Death to Public Schools

School voucher plans don't add up.  Here in paradise, Santa Fe public school funding is about $7500 per student.  That comes close to the $9600 in tuition and fees charged by the city's largest parochial high school and is far less than the $22,000 charged by the city's largest non-sectarian private school.  What will happen if the Amway-Blackwater Secretary of Education gets her way and it's vouchers all the way down?  I predict chaos.  The Archbishop will hit the fainting couch.  There's no way that the parochial schools could expand to meet the likely free-market demand.  No way to add more classrooms to cope with the new enrollment.

What about special services?  That $7500 per student is an average.  Many students with disabilities cost more.  Where will the extra come from or are the students who require the most assistance going to get the least?

How will private schools find enough teachers to fill the demand?  The only pool of experienced teachers are the teachers now in the public school system.  In the grand delusion of free markets, the creme de la creme of those teachers will be lured away by offers of high salaries.  But, there is a built-in salary cap that is tied to the size of the vouchers.  Higher salaries require more students per class and that just perpetuates one of the big problems in public schools.   Maybe some entrepreneur will create a guest worker business to bring in low-salaried teachers from abroad.  There are excellent, English-speaking teachers in India and Africa who would happily work for a pittance.

The voucherized free market will become yet another race to the bottom.  And that's part of the plan.  Trump's proposed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos,