Thursday, August 15, 2013

Jeb Bush wants poor kids to go to private schools, just not the ones he sent his children to. (rough draft)

In response to my question about which private schools are doing are doing better than public schools, the ones like Gulliver prep where Jeb Bush sent his children that charge 28k in tuition or the ones… that charge, $4,335 in tuition, the cost of a voucher? The state’s private school expert, David Figilo replied:

“There are very few FTC students attending elite private schools, because these families are low-income and the voucher only covers a small fraction of tuition at elite schools. Amongst the schools that are doing relatively well, there is a great range of schools so it's hard to characterize them, but in general (though not exclusively) the schools doing the best with the FTC students are affiliated with churches or other religious institutions.”

First this means Jeb Bush is all for kids attending private schools just not the type of private schools his children went to but it also means vouchers create separation of church and state issues.

Think about this, the state of Florida violates the separation of church and state and sends public money to religious institutions, I think that's what they really want to do. But to provide cover for this they have to open vouchers up to schools they know will be substandard and if that is the case then they are willing to sacrifice the future of the children who will take the vouchers and go private schools they know to be poor performers.

At the end of the day I really don’t understand why we have vouchers. The state’s own expert says private schools don’t provide better outcomes and we know some children using them attend substandard schools.

A quick shout out to Professor Figlio for taking the time to respond, something that few in his position would do.