From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: New idea for school vouchers
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:12:38 GMT

In article <1iuu15INN5o7@life.ai.mit.edu> olsen@HING.LCS.MIT.EDU (James Olsen) writes:
>In a recent article, bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>>It's not shocking that being able to refuse the expensive cases, and
>>thereby stick the public schools with them, keeps costs down.
>
>This is a standard argument against vouchers (it's the one advanced by
>the New York Times), and it carries some weight.  I would like to propose
>a possible solution.
>
>The problem is that the current public-school student body can (roughly) be
>broken dowen into three categories:
>
>  - normal students,
>
>  - 'difficult' students, with family, behavioral, or other impediments
>    to teaching, and
> 
>  - special-needs students, who require expensive customized programs.
>
>It is argued that a voucher system would skim off the first category
>of student into private schools, while leaving the other two
>(expensive) categories to the public schools, which are required to
>take them.  It is therefore argued that the public school's mandate to
>accept any student puts it at an unfair competitive disadvantage.
>
>I propose a simple remedy: let the public schools assign larger vouchers
>to 'difficult' students, and even larger ones to special-needs students.
>The voucher amounts might look something like this:
>
>        regular students: $3500
>      difficult students: $3500-$7000
>  special-needs students: $7000+
>
>The voucher amounts would be set so that the sum of all vouchers would
>equal the school budget for that year.
>
>Under this arrangement, while a public school would still have the
>obligation to take any student that wanted to come, this would be
>offset by the power to set voucher levels: if it got too many
>'difficult' students, it could increase their voucher amounts.
>
>The converse is interesting: the school could decide it gets too *few*
>difficult students (actually, too few of their vouchers), if the
>vouchers were set too high.  Educational entrepreneurs would surely
>seek out the parents of these children, given a sufficiently large
>incentive.
>
>The beauty of this scheme is that it makes every student desirable to
>a school.  Regular students would be desirable because they are easy
>to teach.  Difficult and special-needs students would be desirable
>because they would come with large vouchers.
>
>Under this scheme everyone wins, except those with a vested interest
>in maintaining the public-school monopoly.  Comments, anyone?
>
>-- 
>Jim Olsen   olsen@cag.lcs.mit.edu   "Tache d'etre heureux." -- St-Exupery

	Actually I think that te troubled student argument is pretty
bogus.  For example a friend of mine attends one of the best schools for
the blind (certainly an expensive special need) in the country.  It is
boarding school.  The cost is $20g.  Now lets say that 5% of students are
special need.  Then they add .05 x $14,000 = $700 to the average cost of
educating student (where $14000 is the difference between an excellent
private special needs school and $6000 the figure we've been using for
public education).  
	Clearly special needs are not draining the resources of the public
schools.  That's just an excuse.  As for increased vouchers, these would
have to be watched carefully, otherwise far too many scams would occur.  
	Finally, I think your voucher amount is too low.  So I'd go with
something like:
$7000 -- average student (95%)
$20,000 -- documented handicapped or severly disabled (2%)
special schools, state run for "trouble some students"

--JMB


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