[cykotic]

The status quo is that 10% of k-12 students to go private school. Most private school have a religious affiliation. That may or may not matter to you. It does matter to me.

What we see in higher education are two types of private schools. One type are nonprofit and one type are profit. The for profit schools tend to be predatory have much worse outcomes than the public schools or nonprofit ones. The nonprofit ones tend to fall into two categories. The ones with nice endowments are exclusive and very good. We will see this happen with k-12 with vouchers.

From a school’s perspective a voucher is exactly as if a student got a student loan in that amount. Those who think federally backed loans are a problem in higher education ought to be opposed to vouchers for k-12.

[aapl88889]

- There are many non-religious private schools like magnets and charters.

- The schools must be accredited.

I can't find one good reason to restrict a poor student from choosing a magnet or a charter school over their local public school.

[Jtsummers]

> - There are many non-religious private schools like magnets and charters.

Magnet schools are public schools in the US that draw from multiple schools and usually have a particular focus (arts & languages, STEM, etc.). The main limiter on magnet school attendance is their capacity. I ended up in one in HS with a capacity of 1500 students, for a city with over 1 million people at the time (not sure the number of HS aged people). It cost nothing extra to attend, you had to apply and interview to get in and the public school bus system took care of getting everyone to the school no matter where they lived in the county.

EDIT: And I had to double check because I've only recently lived in an area with charter schools and have no kids yet so didn't really care much, but they're also technically public schools in the US. They are publicly funded and have no tuition costs to attend.

[aapl88889]

You're right that they're public schools. School choice would allow parents to choose these other public options in addition to private schools.

[cykotic]

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgc/private-schoo...

Most private k-12 schools are religiously affiliated.

Do you have this much concern for the poor when it comes to funding public transportation, healthcare, childcare, pre-school, school lunch, and dental care?

[aapl88889]

- The schools must be accredited.

- Mississippi is richer than Germany and France without progressive social policies. Since you are questioning my motives, do you have a concern for the poor yourself?

[cykotic]

Mississippi is not richer than Germany in the ways that truly matter. It is hard for Americans to comprehend but money is not the end all be all of being human. Life expectancy is greater in Germany. Worker conditions are better in Germany. Germans have far more vacation time. The infrastructure and way the cities are built are such that one doesn’t need a car. That expense is not taken into account when looking at income statistics. German healthcare doesn’t leave one bankrupt if you get a major illness or disease. Higher education is cheaper. Life is better in Germany than in Mississippi.

Having a few more dollars doesn’t make up for these discrepancies.

[Jtsummers]

> Mississippi is richer than Germany and France without progressive social policies.

By what measure? Using GDP Mississippi appears to have a GDP of around $100 billion. France and Germany both have GDPs in the trillions. Normalized by population, both are still larger than Mississippi.

  Mississippi: $105 billion / 2.95 million     = $34.90k/person
  France     : $2.958 trillion / 67.75 million = $43.66k
  Germany    : $4.26 trillion / 83.2 million   = $52.2k

[aapl88889]

Look at the official GDP/capita numbers.

France: 43,658.98

Germany: 51,203.55

Mississippi: 48,744*

I was off on Mississippi but they are still very close to Germany's, which is good considering they are the poorest state in the USA.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[Jtsummers]

Apparently my source for MS was older (and I mistyped it anyways when calculating, but wouldn't have changed it much compared to using the 2022/2023 numbers). Updating to the 2022 numbers brings it to $47k and 2023 brings it to $48.7k.

So you were half-right, congrats.