Vouchers in Newark
As I was observing to a colleague earlier today, slow news weeks are the times that tempt the world's pundits to dream up cutesy, orthodoxy-challenging arguments and eventually get yelled at by bloggers and blog readers alike. Idle hands, the devil's tools, that sort of thing. So let's take the plunge. Corey Booker wants vouchers for Newark and I think he just may be right. But, to make the trick even more impressive, I'll run my argument consistent with my so-orthodox-it's-heterodox belief that voucherization won't improve school quality. Be amazed!
Here's the thing -- Newark is very economically depressed. It's hard for the city government to do useful things without money. By all accounts, the city government is also badly mismanaged. But even reforms that don't cost money per se are much easier to implement with an influx of funds, for the simple reason that extra cash helps grease the wheels of reform.
But how's a burg like Newark supposed to find more money? Businesses and reasonably prosperous individuals alike can easily skip town, so it's hard-to-impossible to raise taxes. Basically, what you need to do is make the city a more attractive place for reasonably prosperous people to live.
As Ken Baer was saying one good way to do that would be to improve the local public schools. Sadly, nobody really knows how to accomplish that. An easier way is . . . vouchers! For prosperous parents, vouchers amount to a big discount on the price of private schools. For families who'd be sending their kids to private school anyway, it's just bonus cash. And there's a certain class of families who can almost afford an expensive private school in normal places but could afford one with the addition of a vouchers discount.
So . . . you voucherize, your tax base improves, and then you have more revenue to do something else with -- clean the streets or hire better cops or provide more social services or whatever.
Well . . . I'm convinced . . . anyone else? Fatal flaws in the argument? What would Eduwonk do?
Matthew, are you suggesting Newark should adopt a voucher system for all eligible students as a financial *incentive* for families to move there?
If that *is* what you are saying, my initial reaction is that it seems unlikely that the (comparatively small) monetary value of a voucher would outweigh the larger (crime and other infrastructural) issues that a family faces when choosing a place to live. I don't predict people will be saying, "Let's move to Newark--there'll be crack dealers on the street in front of our house, but our kids will get vouchers!"
May 9, 2006 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
In response to both, voucherization would improve the incentives at the margin and have some impact. Marginal influence is what policy is all about.
May 9, 2006 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm. My gut feeling is that the city of Newark probably doesn't have enough excess cash lying around to offer a meaningful incentive to families at that margin. I'd really have to see the numbers before I could offer further comment.
May 9, 2006 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
With a voucher system, can a school refuse a student for reasons other than the school being at capacity? Alternatively, can a school participating in a voucher system expell a student for being a bad student or for being a discipline problem?
May 9, 2006 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The voucher issue is full of $64000 questions such as yours. Of course one way you could get around the cherry-picking problem is to only offer vouchers for kids who had failed in school or been expelled. Then we'd really see whether the private sector was able or willing to step up to the plate.
May 9, 2006 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The assumption that vouchers make private education more affordable is premised on the hope that private schools would not increase their fees to capture the voucher. I would be very surprised if private schools did not raise either their fees or their fundraising to try to capture more of the free money represented by the voucher.
May 9, 2006 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've never really understood the sentiment against giving families the "choice" even if ultimately, the results won't work as some studies of education vouchers say. Another study I read stated that most people who were eligible for education vouchers, did not use them, and many who did, just used to them to end their child to the same public school they were going to go to anyway.
I'm babbling, my basic stance; education vouchers for poor students in failing schools only, Charter scools & all that jazz for whoever wants it, since it bugs certain people, explore ways of funding voucher programs without using public schools funds.
The end.
May 9, 2006 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you could ALMOST afford it, living in an affordable town where your mortgage/rent is lower sure would make affording it easier.
I understand Dem support for teachers' unions, but I don't understand the willingness to condemn children from low-income families to substandard educations. Aren't we the party that helps the poor?
As for vouchers not improving schools, at least with vouchers you can choose the best unimproving school in the area.
May 10, 2006 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is we don't know the scaling of the incentives versus the desired behavior. I've heard of families relocating to cities because the public school systems are good-quality, but not for what in this case amounts to a partial. I'd think that you wouldn't be able to overcome the marginal losses incurred by a location-constrained job switch with any rationally-sized voucher deal.
May 10, 2006 6:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Marginal influence, Matt--how about placebo?
Vouchers AND charters are band-aids on a melanoma. Jon Corzine just last week did more to undermine public schools in Newark by trashing the state school-financing plan than any voucher system could make up for--and he's one of the GOOD guys (right?). This is all wankery, ladies and gentlemen.
Here's when the public school systems of America will improve: When Americans actually collectively give a shit and demonstrate a willingness to raise the status, morale, sense of importance/responsibility, and reward for educating our future citizens. So long as our schools are treated as an extended day-care and warehousing system, there is no hope of substantive change.
May 10, 2006 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Matt, if you've been watching the Sopranos this season, you would know that the good times are coming to Newark already. Why else would the Starbucks and Jamba Juices be setting up shop in its quaint neighborhoods? And, without the hoodlums hanging around getting their take.
No need for vouchers now, cause the richies will come as soon as they see they can get that double lactose free frapachino right at the end of the block.
May 10, 2006 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
i kinda like the idea, but i wonder if it wouldn't cost a whole lot.
i mean, if you add in the expense of educating private school kids, wouldn't that cost the district more money, if you're still providing the same for everyone else? it seems like you'd have to cut back on funding for kids in public schools, or their vouchers, to get away with it.
no free lunches, right?
May 10, 2006 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
We'll start paying teachers more and respecting them more when the teachers' unions start caring about education and about giving teachers inentives to be good rather than in making certain that teachers keep their jobs no matter jow unqualified they are for them.
The current system offers little incentives for teachers to be good. And the teachers' unions oppose ideas such as merit pay.
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
May 10, 2006 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink