Well a couple things to note:

1. An entrepreneurial teacher/teachers could provide a service for these suddenly flush parents at $4600 per child.

2. Most politicians, from either side are either corrupt or incompetent, so these labels don’t matter much to me. But if you actually look at the people running most say schools/admins and even large chunks of the government bureaucracy it’s people who believe in large government and like that lifestyle. This is true even in deep red areas.

Finally, the argument “more money”/resources needed to improve the bad quality is something that has been going on for 50+ years and it’s gotten worse over time. At what point do you say, “geez guess more money isn’t the answer!”

I think Thomas Sowell said once something along the lines that the black schools in DC at about late 1800s-early 1900s was OUTPERFORMING those of the white schools in the region. If one is to look at the present day schooling in the same region, those children/teens are functionally illiterate.

So what needs to be done, is to give a voucher to every parent to decide where to go. Right now the system sends MORE money to a school if it’s failing, and or they allow the failing school to survive.

> I think Thomas Sowell said once something along the lines that the black schools in DC at about late 1800s-early 1900s was OUTPERFORMING those of the white schools in the region. If one is to look at the present day schooling in the same region, those children/teens are functionally illiterate.

There's a lot of quiet stereotyping going on where people assume that blacks have always underperformed whites in schooling, economic growth, etc.

In reality, this is a recent phenomenon. Well into the 50s/early 60s, black incomes were growing much faster than whites.

Yup! They assume today’s bad situation and apply it backwards, when in fact as time progresses, things have gotten worse not better.

> So what needs to be done, is to give a voucher to every parent to decide where to go.

So, we just say 'fuck all the kids who were born in the wrong zip code' and can't overcome the distance gate to go to a better school with the voucher?

Well seeing as how the biggest failing schools are in large metros this argument doesn’t hold much does it?

One of the biggest school system is in NYC and the average student graduating high school is reading at a 10 year old level or less.

One could also imagine some sort of large vehicle whose sole purpose is to provide rides for students to attend the schools.

Let me see if I can do some more research on such a scheme. Perhaps, one could paint them a vivid color, so that people could know they are “educational vehicles”. Maybe yellow? I think I’ve seen such a system before…

Lastly, right now you’re saying:

“Born in the wrong zip? And the school is failing? Sucks to be you! Not my problem”

Or what am I missing? At least provide the opportunity for someone rather than force them to a particular outcome

> Lastly, right now you’re saying:

> “Born in the wrong zip? And the school is failing? Sucks to be you! Not my problem”

No. That's the logical outcome of a voucher system that only rewards the most successful schools instead of fixing the others.

> Or what am I missing?

Everything, apparently.

It's a fallacy to think there are not good schools possible in poorer areas; they used to be quite common, and still are in many places: https://www.city-journal.org/html/irreplaceable-9836.html

Rich elites, which almost everyone on this forum is, imagine that the poor people in the inner city who want vouchers want to send their kid to some swanky rich kid school where everyone wears a blazer.... they don't. They want to send their kids to the ordinary private schools that would exist in their communities if they were able to afford non-public education.

> unless there are numerous private schools in West Virginia that charge $4600 or less in tuition, which I would not expect.

There seem to be quite a few: https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/west-virgi...

In general, Catholic school is per capita cheaper than public. In fact, according to https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-private-school, $4600 would be enough to cover the average Catholic elementary school in the US as a whole.

> Otherwise it's simply a transfer of funds away from public schools to middle and upper class families who were already leaning away from public education and the private (largely religious) institutions they prefer.

That's not true. Vouchers are more popular with minorities: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/24/voters-str...

I also notice you use religious as a pejorative. There is little reason to do so. Catholic schooling for example provides better outcomes for low-income minorities than public schools, including when adjusted for poverty, parental behavior, etc. Thomas Sowell goes in depth in his book "education in america".

> If the intent was truly to provide school choice to all, they could end enrollment based on residence and allow low income families to choose to place their children in high performing schools in high income areas, but that kind of choice is not the intent of these programs.

Low income families do not want to place their kids in high performing schools in high income areas. That doesn't actually work. This typically leads to ostracization of the poor kids in school and the creation of two separate tracks.

My wife and I are in the best high school in our city ... if you're white or rich. If you're black it's the worst. It's in an extremely rich area, but it also includes a predominantly black poorer inner city neighborhood.

> I also notice you use religious as a pejorative. There is little reason to do so.

While I tend to agree that Catholic schools are good at teaching science (except for reproductive science!), evangelical schools often teach against evolution, climate change, etc. A popular Christian textbook refers to the theory of evolution as “a wicked and vain philosophy.” And many of these schools accept vouchers! That means taxpayer funds set aside for education are actively being used, by religious schools, to make students dumber, in an explicit attempt at religious and political indoctrination.

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/education-creationism...

> except for reproductive science!

People claim this with little evidence. At my conservative Catholic school we discussed contraception in great detail. More than my public school classmates. We learned about all the available options, how they worked at the chemical level, and why they were morally unacceptable. In fact, we had a whole full-semester class on this and on abortion. We learned about the various drugs used to induce abortion. The various methods of abortion. Our first sex ed curriculum was in the fourth grade. And yes, this was a very conservative catholic elementary school, with a very strict orthodox Irish nun for principal.

The real complaint here isn't that Catholic schools don't teach contraception, abortion, etc. It's that they teach that they are immoral. The morality of contraception and abortion is not a scientific argument.

Another complaint I hear about 'conservative' sex ed, is that they don't talk about sex as fun, but I literally never experienced this at my catholic school. We had our married teachers be incredibly candid about pleasure. In my all boys high school, I remember one in particular pointing out that sex without a condom felt way better. And guess what... he was right... thanks Mr Tory.

The last thing I'll say is my own experience as a newlywed. My wife when we first married had irregular cycles. She went to public school. She accepted this as normal (which it is certainly, but not the way she was having them.... 100 day long cycles followed by 20 day ones). I went to all boys Catholic school, where we learned about natural family planning. By the time we married as 21 year olds, I knew that the church taught a system of menstrual tracking that could be used to avoid or achieve pregnancy and fix cycle issues.

I encouraged us to sign up for an NFP class. My wife wanted to use the pill. I told her that based on her history of migraine, the pill may cause blood clots and lower libido (which newly wed wants that...). Anyway, she went on the pill and had all the typical reactions one would expect. She decided in frustration to take an NFP class.

Anyway, we did that, and my wife learned so much about her cycle. She said she wished she had learned it in school. Guess what? The girls at our all girl sister school did learn about it. Via NFP tracking, she learned her cycles were likely off due to her thyroid. A trip to the doctor later, she had normal cycles. Then we had a series of miscarriages, including some late ones. We visited a Catholic doctor who took her full history and looked at her menstrual charts. She immediately saw some more discrepancies that indicated some hormone things, but she also noted that her migraines could be a blood clotting problem, especially given her reaction to the pill. Anyway, some tests later, and some blood thinners and some supplemental progesterone, we had our first child after seven miscarriages. Now, after successful pregnancies, we know that it's likely a blood clotting problem. Man... if only she had learned that a bad reaction to the pill and a history of migraines is often indicative of blood clotting problems, she would have avoided all that unnecessary suffering. Thank goodness we learned about it in Catholic school.

That is to say, I credit my own Catholic high school education for being able to see what was obviously ailing my wife and she and I both wish she had had access to the same education in high school. It would have saved her a lot of unnecessary inconvenience over having an irregular cycle, and us a lot of grief over having lost those babies. Frankly, our experience of the science taught by the church, turned us from lukewarm Catholics (I had learned a lot of facts but disagreed with the church over its moral teachings) into pretty traditional ones.

> Schools are controlled primarily by state and local governments, which are not universally controlled by Democrats but split along typical red state/blue state lines

Fine, but the claim was about the teachers' union. In a red state, who does the teachers' union campaign for? I'd bet that there are few examples of the teachers' union campaigning for Republicans, even in a red state.

> Schools are controlled primarily by state and local governments, which are not universally controlled by Democrats but split along typical red state/blue state lines:

Looking at the uproar about Critical Race Theory, it appears that even the deepest red states have school hierarchies run by the blue. In addition, the Department of Education and other federal agencies are a thing.

> it appears that even the deepest red states have school hierarchies run by the blue

This is definitely not the case. Consider: unless consistently-"red" legislatures and governor's offices are putting "blue" people in charge of their educational departments, it couldn't be the case. Further, in many states, individual districts play a major role in deciding the course of education, so even if that were the case, "red" school districts would have to be electing "blue" school boards, and I can 100% confirm that, as one might expect, they do not do this, generally.

[EDIT] further—and I'm heading into speculative territory here, I admit—I'd guess that people holding school administration PhDs—so, qualified for superintendent-type roles—identify, on average, as farther right than the average of PhD holders, and probably than most individual PhD areas of study except maybe business-related ones. There are lots of very conservative school administrators out there.

I don’t buy this argument for a couple of reasons. The first is that you have to look at the percentage of candidates for the job from each tribe. Just like really blue cities are inevitably at odds with their really red tribe police officers who inevitably live in the suburbs. Similarly, public universities in red states have no choice but to hire really liberal professors because like 95% of professors vote Democrat and the remainder vote libertarian or green, etc. You could try convincing the professors to go be police officers and vice versa, but neither is actually interested in the other job.

Secondly, these sorts of policies often come from the bottom up, from students or teachers. Administrations often roll over out of self preservation or apathy.

Ah, higher ed. Yes, that may have a different dynamic. My comment was from the POV of primary and secondary education. For instance, it's definitely not the case that this:

> Secondly, these sorts of policies often come from the bottom up, from students or teachers. Administrations often roll over out of self preservation or apathy.

Is happening in any widespread or common way in k-12 school districts, with admin hired by "red" school boards elected by "red" voters capitulating to most any "blue" political inclinations of teachers. As for the students in those age ranges, for most of that span they have a strong tendency to very closely follow the political views of their parents, so that's mostly irrelevant as far as pressure goes.

>Schools are controlled primarily by state and local governments, which are not universally controlled by Democrats but split along typical red state/blue state lines

This isn't reality, schools are ran by school administrators and education leadership heavily skew leftist.