I think this is a false premise.

My understanding of school choice is that there is little to no difference in the overall money spent. It is just that it is assigned to each student.

If the student population were then to remain in the same schools, nothing changes. It is only when students move to other schools and take the money with them that there is a change.

>My understanding of school choice is that there is little to no difference in the overall money spent. It is just that it is assigned to each student.

ok, I would expect some significant change in investment because of needs of bureaucracy, IT systems etc.

I mean if kids go by default to school they should go to, then there has to be a process for kids that want to change, there has to be a way to register and keep that knowledge of change through the next sequence of that child's schooling etc.

I would expect it to cost something noticeable, and that it might also cost more or less depending on which part of the U.S. one were in.

How is this different from what has to already be supported today with kids moving in and out, even mid-semester?

The processes and tools to support this are already in place, we're only talking about scale.

There certainly would be a significant amount of disruption over the first five or so years as kids move around, schools would need to figure out expansion/contraction of facilities and faculties.

Ok, and so again, if someone thought school was unimportant - why would they support school choice given the significant amount of disruption? The only way I can see someone wanting to take the extra effort that school choice would take, whether it is my supposition of extra effort or yours, is if they thought school was really important.

Is anyone in this thread making the point you’re arguing against?

The original poster I replied to thought that for some reason people who thought that school was unimportant should not be against people being allowed to choose what school to go to. That being against it was somehow contradictory. To quote:

>I keep seeing people arguing that school isn’t important, but also against things like school choice and I really wonder what’s motivating them.

so what did I say, I said >If you think school isn't important why would you want to spend the extra money on school choice that such a program would entail?

for which I got three downvotes, because reasons I guess.

someone said it wouldn't be expensive, I said ok it seems to me like logically it would but I could be wrong, here are my points why I think it would be expensive. The guy above the post of mine you're replying to said it wouldn't be expensive for any of those reasons but there would be a lot of disruptions the first few years, and I said ok, so then a person who thought schools were unimportant wouldn't want you to shift schools for that reason, because who wants to deal with a bunch of disruptions in an unimportant system? (and in my world systems that have lots of disruptions tend to be expensive)

I think the thread should be pretty clear.

That isn't the argument I was making. I was pointing out that people supporting the school closures make a host of weird and at times contradictory arguments. People will at the same time argue that in person learning isn't important, school choice is evil, children have to go to public schools, but whether or not it's over zoom or even with their teacher doesn't matter. This is to my my an incoherent set of positions, unless you view it as an argument from a labor organization trying to maximize member(public school teacher) benefits.

> someone said it wouldn't be expensive, I said ok it seems to me like logically it would but I could be wrong

This is information you can easily find. Charter schools for example spend 61% of what public schools do per pupil per year on average in the US.

I think his point's logic is as follows:

If you don't think the default school is important, why would you care if a kid switched?

--

If the response was that it's too expensive to allow them to switch that'd be logical, but I don't think that's the common response. Tbf I am not really aware of people matching the initial premise either.

Edit: formatting

The argument I’m making is that there is a cynical thread in the politics around COVID in schools in the US driven by teachers’ unions. This leads people to make these self contradictory arguments.

I don’t think that, and that’s not how school choice programs work.

I didn't say you think that, you said you thought they were self-contradictory viewpoints, I can see how someone might want to not allow school choice, but also think school is unimportant.

School choice isn't more expensive than compulsory district based schooling though. Nationwide charter schools and similar average $6,585 per pupil spending compared to $10,771 per pupil at conventional district public schools.

Ok, I didn't know that. It seems to me like it would be more expensive because, but sometimes what seems intuitive is wrong.