Hell Hath No Fury Like A Parent Scorned
Tyler at Davis County Watch has picked up on the arguments being put forth by DavisParents.org, an organization working to change business as usual in the Davis County School District. I’ve complained in the past about this group’s less effective efforts to get their point across but their more professional works do reveal several problems with the way our school district is being run that really need to be addressed.
I think it is fascinating that what began as a group of parents angry that their kids had to change schools has organized into an effort to create an effective lobby for change in how our school district is managed. There are a lot of problems I’d have never known about if this hadn’t taken place.
Good luck to DavisParents.org. I agree with many of your arguments even though your public protests are lame and counterproductive
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Which illustrates my primary argument against vouchers. These are type of parents who wouldn’t get involved in managing their public school system if they were encouraged to put their kids in private schools. With vouchers, the only parents left would be the detached, disinterested ones. The public schools would just continue to deteriorate.
Comment by Part of the Plan — January 23, 2007 @ 11:40 am
Part of the Plan,
May I call you P of the P? I’m a voucher advocate, and yet, to be honest, I may use my kids voucher to stay in Public School.
I’m interested in my kids going to the best schools available. No matter their origin.
I agree that it is a good thing that DavisParents.org is around.
Comment by Tyler Farrer — January 23, 2007 @ 11:59 am
But Ed, there’s always you, isn’t there? Even if selfish parents take their children out of public schools and put them in private schools, you will be there in the public schools helping out and making sure that things are improving. Right?
Comment by Daniel — January 23, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
I just don’t see how vouchers could improve the educational system in Utah. I know all the libertarian/conservative arguments for school choice but I have yet to hear one that explains how our kids in Utah will actually be better educated because of a voucher system.
Vouchers belong where the educational system is actually broken.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — January 23, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
Not at all, my kids are done grown and gone. This is entirely your problem. But they say experience is the best teacher. If vouchers come to pass, there will be two separate but unequal school systems, one for the haves, one for the have nots. That experiment has been tried, and found to be wanting. Good luck.
Comment by Part of the Plan — January 23, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
I agree with Ed’s comment but also see the counter-argument one could make:
The problems these parents have been experiencing are a direct result of the fact that school administrators value arbitrary rules regarding school size and district funding generated by the state a lot more than they value the opinions of parents regarding the safety and convenience of their children’s schooling. A system with a little bit of private competition might change this incentive (although the current legislation being contemplated in Utah would not.)
I guess I’ve answered my own comment above with this post…school choice might have helped with the situation DavisParents.org is facing. That said I still don’t think that is reason enough to implement vouchers in Utah. We just don’t have a broken system that would warrant them.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — January 23, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
The solution is to elect politicians and school board members who are committed to making the needed reforms. If the toad in the road is a state employee, change the law regarding the firing of state employees. This has been the paradigm forever. What’s changed? Why doesn’t it work here? Or is this just a smokescreen for some other agenda.
As far as providing a parent “choice”, I am all for it. I just want the choices to be within the public school system so the playing field is level. Whenever I make this argument with a neighbor, I am told “oh, that would never work” or “oh, that’s not legal” or some such. That’s just code for “I want to send my child to a religous school and I want a tax break”. Sending child to religious school: Good. Getting tax break for sending child to religious school: Won’t fly. My friendly (and persistent) commenter Lt. Col. Moroni of the First Nephite Army likes to cite Pell grants to attend BYU and Notre Dame as precedent. Problem is, those are not tax breaks. They’re scholarships. To NOT grant them to students of church-owned universities would be illegal and unconstitutional. Apples and oranges.
Comment by Part of the Plan — January 23, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
The research shows that when vouchers are offered, both the children receiving the vouchers and the children who are still in public school do better. Competition is a good thing.
Second, the parents of children who have received vouchers are very happy with their children’s experience. Customer satisfaction is a good thing.
Personally I think public education should be the goal, not keeping public schools in business. The public would still finance education by giving parents vouchers to be spent at the schools of their choice, but the schools wouldn’t be run by the state, but by teachers, or private groups, or atheists, or religious groups. There would need to be some rules to make sure that supply of school was sufficient, but we would leave schooling up to parents and teachers. This way parents would have a real say in their children’s education because they would be the ones writing the
Comment by Daniel — January 23, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
The last sentence should have read, “This way parents would have a real say in their children’s education because they would be the ones writing the check.”
Comment by Daniel — January 23, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
Aha, so there it is…the hidden agenda: eliminate public schools. Now I understand.
Comment by Part of the Plan — January 23, 2007 @ 2:28 pm
Jeremy,
I think that Davisparents.org would agree with you that Utah has an excellent school system. They just think that the school board has behaved in a bafflingly insular way. My words–trying my best to summarize what I’ve found on their website.
The board lacks transparency in ways that cannot be intentional. The problem isn’t that they don’t care, and are secretly conspiring for selfish ends. The problem is that they don’t know how to communicate, or why it is important to communicate. This is why it’s good to have davisparents.org.
The voucher issue really only slightly relates to this post, anyway. However, these are good comments.
Jeremy, thanks for bringing some attention to this issue.
Comment by Tyler Farrer — January 24, 2007 @ 10:30 am
Part of the Plan,
I don’t think vouchers will eliminate schools. The current proposal is very much supportive of schools. Look at where the money goes. Schools get money from students that don’t even attend–for five years!
Comment by Tyler Farrer — January 24, 2007 @ 10:32 am
Jeremy in Puerto Rico, when a toad is in the road you don’t fire it you run over it! I walked past 100’s of flat dead toads every week I was there.
Comment by Dignin — January 25, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Dignin,
Your logic is undeniable. Good point!
Comment by Jeremy Manning — January 25, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
Thanks to both of you for agreeing with me (I think).
Comment by Part of the Plan — January 25, 2007 @ 5:02 pm