School Choice / Voucher Debate

Do you know those times when you have had a great response to a conversation you finished 1/2 an hour ago. I’m having that now. I have stopped for lunch on my way back from our Missouri Capitol, Jefferson City. I attended to an MSTA Capitol lobby day to lobby our state legislators.

I talked to my state senator, Gary Nodler. We debated a school voucher bill.

For those international readers, school choice /school vouchers refers to using the tax money that is paid to a public school for a student to pay for private school tuition if the student chooses to attend a private school.

Senator Nodler supported school choice for several reasons.

1. Competition between schools will improve the quality of the schools.
2. It will allow students to escape being “enslaved” in the failing and dysfunctional St. Louis school district (which makes up40% of the population if Missouri).
3. The money belongs to the parents, since they already paid it in taxes.
4. Parents are getting triple-taxed: paying the tax, paying private school tuition, and public schools get a windfall from getting the money for the student but not having to educate the student.

Do you find the arguments convincing? I had some answers then and have some afterthoughts now. Admitted, I did not win this lively debate, but I did enjoy the challenge.

Here are my answers:

1. There is no guarantee that the new choice will be any better than the public school. The senator’s answer was that anything had to be better than the broken St. Louis public schools. Afterthought: Competitions have winner and losers. What do public schools have that public schools do not? Better students and better parents because they do not have to deal with poverty and all the baggage that comes with it. There are excellent teachers in private schools, but there are also excellent teachers in public schools. Many times, the private and public teachers come from the same colleges. Many parents, especially poor and limited English speakers won’t understand the bureaucracy of how to choose another school or even know they have the option.
2. I acknowledged that St. Louis does have a problem with it’s schools and it’s administration. Afterthought: The problems with urban schools are complex and have more to do with cycles of poverty and it’s culture than schools not working hard enough to educate their students. My Carl Junction students are not in St. Louis and attend an excellent school district. The parents of my more affluent students would be more likely to choose a private school than my poor students. Since they would take the money with them, my class size would probably grow larger and I would be left with more poor achieving, special ed, and troublesome students. Does that make our school better? No, it just changes the population of our school. We are already doing our best to educate our students.
3. True parents did pay the money, but doesn’t paying state revenues to religious institutions violate the separation of church and state in the 1st amendment of our Constitution? He answered that our schools started as religious schools and our forefathers intended for religion to be a part of public schools. Afterthought: So the answer is Yes.
4. I oppose taking money away from my students, increasing class sizes, and cutting services our school provides to my students. Afterthoughts: Parents are entitled to their right to choose which school they attend, but they must pay. They are not entitled to take the money spent on my students and give it to religious (not necessarily Christian) schools.

I had more afterthoughts than answers to the debate. Some are along MSTA party lines and some are my own. I found the senator’s reasoning well thought out and convincing. I will have to ponder on this more. Are you convinced? Are your beliefs challenged? I welcome your input.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

no comments yet.

Podcast #4 Interview with MSTA’s Kent King

I finally got out this podcast.  It has been several months since I recorded this interview.  As a matter of fact, I had only been blogging for a week before I recorded this.

Kent King is the Executive Director of the Missouri State Teachers Association.  I interviewed him late one night after an evening cookout and campfire sing-along at the annual Leader U conference.  He is an believes in doing what is right for students and giving teachers a voice in the political decision-making that shapes public education.  He leads by listening and keeps MSTA on the right path toward the future of education in the 21st century.

This is the last in a series of interviews from that conference.  I hope you enjoy.

 

 Episode 4 - Interview with Kent King: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (29)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

no comments yet.

Open Source Textbook

Kim, on her Missouri State Teachers Association blog, talked about Motion Mountain: The Free Physics Textbook. This was my comment.

I had heard about a movement to create an open source textbook. An open source textbook is one written by teachers who teach the subject. What a novel idea! Teachers divide up the tasks and all contribute collaboratively. Rather than a large publishing company, who’s bottom line is $, deciding what teachers teach. The teachers decide and write the textbook exactly how they want it. It can also be updated within months instead of in years. Great idea!

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

no comments yet.

Podcast #3 Interview with Todd Fuller

This podcast is an interview with Todd Fuller, podcaster on The Pulse, MSTA’s podcast.

I recorded it this summer while at MSTAs resort for a leadership conference retreat. I had just started blogging and wanted to record some interviews for podcasts. I especially wanted to interview podcast pro, Todd. At that time, I had called my blog, Upgrade to School 2.0. I later changed it to a better name, What is School 2.0? Please leave comments, questions, feedback, and suggestions below. Enjoy.

Music was Astroglide provided CC by Alan Renkl from the Podsafe Music Network

 

 Episode - Interview with Todd Fuller - podcaster on MSTA's The Pulse: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

no comments yet.

Podcast #2 Interview the MSTA’s Blogger

MSTA has a blog! Kim Wencewicz run the MSTA blog. I interviewed Kim about blogging at our annual MSTA LeaderU Leadership Conference. The conference is held at the Bunker Hill Resort on the banks of the Jacks Fork River in Mountain View, MO. Kim tells us about how she started blogging and what the experience is like. Enjoy . . .

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

 Interview with MSTAs Kim Wencewicz [8:37m]: Download (51)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

no comments yet.