The economic cost of charter schools

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

With this current system, the lower income and working class still already don't have it as good as the higher income classes anyways.

The money saved from not funding any more public projects like schools is more money in everyone's pocket. Plus if we already have things like food stamps, Sec 8, I sure we can have for educations.

Yeh, that means more welfare, but only as needed, and it goes directly to the consumer/people. This welfare will not subsidize an industry like it basically is now.

You could be a working class family and live in a small house in a town that's very nice with great public schools. lots of places like that in north jersey.

Privatizing all the schools would result in the rich going to the best schools and the working class attending under funded public or charter schools.

That's pretty much exactly what would happen

 

[chardog]

The really, really shocking thing to me is that private school teachers make less money than public school teachers

I still can’t undeestand how having lower paid teachers (therefore wouldn’t the better ones not want that and wish to make more?) = those schools are better as evidenced in higher standardized test scores and fewer school discipline incidents

it's true in some cases, not in others from what I've seen. The private school my kids go to is MUCH better than the local school a quarter mile away.

at the same time, I'de say private school in another upscale area is below the standards of the public schools in that area. The value system is totally different in my kids private school. Parents from the private school are much better dressed, and kids are in uniform. Vs neck and face tattoo'd parents galore in the other school.

it's due to the nearby apartments, they get some really trash people that bring down the value of the city.

 

[luckyshot]

The really, really shocking thing to me is that private school teachers make less money than public school teachers

I still can’t undeestand how having lower paid teachers (therefore wouldn’t the better ones not want that and wish to make more?) = those schools are better as evidenced in higher standardized test scores and fewer school discipline incidents

Simple: they don’t have to take everyone. They have admissions standards and they can kick out kids who aren’t hacking it. They usually don’t even take “special ed” kids at all. PLUS, they charge admission, which weeds out most poor kids (unless they get a scholarship).

Public schools have to take everyone, from severe special education to juvenile delinquents, to kids that speak no English, to kids worrying about where their next meal is coming from.

A more honest comparison would be looking at the scores of private school kids vs. competitive college prep/ honors level kids in public schools.

 

[panamaican]

With this current system, the lower income and working class still already don't have it as good as the higher income classes anyways.

The money saved from not funding any more public projects like schools is more money in everyone's pocket. Plus if we already have things like food stamps, Sec 8, I sure we can have for educations.

Yeh, that means more welfare, but only as needed, and it goes directly to the consumer/people. This welfare will not subsidize an industry like it basically is now.

That's an awful idea. How are you going to ensure that there even enough schools to teach the total population?

 

[MadSquabbles500]

You could be a working class family and live in a small house in a town that's very nice with great public schools. lots of places like that in north jersey.

Privatizing all the schools would result in the rich going to the best schools and the working class attending under funded public or charter schools.

That's pretty much exactly what would happen

I am of the thinking/idea that teaching/teachers have a ceiling, or the margin of return diminishes geometrically as you get higher and higher on the teacher to super student translation ladder.

To me having access to great teaching isn't even an issue because I believe it is more about the student anyways as long as the instruction is not piss poor. A teacher can only take you so far. The rest is up to the student. Most of it is up to the students.

Privatization of education will not prevent small town folks from accessing the education that they need. There is nothing currently from stopping rich people from buying up all the so-called best teachers anyways. If they even exist.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

I am of the thinking/idea that teaching/teachers have a ceiling, or the margin of return diminishes geometrically as you get higher and higher on the teacher to super student translation ladder.

To me having access to great teaching isn't even an issue because I believe it is more about the student anyways as long as the instruction is not piss poor. A teacher can only take you so far. The rest is up to the student. Most of it is up to the students.

Privatization of education will not prevent small town folks from accessing the education that they need. There is nothing currently from stopping rich people from buying up all the so-called best teachers anyways. If they even exist.

i see the exact opposite happening as I said in my other post. Privatizing all schools would be a disaster

 

[MadSquabbles500]

That's an awful idea. How are you going to ensure that there even enough schools to teach the total population?

Why does there even have to be schools? And by schools, I am inferring you mean those large buildings with lockers, principal's office, gym, cafeteria, and playgrounds. We do not actually need those. It serves no purpose except as way to keep all the kids in one place, and mainly keep them away from everywhere else.

 

[panamaican]

Why does there even have to be schools? And by schools, I am inferring you mean those large buildings with lockers, principal's office, gym, cafeteria, and playgrounds. We do not actually need those. It serves no purpose except as way to keep all the kids in one place, and mainly keep them away from everywhere else.

Are you saying that all students will engage exclusively in online learning? Otherwise I need some more details on what seems like a great way to undereducate your population.

 

[HockeyBjj]

Simple: they don’t have to take everyone. They have admissions standards and they can kick out kids who aren’t hacking it. They usually don’t even take “special ed” kids at all. PLUS, they charge admission, which weeds out most poor kids (unless they get a scholarship).

Public schools have to take everyone, from severe special education to juvenile delinquents, to kids that speak no English, to kids worrying about where their next meal is coming from.

A more honest comparison would be looking at the scores of private school kids vs. competitive college prep/ honors level kids in public schools.

So private schools are better due to the default quality of the students in them and having nothing to due with teacher quality?

Legit this has been my theory I’ve kept to myself from my counselor wife and 3rd grade teacher sister. School quality has more to do with parental quality and social class than actual teacher and administrator skill?

 

[HockeyBjj]

Because once you account for differences in the students, private schools don't yield better students outcomes (2 exceptions - elite college prep schools and Jesuit schools). So private school teachers aren't actually giving you better results than their better paid public school counterparts.

However, the cost of private school acts as a barrier to lower income students and to families that don't care about education. So, it's probably a more enjoyable environment for the teachers, enough to offset the lower pay.

See my post above. I would enjoy an open ended discussion on this

 

[luckyshot]

So private schools are better due to the default quality of the students in them and having nothing to due with teacher quality?

Legit this has been my theory I’ve kept to myself from my counselor wife and 3rd grade teacher sister. School quality has more to do with parental quality and social class than actual teacher and administrator skill?

Oh, 100%. But I would say “educational outcomes” rather than “school quality.”

My own experience (anecdotal, obviously): in Catholic middle school I was taught “science” by the same nun who taught us “religion” out of a coloring book, and I was taught math by someone who probably couldn’t pass high school geometry. I struggled big time in high school honors classes trying to catch up to my peers who had been in public schools.

My town’s public middle school had better teachers, and
I could have gotten a better education there... IF I could have stayed away from my friends who got into fighting, drugs and gangs.

So, I would say public schools usually have more qualified teachers, but they have to deal with a rash of shit that private school teachers don’t have to deal with: where a kid can get a better education depends largely on how well he can keep his nose clean.

 

[panamaican]

So private schools are better due to the default quality of the students in them and having nothing to due with teacher quality?

Legit this has been my theory I’ve kept to myself from my counselor wife and 3rd grade teacher sister. School quality has more to do with parental quality and social class than actual teacher and administrator skill?

Yes and no. This is why I mentioned the 2 exceptions of elite college prep schools and Jesuit schools. Those schools actually do provide a measurable benefit to their students, although the reason why is unclear.

For your average public school vs. your average private school, the school doesn't matter to long term outcomes. This is because the average public school is providing the same quality of education as the average private school. The average school quality is the same. Teacher quality matters but private school teachers aren't a better quality than public school ones. Administrator skill matters but private school administrators aren't more skilled than public school ones.

The generic private school vs. public school debate is basically comparing 2 versions of the exact same thing but pretending they're different because you paid more for one version.

Another way to think about it is this. Since public schools are funded by property taxes and those taxes are usually reflective of an economic barrier to the neighborhood, when people pay for a private school they are often paying to duplicate the funding levels of public schools in better neighborhoods. Neighborhoods they can't afford to live in. So they live in cheaper neighborhoods and pay for private schools. Whereas better off parents just pay the higher property taxes and home prices and send their kids to the public school.

Again, with those 2 exceptions.

 

[HatchetHarry]

Too many words for ya. It's ok.

Too many retarded buzz words which mean nothing

 

[gatchaman]

Most people can agree that education is an important public service. And most people can agree that the current system isn't serving the needs of our less fortunate students. THe concept of school choice and the expansion of charter schools to meet that need has become a standard point of discussion.

Yet a criticism brought against this particular direction is that charter schools are financially detrimental to the school districts where they're operating.and the students who are in those districts but not in the charter schools.

https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_Breaking_Point_May2018FINAL.pdf

Here's a study out of California that shows that for those districts, the expansion of charter schools is literally taking money away from the other kids. It's not a simple one to one transfer of dollars, the students left behind are actually receiving less per student dollars.

School choice is an important concept but we have to make sure that it's not coming at the expense of other kids. As always it's one more reason to look closely at how we choose to fund schools. Perhaps the funding for charter schools should not come out of the same funding that we allocate for the public schools. Public school students should not be penalized so that charter school students can go elsewhere. And school choice should not be inhibited for those who wish to take advantage of it.

It's not a simple problem and deserves our attention.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

If outcomes are the same in public and charter schools then how are the left-behind public school students harmed? Those left-behind students are getting the same outcomes aren't they?

 

[gatchaman]

Because once you account for differences in the students, private schools don't yield better students outcomes (2 exceptions - elite college prep schools and Jesuit schools). So private school teachers aren't actually giving you better results than their better paid public school counterparts.

However, the cost of private school acts as a barrier to lower income students and to families that don't care about education. So, it's probably a more enjoyable environment for the teachers, enough to offset the lower pay.

I hope you don't mind my interjection into your conversation with HockeyBjj, but if the environment is more enjoyable for the private school teachers then is the environment also more enjoyable to the private school students?

 

[panamaican]

I hope you don't mind my interjection into your conversation with HockeyBjj, but if the environment is more enjoyable for the private school teachers then is the environment also more enjoyable to the private school students?

It might be but they don't perform any better because of it.

This is an imperfect analogy but it's like someone in first class claiming they rode in a faster airplane than the people in economy class.

 

[indo80]

I think the biggest reason why we have under performing students is that the students/parents do not really care that much or put in the effort. The majority of what is currently taught in K-12 education could be picked up from just reading books. Even if you had a shitty teacher, you could still easily learn if you put the work in. I know that the majority of my teachers were not really superstars, but I still felt prepared when I went off to college.

In areas where the "less fortunate" kids/parents do really value education and do not have high career ambitions after finishing education, you can not really fix that regardless if there are more or less charter schools. I prefer more funds being put into magnets schools which recruit top performing students and have competitive entrance requirements. Put the money towards the ones who are are statistically more likely to succeed and have a higher rate discipline and ambition. If there are only so many resources available, more of the resources should go into what will give the most return on investment.

this system will create a lot of haves vs have nots...some cultures are more education oriented than other cultures so your just giving the have kids more of an advantage than they already have. I think there should be a balance when a lot of cultures are living together, cream normally rises to the top anyways but society should give kids that come from unfortunate backgrounds at least a chance.

 

[panamaican]

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

If outcomes are the same in public and charter schools then how are the left-behind public school students harmed? Those left-behind students are getting the same outcomes aren't they?

First, I was talking public vs. private, not charter specific.

I'll try to explain but I don't necessarily want to write tons of paragraphs either. When measuring the difference between public and private schools most of the measurements boil to down to performance on standardized tests, acceptance into college and earnings some period of time after the fact.

When they compare the students, they compare like to like. So, white kid with 2 college educated parents with a household income of $100k only compares to similarly situated kids. White kid with a single mom with a high school education and a household income of $18k only compares to similarly situated kids. In your generic private vs. public conversation, those kids will perform the same on standardized tests, quality of college and earnings, regardless of whether they went to their local public school or a private school.

But that's because of a host of factors, the single parent white kid has the same external pressures on his academic progress whether he's in private or public school. He has the same economic limitations from his single parent household whether he's in private or public. He also has the same intelligence and the same drive. So his standardized test scores will reflect his ability to learn the material plus his restrictions from maybe not getting tutoring or not eating as often or needing to get a 2nd job to help out. Most private schools don't offset those circumstances (again there are 2 exceptions) and so the students outcomes remain unchanged.

Now, that's different from the charter vs. public school situation and left behind students. Left-behind students are harmed economically by the existence of charters because the charters take money out of the public school and reallocate it to the charter. This makes it harder for the public school to meet it's baseline criteria for providing a basic education to its charges. If the money from the public schools to the charters gets too large, the public school would be unable to financially meet its purpose while the charters can. This would mean that the kids who don't get picked for charters via lottery lose education opportunities so that the kids are charters can receive them.

They're 2 different issues. Public vs. private in terms of educational outcomes. Public vs. charter in terms of student financing for education. Private schools don't impact public school education opportunities, charters do.

 

[panamaican]

Too many retarded buzz words which mean nothing

Yeah, "less fortunate" is such a crazy buzzword. "Whatever does it mean?"...says no one with a high school education.

 

[gatchaman]

It might be but they don't perform any better because of it.

This is an imperfect analogy but it's like someone in first class claiming they rode in a faster airplane than the people in economy class.

I'm just wondering if there is some intangible that makes a teacher willing to accept lower pay to get it that also makes a student's parent willing to pay more to get it. What is that intangible?