If you are looking for reform, consider rethinking how much "education" the public should fund. Should we keep paying to have every student sit through Algebra and Geometry if less than 15% of them can pass the proficiency test afterward? Can we require people to pass proficiency tests before we fund their education past the 6th grade? 8th grade? Can we require a student to be able to read at a 3rd grade level before we enroll them in dual enrollment English Literature?

I understand the arguments for an educated population being a public benefit worth paying for. But we are spending enormous funds to produce an uneducated population. Some states now offer two high school diplomas. The traditional diploma doesn't mean anything anymore so now they have a "Career and College Ready Diploma" that is supposed to mean something. Why do we pay to fund a diploma that is meaningless?

What if we fund unlimited tries at K-6, and we fund 7-9 then 10-12 for people who earn the privilege with good marks? Then we can talk about funding 13-16 for people who keep earning the privilege. People who don't earn the privilege to advance can retake classes. Or they can move on with life as an uneducated person. We just skip the pretense of secondary education for them. Private schools can take up the challenge if they want to take a swing at people who haven't earned public funding.

That all seems radical and harsh. I just put it out there to spur your thoughts on reform.

I'm glad you recognize that you're participating in unsubstantiated claims, because that is most of the literature in support of vouchers.

Vouchers sound good if you don't think about it with any real veracity or intellectually serious rigor, but (in America) are basically a shitty partisan scam. They're basically universally used as a method to divert tax funds to schools that would otherwise be unfundable via taxes (eg. religious or discriminatory).

Why do we think parents are actually capable of choosing the "best" option, and why wouldn't 100% of parents choose that option? Parents are famously bad at making decisions, as illustrated by home schooling, religious dogmatism in private schools, parents trying to opt-out their students from scientific and health education, and the general history of parental intervention in public schools.

Why would some schools take $X per student and generate better outcomes than others? They won't and the secret is that private schools will charge more than the voucher price to produce better outcomes, but then you've essentially drained the funding of a public good to subsidize a private school that some students won't be able to attend.

As a thought experiment, can we use a voucher system to fund alternative fire or police departments? Can I apply my voucher to an FDA with a properly credentialed head? Or are schools the only "monopoly" run by the government we should break up.

Ah, the teachers union, famous for the $30-$50/yr it costs the average tax payer. If we abolished the union and rolled back everything they fought for, we could almost pay for a $10B privacy suit after a year of saving.

The public school system mostly sucks in most states (pending any nonsense with ICE hopefully resolving itself eventually, if you have to send your kids to public school the Minneapolis suburbs are excellent), but private alternatives with similar costs per student also mostly aren't better. One sticks out in my mind from recent history (somewhere near Redwood City) with a habit of hiring subs all year to reduce costs, literally not teaching the kids anything, and firing teachers who tried to fail students. The effect is, somewhat predictably, even students who try don't learn anything, and the ones who don't try know that they can get away with anything that won't put them in prison.

Regarding a voucher system, I'm not sure I care one way or another (I care a little -- it'll mean more money going to con artists masquerading as schools without improving education for basically anyone), but it's just putting lipstick on a pig. If you have the means and ability then homeschool and hire PhDs and other professionals to fill in the gaps. If you don't, for the price we pay per student you're stuck with large classrooms or crappy EdTech (or both), and if you don't spend enough 1:1 time with your kids then even a good school won't matter anyway for most students.

Mind you, of all the things we could spend our tax dollars on, I'm strongly in favor of anything which would actually improve education. I'd happily sacrifice most everything else to 10x education spend if somebody came up with a good argument for why it would help. I just don't think vouchers will do the trick, especially if we're pointing to the teachers union as the particular efficiency they're using to drive cost effectiveness.

Even with vouchers, there are specific solutions and systems you're allowed to use.

The entire point is that parents make poor choices (phones in class, etc) and that's why an entire generation has been dumbed down.

Parents don't know best. Parents are the problem here.

Teachers’ unions are pretty inconsequential in much of the United States.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/states-with...

Also, https://teacherquality.nctq.org/contract-database/collective...