil/year: http://www.madeira.org/admission/tuition-financial-aid/cost-...

Nysmith Academy (elemetary school), $30,000+: http://www.nysmith.com/tuition-fees/

St. Stephen's & St. Agnes (parochial), $30,000+: https://www.sssas.org/page/admission/tuition-and-financial-a...

Paul VI (parochial), $18,000: https://www.paulvi.net/page.aspx?pid=257

Also of note - PVI charges more for special ed students.

Fairfax County, VA. It's one of the wealthiest counties in the US, so there's plenty of discretionary income for private school. But, I wouldn't have guessed other areas had tuition less than average spending per pupil at the local public schools.

I suppose there is always going to be a 'elite minimum' so that the precious child won't have to deal with the riff-raff. Very much like unpaid internships often become.

When I started editing my post you hadn't yet replied. So I'll just have to be sorry and leave it at that.

> That is a result of schools being funded by property taxes and levies. Our current system allows this to happen and switching to a system where the school is paid per student reduces the problem.

Not exclusively. People want to live close to good schools so people who can afford to live close to one do. Performance is related very closely to the socioeconomics of the area. In Chicago and New York, schools in poor neighborhoods under perform, despite receiving the same funding. Anecdotally I see the same here. Of course, this is the argument for vouchers; get kids out of schools that under perform, but the cost of doing so can be onerous, not just in money, but in time. Getting a kid from a poor neighborhood to a better school is costly and difficult. I actually think open enrollment is a better answer for this, because the public can pick up the transportation costs (as much as the current implementation of that chagrins me). And of course you have the problem of admission and extra programs that are funded by backers, not the public, which could complicate the process a great deal. (for the record, taking sports out of schools is something I support regardless).

> Public schools spend a lot of money outside the classroom on admin which most private schools don't find necessary.

I don't know that there's much more than anecdotal evidence for this. In my experience (which I fully knowledge is anecdotal) most administrative expenses in the public sector surround the need to be accountable to the public. This creates cumbersome red tape like complicated purchasing policies, regulation, auditors and so on. My observations of the school system here leads to much the same conclusion. Part of the admin overhead is their requirement to meet certain standards and provide certain required services. If private schools were to start taking public money, I believe administrative overhead would follow closely.

The thing is, I'm not categorically opposed to vouchers. I think that there is a place for parents to argue that their kids are not being served by the public school system. But I cannot see how a blanket voucher program can avoid the same pitfalls public schools currently have. As someone said upthread, a critical part of the free market is the ability to fail, and the last thing we can have happen to a school is to have it fail. To avoid that we would regulate private schools to the point they are a public utility, technically private, but really indistinguishable from what we once had.