Wednesday, March 25th, 2009...11:32 am
Breaking: Court Rejects Private School Vouchers
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I haven’t had a chance to talk to people at the lege about this, but here it is according to Paul Davenport of the Associated Press:
The state Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned two school voucher programs, ruling they violated the Arizona Constitution’s prohibition against providing state aid to private schools.
24 Comments
March 25th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
As a resident of rural Arizona, I applaud the decision.
There are very few options here (private or other public) for students who may live many miles from any school other than the one they go to.
Anything that takes money out of the public schools is ultimately bad for rural schools even if the vouchers only get used in cities because the cuts get spread around. So the net effect is that money gets sucked out of rural areas and into Maricopa county.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
THANK YOU. Private schools are PRIVATE. They should NOT get money from the State. Period.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
The times are indeed changing. I look forward to a reinvigorated public school system. Although in AZ that may not mean much.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Down go vouchers…can I get an amen?!
March 25th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Amen! (it wouldn’t let me submit a comment that short so I have to add some fluff). Amen!
March 26th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Amen!
(fluff fluff fluff fluff)
March 26th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Coming from a meeting yesterday @ my school re: RIF (reduction in force) this is a small but positive step.
meh.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:57 am
It’s time to quote Yogi, guys. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Look to the righties to mount a Constitutional amendment authorizing vouchers. I expect it to be on a ballot coming to your neighborhood soon.
March 26th, 2009 at 9:27 am
a step in the right direction. they are trying to frame it as an injustice to the disabled by the ACLU but it is purely a Constitutional issue and our state does protect public schools. agree with Sonoran Sam. can just see them trying to amend the Constitution now, completely ignoring the fact that we should be doing the right thing and helping public schools, especially when 82 % of Arizona’s school-age kids attend public schools.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Sam and Tina, you’re probably right. However, I do see a slow but steady idealogical shift occurring that will correct the over-privatization (sorry) of our culture. The free market fundamentalists hit a tipping point when Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Arizona being what it is, and with some AZ politicians using their elected offices to go on to bigger things, it may take longer to have a wide impact, but it’s coming nonetheless.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Tom Horne said to a reporter on KJZZ yesterday that voters would have to change the state constitution and that wasn’t likely since attempts in other states have been shot down. Vouchers are basically a non-starter with the public. Despite all the charter and magnet schools, the vast majority of people send their kids to their local public school. The reason is that you have as much “choice” in schools as you have the resources to provide transportation, lunches, uniforms, or whatever else is required to send your child to the school of your choice rather than the one closest to your home.
And most people without kids won’t bother to vote on it.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Donna – I don’t have kids, and I’ll be voting on it. Voting against vouchers, but still voting.
Eric – Amen!!!
Sam, Tina, Italiana – Don’t be shocked if Burns relaxes his “No Bills Until The Budget Is Done” edict for this one. It’ll give the rank-and-file legislators something to preen and posture over to keep them distracted from not having a budget.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Craig, you and I will but most people without kids in the schools can’t be bothered to care about them, even if you point out that the quality of schools affects the overall quality of life in a state in innumerable ways. They don’t get it and they don’t care.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
It kinda sucks that the specialized schools for special-ed students will be hurt by this, they were doing good work.
I am a college kid (from AZ, but living in New York City), everyone in New York loves charter schools and supports vouchers. I am not used to hearing people be so down on them.
In all honesty, what is the problem? I am undecided and have never heard it articulated well.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I don’t think we’ll see an referendum this year, despite this decision. The Legislature seems to prefer to wait until an election year to make these decisions, it allows them to determine the order of preference on the ballot. While this may be a hot button issue at the moment, something bigger could come along. My guess is that if they did put something together, we wouldn’t see it until next session.
I’ve also heard stats from other states (some more conservative than ours), reflecting that vouchers have a tough time at the ballot. I cannot imagine Arizona would be any different.
What kills me is that if you dig up the Rules minutes from 4/4/06, you can see where Rep. Lopez questioned these programs and the Rules attorney advised that both would be hard-pressed to pass state constitutional muster.
So why is it that R’s will scream bloody murder about Goddard and failed lawsuits, but not a peep is heard when it comes to this? I can answer my own question- because as much as they would LOVE to hate on the Supreme Court for this ruling, they know that it was based on the plain language of our constitution. Had the court ruled in favor of vouchers, would they be yelling “activist judges!”
Somehow I doubt it.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Ya know what we ought to do? GIVE ALL PEOPLE A MONTHLY VOUCHER. OH YEAH!!!! First come first serve. Instead of the School District getting the check, the parents get a check that can be cashed by a School, and thereby enrolling in that school, they pay it out…..if the kid gets suspended kicked out the Parents pull the kid out and find another school……yeah, that would work out….that would work out just fine. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea…..please stand up…where you at MATT LADNER? Where You at DARCI O? KIRK ADAMS, I call you out
March 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am
@ M K
The education budget here in AZ is one of the lowest in the nation. Instead of giving enough money and trying to fix public schools, the vouchers are used to try and subsidize a transfer to private schools.
Just because a school is private doesn’t always mean it’s always better. In Cincinnati, they closed down a voucher program because the private school kids were scoring lower on college entrance, SAT, ACT, etc.
The goal is to improve education for everyone, not just a select few. Most voucher programs run counter to that goal.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
MK, also as far as I know, NYC is the only place where specialized schools that are outside the normal type of schools actually worked.
The reason it worked is because the regular schools were failing, the parents really did care about their children, and everyone from the parents to the city council worked insanely hard to make the effort pay off.
http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-East-Harlem-Choice-Education/dp/0812920392
The problem I have with school vouchers is-the private sector cannot possibly accommodate all of the children that would need to attend and the point behind private is to pick and choose who goes, so if the child does not have that special ability, they are left behind. This is because private is there to make a profit and one cannot make a profit if the school is not special. Public schools do not have that pressure.
Yes I am aware there are exceptions to this rule.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
To add to the other comments criticizing vouchers, another issue with them is that they don’t nearly cover the cost of a private school. This is especially true for special needs students, where the costs can sometimes be as much as $50k annually. Where was a low income family going to get that kind of money, since they’d only get a couple grand or so with the vouchers? The vouchers for foster and special needs kids was nothing but a stalking horse for universal vouchers. Which are nothing but a stalking horse to dismantling public ed.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
m k:
See my comment above (number one on the thread.)
The money that is taken out of the public schools ultimately gets spread around, even to schools in areas where there are no private schools.
Vouchers are viewed with suspicion in rural areas as a plot to such money back out of rural schools and into the cities.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Whoops, I should have said they are “a plot to SUCK money out of rural schools”
March 27th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
@ stephen, and everyone else
Thanks for the replies.
I guess I come from a background where I have always heard that competition will help raise the bar. That seems to be the case in areas of New York like Harlem and the Bronx.
What are your thoughts on the role of competition or “the market” in education?
Also, if competition isn’t the solution, how do we raise the level of accountability in the public schools so that kids who were being helped by these vouchers don’t fall through the cracks when they return to the public system?
March 29th, 2009 at 12:02 am
m k:
There is nothing wrong with competition. The problem is when public funds are spent to subsidize what is supposed to be a private entity.
Here is an example: Suppose that I start a health insurance company that feels I can provide better health care at a lower price for seniors than medicare. Fair enough. And if I’m right then they will choose to use my company instead of going through medicare.
But, the whole idea of private enterprise is that I am investing the money, not the government. If they start sending me money that they are taking out of medicare then in effect I am now just running another government program which I have chosen to manage but I am being funded by the government, which in effect makes my original idea (that I could provide service for a better price than the government) no longer applicable. All you’ve done is created government option 1 or government option 2. Some competition. And of course with funds come strings (unless you propose to just shovel funds into the maw of a private school without any supervision to see that they aren’t being misspent.)
And as I said, not everywhere has any sort of a school option. So in rural school districts the challenge is not competition (who’s going to drive 50 miles every morning to take their kid to school and then drive it again in the afternoon to pick them up?) but rather how we can achieve the best outcome for our young people (since if the schools screw up it might literally lead to the end of the town.)
March 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
We already have that competition. Private schools have been operating for a few hundred years in the US without the benefit of vouchers. If money is being pulled from the public school budget to subsidize a tranfer to private schools, the public schools lose resources to be competitive.
We’ve made a commitment to provide free education to every child. Private schools are not available to every child. Mostly it’s due to location or price and sometimes due to religion or other factors. Competition can also be built into the public school system through charter schools, magnet schools, advanced placement programs, etc. Building competition into the public education system will improve public education. Transfering public funding to private schools does not.