Public Schools Employ Below Average People

Quality Of Public School Teachers:

"We recruit a disproportionate share of teachers from among the bottom third of their college classes. Then we give them lifetime tenure after three years, and we reward them based on longevity, not performance."

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York


Quality Of Public School Principals:

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them, when they came in, they couldn't get rid of people they thought weren't any good in the first place? Or they couldn't pay people three times as much when they got three times as much work done?"

"Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'"

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, comparing small business leaders to public school principals

1 Out Of Every 1,500 Students Uses A Voucher To Attend A Private School

There are roughly 55,000,000 k-12 students in the United States.
35,000 of them use a voucher to attend a private school.
Therefore, .06% of all k-12 students in the United States use a voucher to attend a private school.
This is about 1 out of every 1,500 students.

Utah Increases K-12 Education Spending By 20%

The 2007 Utah legislature increased k-12 education spending by 20%, or $490 million. Of this $490 million, $12.4 million is devoted to the new school voucher program. This means that 97.5% of the increase in education spending will be devoted exclusively to public schools. Only 2.5% of the new education funding is for private schools.

Teacher Unions Want Low Education Standards

     If public school standards are set low, then most public school students will meet those standards. This will allow the public school system to say that a high percentage of it's students are meeting standards. This will convince the public that the public school system is doing a good job and will vote to oppose anything that competes with public education, like private school choice. If public school standards are set high, then some public school students will not meet those standards. This will cause the public to believe that the public school system is not doing a good job, and will then vote for school choice measures, like allowing students to go to non-union charter or private schools. This would obviously harm the teacher unions, therefore they have an incentive to block these school choice measures by lobbying for low standards.

Bill Gates on public school standards:
"If high standards encourage young people to make the most of their talents, then low standards discourage them from doing so – and right now, that is our predominant policy."

Paying Students To Pass Advanced Placement Exams Works

In 1996 Dallas based Advanced Placement Strategies Inc. began to pay students $100 to $500 to pass advanced placement tests.

Education Tax Credits Offer The Most Choice

Of all the ways to finance education, education tax credits offer the most choice.

Public School Monopoly:
Taxpayers: No Choice (You can not choose to opt out of funding public schools.)
Students: No Choice (You can not choose to send your child to a private school in a public school monopoly.)

Vouchers:
Taxpayers: No Choice (You can not choose to opt out of funding vouchers.)
Students: Choice (You can choose to send your child to a public or private school with vouchers.)

Education Tax Credits:
Taxpayers: Choice (You can choose whether or not to use education tax credits.)
Students: Choice (You can choose to send your child to a public or private school with education tax credits.)

Education Tax Credits Are Superior To Private School Vouchers

Private school vouchers offer a substantially better way of funding education than through today's public school monopoly. However, education tax credits are superior to vouchers in one important respect:


Vouchers:
Vouchers are funded by taxes, taxes are funded by everyone, and everyone does not want to fund private schools. Therefore, with vouchers there will always be people funding private schools that they do not want to.


Education Tax Credits:
Education tax credits are completely voluntary. You have the choice of benefiting from the tax credit or not. Therefore, with education tax credits there will never be people funding private schools that do not want to.

Bill Gates Says American Public High Schools Are Broken

On March 7, 2007, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, explained in a congressional hearing what is wrong with American public high schools. Select quotes from that testimony follow:

"A top priority must be to reverse our dismal high school graduation rates."

"America’s greatest educational shortcoming today is what for much of our history was its greatest pride: our public schools."

"all of the evidence indicates that our high schools are no longer a path to opportunity and success, but a barrier to both."

"Our current expectations for what our students should learn in school were set fifty years ago to meet the needs of an economy based on manufacturing and agriculture."

"while most students enter high school wanting to succeed, too many end up bored, unchallenged and disengaged from the high school curriculum"

"For those who graduate, many lack the skills they need to attend college or to find a job that can support a family. Until we transform the American high school for the 21st century, we will continue limiting the lives of millions of Americans each year."

"America has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the industrialized world."

"Eight states do not set any math course requirements."

"If high standards encourage young people to make the most of their talents, then low standards discourage them from doing so – and right now, that is our predominant policy."

"Currently, states use a variety of different methods for calculating graduation rates."

"By 12th grade, U.S. students score near the bottom of all industrialized nations."

"Too many students enter college without the basics needed to major in science and engineering."

"We can no longer rely on foreign students to ensure that America has enough scientists and engineers to satisfy the demands of an expanding economy."

"only 13 percent of American adults are proficient in the knowledge and skills needed to search, comprehend and use information, or to perform computational tasks."