"It seems to me they want to blow up public education in Minneapolis and St. Paul," said Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins

He seems to think that'd be a bad thing.

The institution of vouchers will allow the state to impose its will on private institutions. In which case, they will become worse than the public schools, because their personnel, who get paid less than public school teachers, are by the operation of simple economics, inferior to them.

Or in the alternative, the public schools will simply be the repository for the kids the private schools do not want, i.e. the disruptive, the criminal, the mentally defective, people from 'inferior races' and we'll be back to Square One.

Vouchers are just another way for a private interest to loot the taxpayer.

Maybe the Hopkins taxpayers would be happy to send money to the Mpls and St Paul school districts. I advise Steve Kelley to run on such a platform.

Bart:

The state could do so now. Taxpayers are private interests.

Bart,
Yes, private school teachers earn less, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't teach as well as public school teachers. Teacher's compensation isn't based on how well they do their jobs and better teachers don't necessarily have an advantage in getting hired by public schools. I bet there are many teachers that would take a pay cut to get out from under the regulation and control of public school administrators, and to work in a better enivironment with more student discipline and better working conditions. When such competition is introduced, perhaps public schools will be forced to improve due to competition. Then I believe your economic model may become true.

Most private schools can't be easily said to pay their teachers less than public schools. At my wife's school, she certainly earns less than she would at a public school. Tack on a Master's degree, and/or another decade of service, and suddenly she's making more than any public school teacher in the area. Add to that the fact that private schools actually have the ability to fire inept teachers, and you have a quite superior system.

Bart:

The government already does regulate private schools. They are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race or religion, and they must be accredited. Since these regulations have not lead to private schools becoming worse than the public schools, there is no evidence that vouchers would cause any harm either.

Pat and Tim H,

Where I live in NJ, I know more than a few private and public school teachers. The public school people make about 50% more than the private school ones, particularly Catholic school, and the guys teaching in Catholic schools are flooding the market with their CVs to get somewhere else. They would rather teach at Bergen Catholic than in Hackensack or certainly NYC or Newark but given a choice between Bergen Catholic at $40000 or Cresskill at $60000, they'll take Cresskill.

Vince,

As the state contribution increases, so will the government interest in regulation. A parochial school will cease being able to impose its religious doctrine on students, that is the first thing that will go. The lawyers are already lining up. All the things that made the public schools deteriorate will combine to cause private schools to underperform.

It would be lots easier to return to standards that existed all across this country from NYC to Wisconsin to Washington state back in the 20s thru the early 60s. Everything else is just flummery and wastes time and money.

Bart wonders if the taxpayers of Hopkins will be happy subsiding inner city schools. The truth is, they already are subsidising inner city schools, as local schools in Minnesota already get supplemental state aid. And the cost per pupil/year in Minneapolis, at least, was nearly 10 grand. So the vouchers will actually save money.