Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli II unveiled a 12-point education plan Tuesday that would push for charter schools, offer voucher-like scholarships for preschoolers and empower a majority of parents to take over their children’s failing school, according to an outline of his K-12 education plan.
Cuccinelli wants to double the number of female students who focus on science and technology, expand virtual schooling and build on the commonwealth’s nearly two-year-old law that gives tax credits to donors who provide voucher-like scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools. He also would seek two amendments to Virginia’s constitution, including one that would clear the way for government funds to flow to religious schools.
The package of reforms contained in Cuccinelli’s K-12 education plan include several that have become popular in recent years, especially among conservatives, although the efficacy of some of the initiatives has been disputed. The proposals would generally push Virginia in the direction of so-called school choice and private or community-based solutions to the problem of public education.
Cuccinelli is making a play for under-achieving schools in Norfolk and Petersburg all uner the guise of minority achievement. At what point will he step up to the plate and challenge those students to apply themselves rather than always blaming the schools? It’s time to hold students and parents accountable also. Teachers are tired of holding the weight of the world on their shoulders every time little Johnny wants to do something other than study.
Cuccinelli wants to funnel state and federal money to religious schools. That has always been his objective. I see no difference in doing that and using the tuition grant system that was used back in the 60’s. Tuition grants were declared unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court. Hopefully, they will do the same thing should Cuccinelli ever get to a position where he can implement such a plan. The Cuccinelli plan would require 2 state constitutional amendments.
On the other hand, McAuliffe considers education an investment in the future. According to the WaPo:
McAuliffe unveiled his education platform in May, with a series of proposals that included boosting teacher pay and restoring cuts in the state budget to K-12 funding that have shifted the burden to localities. McAuliffe said he would find those increased resources through “improved efficiency” without specifying how.
McAuliffe’s plan would also spend more on Virginia’s community colleges, encourage them to focus more on basic job skills and collaborate more with the state’s high schools. Unlike Cuccinelli’s plan, McAuliffe’s makes no mention of charter schools or letting parents take over failing institutions.
Which plan is really looking out for the most kids in Virginia? What does it mean to let parents take over failing schools? What really defines a failing school?
Read about this in this morning’s Post. Cuccinelli wants to fund religious
schools, it seems to me. Parents taking over schools. Both ideas I’m against.
Check out Bearing Drift!
I am scared to go look. Is Cuccinelli being offered up for sainthood?
Changing the system as we know it. :>)
As you might imagine, I have a different view.
The schools are not adequately educating kids. The issue is that a few students dominate a teacher’s time, reducing instruction and attention given to the other kids. So if a parent wants to place his child in private school, charter school, parochial school, or home school, the resources should follow the child. To qualify, the alternative school would have to meet state standards. This would provide choice to more parents and hopefully help avoid situations where low performers or poor behaviors distract from learning by everyone else.
I think the blanket statement “the schools are not adequately educating kids” is wrong. I think in most cases they are.
Unfortunately the resources are limited and really don’t cover the kids now. Why would we strap limited resources even more to maybe educate kids even less…depending on who is doing the educating? Private schools are no guarantee. If you look in PWC, the average person probably pays between $3000-10,000 dollars a year in taxes. How many kids does that educate? Probably none when you look at the schools getting less than 60% of the public money.
How about parents insisting on those who disrupt instruction having their asses thrown out of the current school? Now there is an idea I can support. How about holding school board members’ feet to the fire as to enforcement of school rules? Now, those with ‘special disabilities’ who are protected by the courts might be an issue but I can guarantee you, if public funds go to private schools, those same busy body courts will get the camel’s nose under the tent and dictate that private schools turn a blind eye to disruptive behavior.
Its cheaper to send the students who disrupt elsewhere. The change won’t happen over night. There are too many parents out there who think their kids walk on water; too many who think their kids can do no wrong or who are an exception.
@Kelly — I have to disagree with you on this one. By taking the resources out of the school and having them follow the child, you’ve effectively taken an underperforming school and made it worse by reducing the resources available. If a parent wants to place his/her child in a school other than public, then the parent has every right … to pay for it.
I agree, Confused.
I agree with Confused. I am strongly in favor of parochial schools and home schooling if that is what some families desire. Their reasons are none of my business. However, I do not necessarily support sending the resources away from the public school — as in, for example, allowing non-users of the public school system to avoid property taxes or whatever tax method pays for the public schools. Yes, parochial school and home schooling can be a financial burden; but none of us live in a social or economic or public safety vacuum. We all have a huge stake in the quality of graduate produced by those public schools regardless of whose kids they are.
Don’t you hate that choked up nausea you get when people who usually disagree, agree?
Well put, Wolverine. I agree.
We do have huge stakes in the quality of graduate our schools produce.
@Confused
If a student were to move out of the district (with no one else moving in), school funding would be reduced proporionately. I see no reason why it should be any different if the kid transfers to an alternative school. Since the funding to be transferred would be limited to the student’s “share”, the overall rate of spending per student at the public school would remain constant.
In my opinion, the viability of a public school is less important than the education of an individual. If a parent thinks his student can get a better education elsewhere, why should the school have a monopoly on the funding? Competition is a healthy thing. And the ability to transfer funding would provide parents with some leverage to demand changes from under-performing schools.
Plenty of folks move in and out of school districts to improve the quality of their kids’ education. Look at why homes in the Langley High School District are so much more expensive than those in similar neighborhoods but not in LHS district.
People always do move back in. Houses just don’t disappear. The best replacement would be those without children or grown children.
As a student and parent of the parochial school system I would prefer to keep the state and the Feds out. As far as the comment about parents “taking over schools” it is the parochial school philosophy that “the parent is the primary educator of the child – schools are there to support that responsibility”. Some concept, eh?
@Kelly_3406 As Wolverine said, “We all have a huge stake in the quality of graduate produced by those public schools regardless of whose kids they are.”
Just like roads, law enforcement, fire and EMS, public libraries, national security, and a litany of other things, ensuring the children of our country are educated is a public good. From a selfish POV, I want our country to be prosperous so that when I grow old, my standard of living continues to increase. This will only happen if we remain competitive in the world. We will only remain competitive if we continue to educate our children – and educate them well. We are already slipping in that regard – I’d rather that not get any worse.
Building on Lyssa’s point – if you are one of those parents who supports the money following the student, and you happen to want your child to go to a parochial school, do you want the government to have more say in what is taught there? It’s a safe wager to say that if there is state/federal money going to a parochial school, then state/federal influence will follow.
The basic difference between public and private schools is that the public schools have to take all comers. It’s really impossible to equate the two. Certainly there are bad public schools that need a serious kick in the rear but making an apples to apples comparison isn’t realistic.
As a practical matter if you go to a voucher system and parents bail en masse to private schools those same issues will likely arise. Take a look at the Districts charter school system. It performs a bit higher but it isn’t night and day: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/12/15/GR2008121500614.html
Totally agree, Andy. Plus private schools don’t take all the kids that need to be educated, in particular, all the different special ed identities. Public schools must take everyone unless there are extreme circumstances like expulsion. Even expulsion is very difficult, if public. Private simply says you are gone.
I nominate Wolve and Confused for some sort of shared common sense award.
Public schools have their issues, but they have historically served a critical need in American society. It’s not like we’ve lavished public resources on them (although one can always find issues in financial management). But, generally, we’ve had our public education on the cheap, and, to the extent it provides a competent population, we all benefit, whether we use the system or not.
Cuccinelli’s proposal is not without some ideas worth discussing, but it makes the huge mistake of letting resources follow children (the thing that Kelly thinks is such a great idea) pursuant to criteria that are difficult to administer. Nothing would dismantle the public system more rapidly than to say that government will essentially allow parents to take money out of the public system if they choose, for any reason, to take their kids out of it.
One of my children went to parochial school, one to public. Both got good educations that were suited to each of their quite different needs. But it would have never occurred to us that our decision to send one child to parochial school created any obligation on the part of the State (or our fellow tax-paying citizens) to send our tax dollars into a religious system that made sense for us and our older child, but which might not make any sense at all for anyone else.
Choice – sure. Standards – for sure. Government bankrolling church religious instruction (even if coupled with sound academics) – no way. Not because there’s anything wrong with religious instruction, but because, as Confused hints, government always degrades religion, even when it’s not trying to.
Even in public school, money doesn’t follow students but to the school house door. After that, money can be allocated anyway that school sees fit. That is a real bone of contention with special ed teachers who seem to think that every penny of that per pupil money (much higher for sped) should be theirs. Not how it works.
PWC has “traditional” schools. K-8. They wear a uniform, promise to be polite and promise to do their homework. Why are there only three? There used to be schools for “problem kids”. There were only two or three of those. But we didnt want them to feel bad or isolated so they are mainstreamed? I guess the isolated kids in the “traditional” schools are getting the last laugh. So are there non tuition paying parents.
At least one of the traditional school sites is the one where the parents howled and bitched and complained for several years about it being too close to the jail and that their precious dears were in danger. Notice the parents of the ‘traditional’ schools all line up and get on a waiting list so their kids have a shot at going there.
another last laugh. If there is a waiting list, I don’t see why there aren’t more of those schools.
My point.
oh, I can see it now. What happens when our tax dollars for education are funneled into a private school that we do not like. Like a school preaching Jihad or Atheism or other anti Christian values?
Maybe Cuccinelli thinks that he can include replacement words that exclude all but conservative Christian schools for tuition grants.
Quite the non-libertarian bunch we have here.
The consensus seems to be that parents can indeed pull their kids from public schools … but only at the cost of paying for education twice. This seems misguided for several reasons: 1) it makes it much more difficult for low-income people to send their kids to alternative schools; 2) choice would NOT cause resources to be lost from the local public school, because funding already disappears if the student departs; 3) unwanted government influence on a parochial school could be avoided if the parents (instead of school) received a tax break/rebate after demonstrating tuition payment.
When the parent(s) no longer pay tuition for their K-12 student, the rebate/tax break would go away.
The underlying assumption seems to be that the well-being of public schools is more important than the needs of an individual child. I do not agree. If the consequence of an education rebate/refund is a large migration from the public school system, then there must be something seriously wrong with the system. In that case, it might result in needed public pressure to actually fund schools adequately, instill better discipline, and enable them to attract and retain families and students who are serious about education.
My belief is that not many students would actually leave for alternative schools. Even if the financial burden were (partially) removed, there are still significant barriers of time, effort, and transportation that would deter many students from leaving public education. If the majority is not willing to provide sufficient funding, what’s the basis to believe that a large portion would have enough commitment to send its students to an alternative school?
The reality is that the house you live in is taxed, not you the person. (for the bulk of educational taxes) It also pays for education in general, not for your kids.
I have no kids who are in the school system now. My house is still taxed, just the same as if I had 2 kids or 10 kids.
Sorry Kelly, I don’t think your argument holds water as far as paying twice. If you elect to privately educate your kids, then it is at your expense. I suspect you can probably take something off your federal or state taxes. I actually don’t recall.
If the family with 2 kids moves, or if the kid graduates from high school, that house where the family lives is still taxed. Money only follows a kid within the county from one building to the other building. The money is not tied to the family. In other words, back to the 2 kids or the 10 kids.
What school ‘choice’ does do is take valuable resources away from public education. Unless your home is burned to the ground or bull dozed away, the house is taxed. Even if it is gone, the land still generates some revenue. It doesn’t matter who lives in it or if it is vacant.
The money within the county only exists if the student is enrolled in public school.
Your attempt to make this a linear problem just wont work.
Quite the non-libertarian bunch we have here.
@Kelly_3406
Libertarianism really only benefited Ayn Rand’s bank account. Though it’s been a rallying cry for a certain group of conservatives, it’s been untested in the true sense. Infrastructure, armies, schools, and other big ticket items are already in place thanks to the more pragmatic members of society. Libertarians have had to create no society other than Rand’s imaginary one to show the rest of us that it’s possible – or more important – desirable on a large scale.
Parents are free to pay for any religious, art-based, or other schooling they choose. They just shouldn’t look to the rest of us to pay the bill. The public schools provide poor and middle class kids a basic education to compete within our society. Whether the students take advantage of its offerings depends on them and their parents. There are certainly schools that don’t measure up just as there are parents and students who don’t measure up. Parents and taxpayers are free to make their opinions on how these schools operate known and to suggest alternatives on how to make these schools better.
And, yes, parents are often more interested in how an individual student fares, but society is interested in the entirety.
@Censored bybvbl
Perhaps you meant to say Objectivism. Libertarians have no innate linkage to Rand, other than the incoherent ravings from far-left scatological fever swamps that desperately want to create one.
@Cato the Elder
I’m not sure that the slogan-spouting individuals who hug their copies of Atlas Shrugged make that distinction. They are almost always found in the Libertarian movement. The individuals with whom I’ve spoken are obsessed with the no tax concept but offer no solutions on how to pay for the country’s infrastructure, schools, or -omg – the military. I’d venture to say that they’ve gotten an email saying Rand is good and perhaps gone so far as to watch one of the recent versions of one of her novels.