Literacy Rates of High School Graduates

[temporal1]

Yes, but a landlord who loses money every month is going to exit the market, diminishing supply and driving up the cost of rent.
Indirectly or not, renters absolutely end up paying property taxes.

Even when i was young, my parents complained about “taxes on taxes,” it’s increased exponentially since then.
My father had a small business, auto body repair, he complained about gov red tape. i presume his problems would be tiny today.

On MD, Robert wrote about taxes and layers of taxes we all pay, often without a thought.
Licenses are taxes. Taxes by any other name, are taxes.

i agree, renters pay property taxes, how could they not?
it’s not restricted to property taxes. these costs are part of overhead, passed along in every which-way, and, i believe it often results in taxes being paid on goods+services already taxed.

i suppose this is the stuff of actuaries, and those types of calculating minds.

[PeterG]

Sure, but this is all kind of a side-argument from my main point that for the bulk of public school students in the US (which are majority poor and majority non-white) a voucher is not simply the return of their own taxes that they paid to the government. Most families pay nothing close in taxes to what it costs to educate their children. So a national voucher program would be a massive redistribution of public dollars towards people who, by in large, did not contribute most of it.

Josh's argument that vouchers would simply be giving people back their own money is simply not be true except for perhaps those at the top 20% or so of the income scale. Who represent a small minority of public school students. In fact, in many school districts, the bulk of property taxes are not paid by families at all, they are paid by businesses and corporations who own commercial properties in the district, as well as by Federal taxpayers. In district where I currently teach, the largest school taxpayers BY FAR are Georgia-Pacific, WaferTech, and Fisher Investments. And some large real estate syndicates who own a lot of the commercial property around here. At the district I used to teach at in Texas the largest school taxpayers were Mars Candy, Amgen Pharmaceuticals, Caterpillar, and Sherwin Williams, who all had large manufacturing plants in the district. Any voucher program would be distributing THEIR money more than that of any individual family.

I largely agree with your main point. But since we're all being sticklers here today, even without vouchers our public school system is already redistributive in the sense that you laid out above. Vouchers would simply give parents more choices about how the money that's redistributed to them is used. Also, in the absence of vouchers or other forms of public funding of nonpublic education, parents of children who attend private schools or are homeschooled are doing some of the redistributing and not getting redistributed to. Like the patrons of my school, who pay both their property taxes and tuition. And I don't think that's the world's biggest disaster. As I hinted at before, I have mixed feelings about vouchers. And it's all complicated by the fact that, like JBG and mike talked about a bit, here in PA private schools get a considerable amount of what is effectively state money (and there's significant state funding beyond the scholarship tax credit thing they mentioned, too), even in the absence of a full-blown voucher program.

Okay, I think I'm done nit-picking for the evening.

[Ken]

Sure, but this is all kind of a side-argument from my main point that for the bulk of public school students in the US (which are majority poor and majority non-white) a voucher is not simply the return of their own taxes that they paid to the government. Most families pay nothing close in taxes to what it costs to educate their children. So a national voucher program would be a massive redistribution of public dollars towards people who, by in large, did not contribute most of it.

Josh's argument that vouchers would simply be giving people back their own money is simply not be true except for perhaps those at the top 20% or so of the income scale. Who represent a small minority of public school students. In fact, in many school districts, the bulk of property taxes are not paid by families at all, they are paid by businesses and corporations who own commercial properties in the district, as well as by Federal taxpayers. In district where I currently teach, the largest school taxpayers BY FAR are Georgia-Pacific, WaferTech, and Fisher Investments. And some large real estate syndicates who own a lot of the commercial property around here. At the district I used to teach at in Texas the largest school taxpayers were Mars Candy, Amgen Pharmaceuticals, Caterpillar, and Sherwin Williams, who all had large manufacturing plants in the district. Any voucher program would be distributing THEIR money more than that of any individual family.

I largely agree with your main point. But since we're all being sticklers here today, even without vouchers our public school system is already redistributive in the sense that you laid out above. Vouchers would simply give parents more choices about how the money that's redistributed to them is used. Also, in the absence of vouchers or other forms of public funding of nonpublic education, parents of children who attend private schools or are homeschooled are doing some of the redistributing and not getting redistributed to. Like the patrons of my school, who pay both their property taxes and tuition. And I don't think that's the world's biggest disaster. As I hinted at before, I have mixed feelings about vouchers. And it's all complicated by the fact that, like JBG and mike talked about a bit, here in PA private schools get a considerable amount of what is effectively state money (and there's significant state funding beyond the scholarship tax credit thing they mentioned, too), even in the absence of a full-blown voucher program.

Okay, I think I'm done nit-picking for the evening.

I don't think we really disagree. I'm just pushing back on the notion that "it is OUR money as taxpayers, not public money. Just give us OUR money back with no strings attached and we will know best what to do with it when it comes to educating our kids.

That is really only maybe true for perhaps the top 10-20% of the population. Yes, the public schools are a MASSIVE investment by the public in the education of what is a growing cohort of non-white and poor children. Public schools are massively subsidized. They are not public versions of pay-as-you-go private schools where tax dollars simply substitute for tuition. Consequently any sort of universal voucher program would probably be the most massive public welfare redistribution program in American history. The notion that we would take the hundreds of billions or probably trillions of dollars involved and just pass it out with no strings attached to the parents of the 50+ million school children in this country is pure fantasy. There would be ENORMOUS strings attached and a tremendous increase in the regulation of private institutions who chose to take those dollars. That is the political reality that we live in. Josh might fantasize about a system in which every child in the country gets a $15,000 voucher to spend as the parent sees fit with no strings attached. But that is pure fantasy talk.

[ohio jones]

I happen to know a homeschool family that intentionally located in Belgium because of the excellent homeschooling opportunities there. They are a German-speaking family, so they live right by the border with Lichtenstein and Germany. Dad worked in Lichtenstein, and mom could go to markets in Germany to do shopping.

That's an extremely long commute from Belgium. I'd suggest the father look for a job in Luxembourg instead.

[JimFoxvog]

Public vouchers should come with zero strings attached. They should be a check written to the parents, given them just like a child tax refund.

So if I have 3 kids and the voucher is $15,000 per kid, can I use my voucher on hookers and blow? Can I use it to buy a case of AR-15s and ammo because I'm going to teach my kids marksmanship? Or maybe a new F150 because I'm going to teach driver's ed? Can I use it to buy $45,000 worth of Fentanyl because I'm going to teach them "business" practices?

I was thinking along the same lines. Some parents can't be trusted to do what's best for their children. Some parents are alcoholics, drug addicts, addicted to phone or online sex,...

A big check to spend on the children of these parents would be too big a temptation.

[PeterG]

Public vouchers should come with zero strings attached. They should be a check written to the parents, given them just like a child tax refund.

So if I have 3 kids and the voucher is $15,000 per kid, can I use my voucher on hookers and blow? Can I use it to buy a case of AR-15s and ammo because I'm going to teach my kids marksmanship? Or maybe a new F150 because I'm going to teach driver's ed? Can I use it to buy $45,000 worth of Fentanyl because I'm going to teach them "business" practices?

I was thinking along the same lines. Some parents can't be trusted to do what's best for their children. Some parents are alcoholics, drug addicts, addicted to phone or online sex,...

A big check to spend on the children of these parents would be too big a temptation.

It's not $15,000, but as of last month parents are getting $3,000 per child per year, in monthly installments of $250, with more coming at tax time...

[Szdfan]

Just as a side note. I’m sitting today through my second day of training on the Kagan cooperative education model, which is something my district is emphasizing this year (we’ll be getting more training in the next couple of months).

Along with lesson planning and getting my classroom ready, I’m also working on getting my alternative license through the state and meeting all of their requirements.

It’s overwhelming. I’m in a standards, skills based district where all of my lessons need to be designed to meet the ELA standards set by the state (which are based on Common Core). I am also held accountable to whether my students learn specific skills (can they cite, can they paraphrase the meaning of a text, etc), which is a lot more involved than having my students read a short story in a textbook and answer questions. And oh yeah, many of my students are underperforming and have difficult home situations.

Meanwhile, people in the community are asking whether we are teaching Critical Race Theory, which is a load of nonsense.

I really appreciate the experience that Josh Good, Peter and Ken are bringing to this discussion. There are good districts and bad districts. There are good teachers and bad teachers. Public education as a system is broken. There are also many dedicated teachers who care about their students and are fighting uphill battles every day to teach their students.

My district has a bad reputation. Our test scores aren’t where they are supposed to be. Colorado allows students to go to schools that aren’t in their district, so high performing students go elsewhere and we have to educate whoever is left over. I’m grateful to be there. My colleagues are supportive and the administration has worked hard to support and bring in the right kinds of teachers. My principal’s background is an instructional coach, so I have a lot to learn from her.

Monday is the first day of school. I’m nervous. I’m terrified. I’m excited. I’m grateful that God has called me here. God is good.

[Josh]

...I say this as a somewhat accomplished former custom guitar shop owner ...

is there ANYTHING that you aren't an expert in?

Lots of things. For example, I don’t know much about CPR.

The pricing and quality of guitars I happen to be a near-expert in - enough to dismiss jbg’s claim you can’t learn guitar without spending a lot of money.

[Josh]

I happen to know a homeschool family that intentionally located in Belgium because of the excellent homeschooling opportunities there. They are a German-speaking family, so they live right by the border with Lichtenstein and Germany. Dad worked in Lichtenstein, and mom could go to markets in Germany to do shopping.

That's an extremely long commute from Belgium. I'd suggest the father look for a job in Luxembourg instead.

You’re right. I have a hard time keeping my princely states apart.

[Josh]

Szdfan wrote:

“Meanwhile, people in the community are asking whether we are teaching Critical Race Theory, which is a load of nonsense.”

Then you should be able to tell them “No, and we commit to you that we will not teach it.”

Do you plan to promote CRT ideas in your classroom like you do here on MennoNet?

Given your posting history here, perhaps parents have good reason to be concerned.