so you'd deny the opportunty for inner city kids to CHOOSE a better school? Thats the same arguement they made against bussing!

Charter schools in Arizona CAN'T charge extra tuition on top of the vouchers. All charter schools MUST enroll any and all students they have room for.

My 11 year old brother is one of those poor kids. My dad got laid off at Boeing a year ago, and my family moved to Arizona, where they have vouchers. They've found a terrific academy for him, which has a curriculum perfectly suited to his academic strengths and weaknesses. Since my family is very low income, there's no way they would have been able to afford it without vouchers.

So what's the problem? How are the poor disenfranchised when they can attend any charter school in the state without paying extra? Transportation? I'm not completely certain, but I believe the schools are supposed to provide transportation, and the state pays. And, no doubt, as charter schools become more popular, they will start popping up in the inner cities, too.

I realize you're a teacher, and I appreciate your efforts, and don't mean to offend, but I think public schools will always be hobbled because they have to try to please everyone and provide a curriculum that works for every conceivable student. In Arizona, if the public schools aren't working for a particular child, the parents have the option of finding a different school.

The education system needs to be decentralized-- for everyone's benefit.

The thing is, Joel, I don't think it will provide inner city kids with a better school. I live in a city, and that sounds good, but I don't think the product being sold will produce the results advertised.

School choice exists without vouchers in many places, such as Houston ISD. The cry of "it's for the poor inner city kids!" from Rich, Suburban Congressmen like Tom Delay have never rung true.

The private schools have always had two luxuries that have made it possible for them to economically outcompete the public schools in a limited sense. First, they can cherry pick good educational prospects and refuse to serve those who don't want to be there. Some kids just cost more to educate than others.

Second, they can fail financially. Houston has had several spectacular failures in our charter school program and it has involved schools full of children who lost a year or more of educational progress.

Vouchers and Charter Schools are the unregulated Internet Banks of the era. Of course they can claim to offer greater margins, they're passing the risk on to the students and the community. While there is a claim that the market will provide a highly efficient answer, I think it's clear that some of the solutions offered by the market will not meet the goals of the public good desired here.

I'd rather see innovative fixes to the public school systems, not a wholesale dismantling of the educational engine of the individual opportunity.

Nevermind; I just realized the difference between vouchers and charter schools.
Well, I wasn't charter-school educated--that's one point in their favor.

Dirtgrain, you now have a link at Silver Rights.

Michael, you have hit right on the aspect focused on at SR.

Well, it took me an hour to write this response, and now new comments have been added. Here it is anyway:

"so you'd deny the opportunty for inner city kids to CHOOSE a better school? Thats the same arguement they made against bussing!"
As I indicated in the main post, the poor inner-city kids won't have any good schools to choose from. Outside of the context of the ill purposes behind the voucher/charter school system, I would not have a problem with a poor, inner-city Detroit kid deciding to attend school in super rich Bloomfield Hills. But how is he or she going to get there? Transportation is not a trivial detail. My school district keeps transportation costs to a bare minimum, and it still costs too much. That is to transport students within the area of our school district. If you are talking about transporting students out of their school-district area (in this case the inner city) in order to allow for choice, then you just don't realize how much money it would cost. Add to this huge cost the problem of the time a student would have to spend on the bus, and it seems beyond realistic. So most inner-city students will stay inner-city students. As for the few who can get a ride to the rich schools, that would be great--but the system would only further damn inner-city schools that are already in trouble.

Even if students choose a different school within their district, it will still make busing costs skyrocket. In school districts, without considering desegregative busing (which still deals with chunks of neighborhoods), students attend the school that is closest to their neighborhood. Desegregative busing still attempts to bus chunks of kids from one neighborhood to as near a neighborhood as possible while meeting the goal of desegregation. If it were really free choice in a school district that provided transportation to all of its students, then one bus for school X would have to drive all around the district area to collect the kids who want to go to that school--time plus money equals waste. There are innovative ways to cut some money and cost by using bus interchanges, but it still will add up to a lot more expense for transportation and a lot more time for students to travel to and from school (I realize that some parents would be willing to sacrifice their children's time just to get their children to a better school, but it still would cost too much (at least by today's transportation cost and educational funding standards)).

"Charter schools in Arizona CAN'T charge extra tuition on top of the vouchers. All charter schools MUST enroll any and all students they have room for."
I think I just clarified the issue of transportation--most likely, it would be up to the individual parents to get there kids to the school of choice. As I noted, schools in rich school districts get more per-pupil funding than poor school districts (almost twice as much in the extremes). I'm not sure where vouchers would fit on this continuum. Would a voucher be the bare minimum? In this case, everything that I said in my post would fall into place. If in the most unlikely of events, the State of Michigan elected to equalize the per-pupil funding for all school districts, then I would love this part of vouchers. Keep in mind that the playing field would still be uneven in that in Michigan, individual districts still have local votes on funding for building upkeep, maintenance, and in some cases supplies (at least computers seem to qualify for the special bonds).

But the transportation problem still remains. Say twenty percent of inner-city Detroit parents pulled their resources and managed to transport their children to better out-of-district schools (in-district schools would work similarly in this example, except for my point about bond issues). That would leave eighty percent of the kids behind with twenty percent less funding for their education. Bond issues come into play in that Detroit, a poor area, will not be able afford the same quality facilities and maintenance (and computer technology) as the richer surrounding districts. Those eighty percent of the original district population get completely screwed, and gone will probably be some of the more active parents in the school district (schools today rely a lot on parental support and volunteering).

Another problem that I have about vouchers is that I believe many of the voucher system supporters do not have equal per pupil funding as their main objective. Rather, they just want better schools (which basically means more expensive (check the research on this one)) for their children. In fact, a lot of the impetus behind the voucher and charter school movements comes from people who send their children to private schools. Now why would that be? It would be because they want that voucher money to help cover their tuition. I know that in their infancy, voucher systems have restrictions on the schools of choice not charging additional tuition and that the schools of choice be not private schools. But I think it is the ultimate goal to change that, which would again allow for the model that I presented in my post.

If it were a level playing field, without the devious socioeconomic-class segregating agenda, without racial segregation, with each student in the entire state (or better yet, country) receiving the same per-pupil voucher, with each school receiving relatively equal maintenance, construction and supply money, with transportation magically not a factor, then I would wholeheartedly support a voucher system. But cows don't fly over the moon.

I love your ideas about decentralizing and the individuation of curriculum. A school in Detroit, Cass Tech High School, provides such opportunity as a magnet school shared by several school districts (I think). In Ann Arbor, a district serving a city population of over 100,000 people, there are at least three alternative high schools of which I am aware. We definitely need to step away from the school factories that the No Child Left Behind Act will foster. If you were stranded on an island with a group of people, would you want all of those people to have had exactly the same education (curriculum)? No, you would want a variety of backgrounds to make survival more likely and overall live more stimulating.

Thank you, Mac Diva. You are goodwill personified. Once I square my blogroll issues, you will for sure be on it. And good points, Michael. What happens to those kids who were attending the failed charter schools?

Dirtgrain wrote:

If in the most unlikely of events, the State of Michigan elected to equalize the per-pupil funding for all school districts, then I would love this part of vouchers.

We definitely need to step away from the school factories that the No Child Left Behind Act will foster. If you were stranded on an island with a group of people, would you want all of those people to have had exactly the same education (curriculum)? No, you would want a variety of backgrounds to make survival more likely and overall live more stimulating.

"note that I connect the charter school movement with this voucher movement--they both operate to privatize public education"

On top of your other assumptions, most of which I disagree with, I do want to point out that Charter Schools are not private in any way, shape or form. Charter schools are still state-funded with the difference being that they do not have to follow the nationalized curriculum set by people in Washington who have no clue what the education needs of any particular community might be.

One of the biggest pluses for the charter school system is that these schools are much more connected to the families in their community, and teachers have much greater leeway in choosing the curriculm that best suits the needs of students in that community. The partnership between teachers and parents that charter schools often foster strengthens academic achievement of the students enrolled there.

The fact is, public schools have major problems because of all the red tape that teachers must endure in their attempts to educate their students. Anything that frees those teachers from the red tape is a good thing because teachers are not the problem, as some have indicated in the public education debate, teachers are the SOLUTION, we just need to let them do their job.

By the way, under President Bush, the funding of public education has so far increased an additional 65 billion dollars. But more money won't help. We can throw money at public schools all day long and nothing will improve as long as unions and politicians are dictating what must happen in schools rather than the teachers.

Thanks.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Oops, forgot to add that the federal government has been funding education choice in this country since the end of WWII. If you'll remember the GI Bill gave returning servicemen money to go back to school and further their education.

The competition amongst colleges and universities to attract GIs to schools resulted in vast improvements to our higher education system. The fact is, people send their children to the US from all over the world for their college education because our collegiate system is one of the best. True competition is a good thing because it weeds out inferior schools and programs and encourages the growth of superior schools.

By the way, de-regulation in California is a bit of a euphamism. California only partially de-regulated the energy industry there. In a sense, Democrats in California wanted to have their cake and eat it too when it came to energy deregulation. What they got was a huge problem.

Thanks.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

I can't agree with David Flanagan . . . or other Free Republic type conservatives. The Bush administration is in bed with interests that would like to destroy public education completely. The most telling aspect of this is their assault on Head Start. For people not familiar with it, the Department of Education recently tested four-year-old children, using criteria of their own divising. Those results will likely be used to claim Head Start doesn't work and should no longer be funded. At the same time, as Dirt noted, the same DOE was giving $75 million to Right Wing foundations to push privatization of schools. These people are looking out for their constituency, middle and upper-middle class people who would love to get vouchers for part of the cost of sending their children to private schools. If privatization comes to pass, the poor and low-income are going to end up in public schools that are more lacking in funding than ever before.

Hmm. Gotta find a link, but I saw an article a few days ago about how schools are foregoing federal funding because "No Child Left Behind" was too expensive in terms of red tape...

Resistance grows to education law

In recent weeks, however, three Connecticut school districts have rejected federal funds rather than comply with the red tape that accompanies the law

David said: ". . . I do want to point out that Charter Schools are not private in any way, shape or form. Charter schools are still state-funded with the difference being that they do not have to follow the nationalized curriculum set by people in Washington who have no clue what the education needs of any particular community might be."

Charter schools are for-profit schools (often, anyway) managed by private companies or groups that receive public funding (and private funding--as sometimes do public schools in the form of grants) and are granted a charter by public regulating institutions (usually sponsoring universities that work with the state department of education). Not in any way private? It sounds quite a bit private to me. Have you heard of the Edison Schools (formerly the Edison Project)? See this report Edison Schools Inc. Here are some excerpts:

Although Edison is one of the most established providers of school management services, there have been few external evaluations of student achievement in its schools. . . .

Edison’s reports have lacked a necessary component of a program effectiveness study—data on comparable students who are not in its program.* In other words, unless you compare students in Edison schools to similar students in non-Edison schools, you cannot determine whether the Edison program is more, less, or just as effective in raising achievement. . . .

The American Federation of Teachers produced two previous reports (in 1998 and 2000) that compiled student achievement data for Edison-managed schools. The methods used in the three AFT reports to look at student achievement in Edison schools are the same methods used to evaluate regular public schools. They show markedly different results than those reported by Edison Schools Inc. . . .

Averaged across all states, the typical Edison school performed below average—even the company’s longer-running schools. . . .

Predominantly African-American schools managed by Edison ranked well below average compared to other public schools in their comparison group (e.g., schools chosen without regard for ethnicity that serve the same grades, take the same tests and have a similar proportion of low-income students). No convincing evidence indicates these schools were improving at a faster rate than other public schools (a claim made by Edison) in their peer group.

Chartering allows schools to run independently of the traditional public school system and to tailor their programs to community needs. While not every new school is extraordinarily innovative and some school operations may mirror that of traditional public schools, policymakers, parents, and educators are looking at chartering as a way to increase educational choice and innovation within the public school system.

In 25 states and the District of Columbia, charter schools set teacher salaries. In 11 states, collective bargaining agreements set teacher salaries. In 3 states, the primary decisionmaker for teacher salaries varies. In Puerto Rico, the statewide salary schedule sets teacher salaries.

In 35 states and Puerto Rico, teachers in each of a state’s charter schools have equal access to the public school teachers’ retirement system. In 4 states and the District of Columbia, only teachers in certain charter schools have equal access to the public school teachers’ retirement system.

In 18 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, charter schools are not bound by school district collective bargaining agreements. In 10 states, charter schools are bound by school district collective bargaining agreements. In 11 states, whether a charter school is bound by school district collective bargaining agreements varies by type of charter school.

The National Education Association supports public charter schools that have the same standards of accountability and access as other public schools. Publicly funded schools must be accountable to the general public — as well as parents — for budgets, health and safety standards, academic standards and access for students. . . .

NEA's position on charter schools is necessarily general. State laws and regulations vary widely, and NEA state affiliates have positions that are appropriate to the situation in their states. For example, accountability for meeting high academic standards is an essential component of successful charter schools. But not all state charter laws have strong accountability requirements. In addition, not all state laws require charter schools to develop programs conforming with state or local academic standards, and many charter laws do not require charters to participate in the state accountability system. . . .

According to the U.S. Department of Education: "Charter schools are public schools that come into existence through a contract with either a state agency or a local school board. The charter — or contract — establishes the framework within which the school operates and provides public support for the school for a specified period of time. The school's charter gives the school autonomy over its operation and frees the school from regulations that other public schools must follow. In exchange for the flexibility afforded by the charter, the schools are held accountable for achieving the goals set out in the charter including improving student performance. . . . "



Here is what the NEA has to say about problems with charter schools:

The lack of adequate accountability provisions in some state laws, and in some cases ineffective monitoring, have led to significant problems and abuses by some charter school operators.

In the first half of 2002, the California State Board of Education reduced funding to 46 charter schools after an audit found the schools failed to follow state spending guidelines. State education officials and legislators in Indiana, Massachusetts and elsewhere were exploring how to better monitor charter school funding and spending. (Education Week, March 20, 2002)

In 2001, the Texas legislature instituted a limit on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the state. The move came after 10 Texas charter schools closed and 600 displaced charter school students were forced to repeat a grade because of inadequate record keeping. Additionally, test scores for the Texas charter schools were lower than those in public schools.

In late March 2002, the Arizona Board of Education took unprecedented action to start the process leading to revocation of the Northwest Charter Academy's contract with the state. In an investigation of the school in February, state officials found that the school, operated as a private Christian school before getting its public charter, was openly promoting religion. (The Arizona Republic, March 26, 2002)

The District of Columbia Board of Education revoked the charters of three of their 17 charter schools in August 2001 because of chronic problems with teaching, discipline, attendance, and administrative oversight. Suggested probationary measures were rejected because the board believed there was no chance of resolving the problems and that the schools were doomed for failure. (The Washington Post, August 8, 2001)

In 1999-2000 80% of children in Texas public schools passed the Texas academic achievement tests, and only 37% of charter school students passed the same test. (The Dallas Morning News, May 19, 2001)



Over the years, there have been all sorts of reports about the successes and the failures of charter schools. Some public schools are misrepresenting their successes as well, trying to survive in the competitive jungle. It's murky. Contradictions and misrepresentations abound--perhaps from both sides of the argument. This makes me wonder if this wonderful competition spurned by charter schools is improving education at all. Rather, I think, instead of creating new and improved successes, it is creating new and improved methods of misrepresentation.

"As I noted, schools in rich school districts get more per-pupil funding than poor school districts (almost twice as much in the extremes)."

In Ohio, this just does not hold true. Most of the lower income schools spend more per pupil than the 'wealthy' areas do. I don't think that is is just the money or they would score as well as the wealthy school districts do.

The biggest problem seems to be the expectation level in the lower income schools. There has to be standardized testing so that everybody is at least starting from a minimum standard. I have personally seen a student that graduated with honors in a low income school district that didn't have any idea how to spell 'Chevrolet'. She had about 20 letters in it. How was it possible to graduate with 'Honors' and not be able to at least come close to spelling the word correctly? She was poorly equiped to go to any university, she lacked basic logic skills, math and writing skills.

I don't know all of the ins and outs of the "No Child Left Behind" act but there has to be a basic standard platform that high school graduates have achieved. I think we started to get into problems when it was politically correct to cater to 'feelings and self esteem' instead of just expecting that the pupil compete.

Humans in general are lazy, they will reach the level of competency (or any other measure) that is expected of them. Most will not try to exceed it because they can get by with what they have.

Taking this into account, why is ok with you to deliberately hold back 20% of students that would have the opportunity to attend a private school and possibly get a better education? You say that it would be at the cost of the other 80% of students that would still be going to public schools.
The 80% going would still have the same amount of money spent on them and the district might be able to save money on building upkeep because they wouldn't need as many schools buildings. With the savings to the building upkeeps maybe they could retain some teachers and have a lower student-teacher ratio.

It don't know if vouchers are the answer or not, but things just aren't working now and I would like to see it tried. Even if 20% of the students in inner city schools end up getting a better education that is still 20% better than before.

Debbie said: "In Ohio, this just does not hold true. Most of the lower income schools spend more per pupil than the 'wealthy' areas do. I don't think that is is just the money or they would score as well as the wealthy school districts do."

I don't know for sure about funding in Ohio. It's tricky to analyze. As I noted, you have to take into account per-pupil money, school bond funds, and also additional funding such as at-risk funding (I have heard some people claim that Detroit schools get more overall money than suburban schools because of at-risk and special education funding--from what I have seen, this is not true--furthermore, such funding can only be spent in certain ways on certain students). The book that I mentioned in the original post, Savage Inequalities, deals with New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and I think another area (Detroit? I'll have to read it again). In those places, about fifteen years ago, Kozol found funding for public schools to be quite unequal. The schools in poor neighborhoods and districts (sometimes in contrast with schools in richer neighborhoods in the same district) got a lot less money. If, in Ohio, spending is equal, all schools can acquire the same amount of supplies, and all schools have the same amount of money for maintenance and new-school building, then that is a great situation. As I wrote earlier, the potential to break up inequitable and unequal funding of public schools is one thing that I might like about vouchers--countered by many negatives: e.g., that we haven't even tried a system of public schools with equal funding yet. And then there are all of the other reasons that I have so far claimed make vouchers bad.

It's possible that money is not a cure for inner-city schools. From what I know about school funding, we have never tried it--equal funding. But the factor that best predicts a student's success is the education level of his or her parents. There are many exceptions, but as a general rule, this is the most accurate predictor. In Michigan, for example, the area of the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools used to be dominated by farms. There was never much of a property tax base, so the schools operated on a bare minimum. When Michigan created a new formula for funding public schools (fifteen years ago?), Plymouth-Canton's funding was based on what the previous year's property tax intake had been. Since then, tons of new expensive subdivisions have gone up all over the place in Canton, and the cost of housing in Plymouth has shot up dramatically. There has been a steady influx in Plymouth and Canton over the years of professional, educated people who can afford the expensive housing. It is now a rich area with a poor school district's per-pupil funding (in the last figures that I saw, Plymouth-Canton got $300 more per pupil than The Detroit Public schools and about $5000 less per pupil than the Bloomfield Hills suburb--but keep in mind that they still get huge bonds--for their new, state of the art Plymouth High School, for example). Despite the low-level funding, The Plymouth-Canton district lately has performed extremely well on the state test (The Michigan Educational Assessment Program--MEAP). Other districts want to know what it is that Plymouth-Canton is doing so well that allows them to achieve better scores with lesser funding than a lot of its better-funded, surrounding schools. I think that the main answer is the education level of the parents.

Debbie said: "The biggest problem seems to be the expectation level in the lower income schools. There has to be standardized testing so that everybody is at least starting from a minimum standard."

I'm not sure that it is the schools that have low expectation levels. I know a lot of Detroit teachers who are busting their butts to try to get their students to excel (they really have it tough). Unfortunately, there are so many factors that get in the way. In Savage Inequalities, Kozol describes an East St. Louis school that has big holes in the roof (he could have climbed through some of them) and in which sewage periodically backed up--all the way to the cafeteria. Now that is an extreme case, but when considering the expectation level of students (and I suppose staff as well), the upkeep of the building is a huge factor. I visited a school in Inkster Michigan a few years ago, and I was appalled by how crappy everything looked. It was a depressing, run-down building. I think we should start to improve schools by improving the buildings themselves first.

Going back to the education level of parents, literacy is particularly low in poor areas (I have been focusing on inner cities, but I should include any poor areas such as Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta). What do you suppose is the difference between (A)growing up in a home where there are few books, few newspapers, the parents and family do not read much and (B)growing up in a home where books and newspapers are everywhere, there is a high-speed internet connection allowing access to all kinds of texts, and parents and family members spend a lot of time reading (yah, I know, video games are getting in the way--but at least there is modeling of reading--it becomes an attitude and expectation)? Now, this is a general and sweeping example. Many exceptions abound. But is this relative lack of reading and lack of the modeling of reading more common in poor areas? Undeniably so. And I think it is a huge factor in the success of students from poor areas in poor schools. Vouchers and charter schools will not fix this problem. In fact, we don't seem to address this problem very often at all. So many times do I hear about cuts to adult education programs.

Deborah Meier initiated a huge turnaround in the success of the Harlem students in her public school district without standardized testing and vouchers. In The Power of Their Ideas, the main thing that she said she did was to delegate power and decision-making to her teachers. It worked. They also used portfolios as an end-product--instead of intensive testing.

I will have to stick to the subject of vouchers and charter schools and save all of my proposals to remedy the problems with education in poor areas for another piece (I sure am wordy for an English teacher).

Debbie said: "I have personally seen a student that graduated with honors in a low income school district that didn't have any idea how to spell 'Chevrolet'."

I assume that you have more examples from her that cause you to question the quality of her schooling (if not, we all make mistakes. As an English teacher, I have seen it all. An intelligent student in an advanced writing class once spelled Arkansas "Arkensaw." In high school, I can remember spelling epitome "appitamy."). Logic, math and writing? That pretty much sums up what kids are supposed to learn in school. Here is one possible explanation: in Michigan, there is no state standard for labeling a class as an honors class. Schools just make it up as they go. It is particularly tough for college admissions officers to sort it out. One student might come from a great school that does not label many of its courses "honors." Another student might come from a so-so school that labeled a lot of classes (many of them maybe not as challenging as the non-honors classes at the other school) "honors" and so had many "H's" on her application. Guess who gets in.

Debbie said: "I don't know all of the ins and outs of the "No Child Left Behind" act but there has to be a basic standard platform that high school graduates have achieved. I think we started to get into problems when it was politically correct to cater to 'feelings and self esteem' instead of just expecting that the pupil compete."

I did note before the strange conflict that I see in that a lot of the supporters of vouchers and charter schools say that they want them because they offer educational choice and innovation--these are often the same supporters of standards and standardized testing that have the opposite effect--less choice and less innovation. I saw a presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention in which a teacher told of how she was forced to read from a script in order to teach kids comprehension. She taught us a sample lesson in this format. It was hideous. She even had scripted feedback that she was supposed to give with sincerity for correct or wrong answers. This program, conveniently sold for a lot of money to the school district by the same company that created the state's standardized tests, was implemented as a way for the school to improve its test scores. For all I know, it worked. What I do know is that it decreased the quality of the students' education. They just memorized a bunch of information that they probably forgot within a year. These tests don't always measure what we intend them to measure. That said, I like the Michigan English Language Arts Content Standards (twelve standards). They are broad enough to allow for a seemingly infinite number of approaches to addressing them. I haven't had to change anything in my teaching to meet them--however, they, along with accompanying benchmarks, have given me a lot of ideas that have improved my teaching--or so I think.

The wishy-washy self-esteem approach is not so prevalent anymore--at least not in the schools where I have worked. And the teachers whom I have myself stereotyped as "self-esteem" champions often still have high standards for success. There was for sure a boost in the seventies in teaching approaches to bolster self-esteem, and there have been professional development programs about it ever since. But I don't think it means lower expectations. To be sure, there are some not-so-good teachers who have lower expectations, but in my experience, they aren't as common as some politicians want us to believe.

Debbie said: "Humans in general are lazy, they will reach the level of competency (or any other measure) that is expected of them. Most will not try to exceed it because they can get by with what they have."

You should definitely read Punished By Rewards, by Alfie Kohn. He spends a lot of time analyzing the evidence from various studies about motivation. There are sections relating to parents, to teachers and to business managers.

Debbie said:

Taking this into account, why is ok with you to deliberately hold back 20% of students that would have the opportunity to attend a private school and possibly get a better education? You say that it would be at the cost of the other 80% of students that would still be going to public schools.

The 80% going would still have the same amount of money spent on them and the district might be able to save money on building upkeep because they wouldn't need as many schools buildings. With the savings to the building upkeeps maybe they could retain some teachers and have a lower student-teacher ratio.

It don't know if vouchers are the answer or not, but things just aren't working now and I would like to see it tried. Even if 20% of the students in inner city schools end up getting a better education that is still 20% better than before.

The gap between the richest and the poorest Michigan public schools last year was $5255. I just found a good resource: Michigan School Funding. I don't understand how such inequality can legally exist in this day and age.

Dirt, I hope you are posting this research to your blog as well as comments because of the research and length. Issues like this tend to recur in the blogosphere, so you will want to hold on to these remarks. Also, it is a good idea to stash the material somewhere offline because blog archives are not reliable and Google caches usually go away in about 100 days. I'm telling you this because I've often been remiss about really saving material from my blogs. (The stuff that is worth keeping. Most is ephemeral.) If you keep it somewhere safe, you don't have to research and write it all over again later.

Dirt, I hope you are posting this material to your blog as well as comments because of the research and length. Issues like this tend to recur in the blogosphere, so you will want to hold on to these remarks. Also, it is a good idea to stash the material somewhere offline because blog archives are not reliable and Google caches usually go away in about 100 days. I'm telling you this because I've often been remiss about really saving material from my blogs. (The stuff that is worth keeping. Most is ephemeral.) If you keep it somewhere safe, you don't have to research and write it all over again later.

I'M IN SCHOOL RIGHT NOW IN MICHIGaN AND THE SCHOOLS HERE SUCK WE NEVER LEARN ANYTHING THE TEACHERS DO NOT CARE WE DON"T GET ENOUGH MONEY OR ANYTHING!!!