Fla. Court Strikes Down School Vouchers

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

What I guess I'm saying is that say 20% of a school opts out with vouchers. The school reduces the number of active classrooms and the number of teachers accordingly.

That depends on the exact number of students leaving. If you have, say, 10 leaving, then the school might be forced to cut a teacher and increase class size, decreasing the quality of education for remaining students. Unfortunately, while it's possible to quantify the amount of money a school spends per student, the school will function at a different granularity than that -- e.g. somewhere between 10 and 30 students per teacher, plus the fixed costs for operating the plant won't change if you have fewer students.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

That depends on the exact number of students leaving. If you have, say, 10 leaving, then the school might be forced to cut a teacher and increase class size, decreasing the quality of education for remaining students. Unfortunately, while it's possible to quantify the amount of money a school spends per student, the school will function at a different granularity than that -- e.g. somewhere between 10 and 30 students per teacher, plus the fixed costs for operating the plant won't change if you have fewer students.

Not all studies support the idea that small class sizes make for a better education. If I recall correctly a few years ago a study backfired on a teachers group when it showed no real differences between comparable students in classes with 18 or 35 students.

I can't dispute the other points too much, other than scale. Fixed costs are fixed costs. I do think the people who are most affected in my scenario are teachers...So I guess we know where the teachers' unions stand on this issue.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I should note that I distrust vouchers, but my main interest is with effective public education -- if vouchers are the most effective way of dealing with bad schools (or a necessary component of a multipronged approach) I'm fine with that.