A recent conversation with fellow supporters of educational vouchers raised a question that I had not adequately considered: What counts as an educational expenditure?
The basic problem here is that some kids are always going to "lose," in education or life, but nobody wants this to happen.
So they spend ridiculous sums and come up with ridiculous regulation or policies trying to make sure nobody "loses," but since it's guaranteed, all this does is waste massive amounts of resources and time, while degrading credentials (ie distributing more "loss" to everyone, even conscientious and hard working students) and still having a large amount of kids "losing" (dropping out, going to juvie, etc).
Just take the loss, and build a system that will ensure the top 10% get the best education possible. I personally plan to completely homeschool my kids with myself and 1-1 tutors and grad students to fill in whatever gaps the kids are interested in going deep on, because I think that will provide the best education and let them enter undergrad around 14-16.
The top 10% are the ones driving overall innovation and economic growth anyways, and a faster-rising tide lifts all boats (including losers' boats) faster. Focus on what actually works, not performative signaling that gives people warm fuzzies but wastes huge amounts of time and resources and still doesn't accomplish the end goal of the regulations and efforts.
But this is unconscionable in the US because it's "tracking" and it won't end with exactly equal amounts of all races in the top 10% as exist in the base population. DEI-driven racism is why we can't have nice things, societally. But it's how meritocracies work, and we should strive to be a meritocracy instead of the current Harrison Bergeron-ing systemic abominations we have today.
Be careful you don't burn your kids out. I was lucky in (most of) my public schools. Basically had tracking (two grade levels combined team teaching) in elementary school; Jr. high was a waste (moved from Fairfax Co., VA to Texas beginning of 7th), except the small engine repair class; but high school had advanced physics, chemistry and biology as well as comprehensive creative, article and research writing classes.
I started working part time at 15 (lied about my age) and finished high school at 16. I was entirely self-motivated, by which I mean my parents set a good example, but they had no idea what was going on in my education.
I started college with 27 hours of advanced placement credit at an 'A'.
And when I reached college, I didn't realize it, but I was burned out. I had run so fast for so long, learning everything I could find, I just became exhausted. The stress of being on my own for the first time, probably didn't help either, but all those little stresses can eventually overwhelm.
So, yours sounds like a well thought out plan, but keep a little mindfulness that you don't run them ragged in the process. (I guess I ran myself ragged....)
I also entered college at 16, having gone to a private school that let me skip second grade and saved everyone another year by combining seventh and eighth, didn't find it a problem. But that wasn't a case of getting ahead by serious pushing.
I think this is an underrated concern, although as often as not seen with parents who push their kids hard with a million extra curriculars and classes to get into the best college etc. The kids get out from under that and say "Whew... I am done... thank god college doesn't make me actually attend class."
I think there is a lot to be said for a year between high school and college to just work a job. Not necessarily a fun screw around year, but get a job that will support you, and get a feel for what that is like, then see where your brain wants to go from there.
The stuff colleges expect now days, almost forces parents to push their kids with all those extra-curriculars. Meanwhile the "educators" adhere to this myth of 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night or some such, meaning that by 10th grade there's no time left in the evening for extra-curriculars.
When I went to school, we generally had time in class to work on homework. There were projects that required substantial home time, but they didn't intentionally schedule another 2 - 3 hours of ad hoc school day through home work every single day like they do now.
The first time I went to college, UT at Austin basically had a beating pulse admission policy. Your heart is beating, you're in. Oh, the SATs might have needed to be above 900 or 1000 or some such, but nothing substantial. Now days, they admit less than the top 7% of each high school class and they're still overcrowded.
Of course, back then tuition and fees for a semester were about $500.
Yea, I have noticed even with my young kids the teachers are sending lots of homework for them to do (and for me to teach them how to do). It rather makes me wonder what they are doing during the day that they need to be doing so much at home. I can't help but think they are hoping that a fair few of their students' parents will be able to teach them things so they don't have to.
They (teachers) repeat that "10 minutes per grade per day" like a litany with no thought behind it whatsoever. I even heard it from a new student teacher. It's clearly part of the "teaching narrative"...
Try talking to the school administration about it and they'll parrot it to you too. No justification, no studies, no documentation, just a rote litany with zero sense behind it, being used to ruin our kids' childhoods.
Despite the fact that multiple studies show that there is absolutely zero benefit in homework for students before high school (or jr. high?). At any rate, certainly no benefit in elementary school. All negatives, no pluses.
Happily my "boy" (man?) just finished undergrad, so other than good of society impulses, I don't have to take that idiocy personally any more.
Yes, unfortunately my wife is very "school is always right" and so the girls spend a lot more time on homework and "enrichment packets" than I would like. Fortunately they are pretty good at getting things done quickly so I don't spend all my time arguing.
I think I was well served by being in a public school classroom in the 50s and 60s. Relatively large (numbers in the upper 30s) class sizes stretched the teachers attention so that I was left alone to read whatever I could get my hands on as soon as I completed my class work. People have an exaggerated expectation of formal education—it’s just credentials and baby-sitting. If you want to learn something the resources today are magnificent. Vouchers are an invitation to grift more than an opportunity.
I resent paying for the education of another man's child. A real man would not agree to compel strangers to give him a darn thing, much less their money, and certainly not for another man's child. Pay for your own kids with your own money.
There is something to be said for the positive externalities of education. There are theoretically many benefits to be had from others who are well educated, or at least well raised.
Well, often, yes. But it is outrageous for any man to ask -- even more so, even pusillanimous, to compel through a third party, the state -- another man to pay for the life-learning or the upkeep of children not his own.
Depends on your moral framework. I count myself as slightly more of a utilitarian than David Friedman, but I suspect i think utilitarianism justifies quite a bit less non consensual transfers than most might think.
Americans have become a nation of thieves, each stealing something from strangers in every aspect of life (academic plagiarists, vast internet copyright infringement, scammers, welfare fraud, politicians on the take, government taxation that feeds the bureaucrats whose job is to take from us, etc.) but in such a way as to make it seem as if the practice of taking what is not yours is laudable, as long as you can offer a cover story. That way of life is coming to an end. Oh, yes, it will become politically feasible, and much sooner than one thinks, as the ideas spread to all and sundry.
This problem is actually being tackled in practice by charter schools that cater to homeschoolers. These charter schools have no fixed curriculum, and give a portion of the funding they receive from the government to the parents to spend on educational expenses. Depending on the charter school, the definition of educational can be quite different, with some schools being very prescriptive and others being very open.
A little complicated, but you could have 3c: you can collect the voucher if, at the end of the school year, your kid shows a certain incremental gain or at worst a modest loss in incrementally difficult standardized tests.
The idea here is that education occurs when a child learns more than he knew last year. That requires a baseline.
For example, if a highly gifted kid scores in the 99.9th percentile on a test, but next year scores at the 90th percentile, his absolute score is good, but his relative score declined. Similarly, if a low-performing student scores in the 20th percentile one year but scores at the 35th percentile the following year, that student is learning something despite the low score.
One caveat is that the tests must accurately measure some level of performance.
A second caveat is that percentile rankings are a zero-sum game. To the extent someone moves up, someone else moves down. A system can avoid this problem by allowing modest decreases (say, up to 5 or 10 percentile points). So if a student scores at the 60th percentile last year and the 58th percentile this year, the student would still qualify for the voucher.
To really ramp up the system, we could allow a base voucher along these lines and then a performance bonus based on the incremental scores. A teacher or school that takes kids at the 20th percentile and moves them up to the 60th percentile has done a tremendous service to the students and the world. Paying such teachers a huge bonus would encourage good educators to go into education and find their niche. (Think Jaime Escalente.)
It always seemed like a dumb argument to say some people might spend their vouchers selfishly to the detriment of their children. How many could it possibly be? 3%? We already require parents to see to the education of their children, so the better way of handling that is like other forms of child abuse are handled. When this abuse of vouchers is discovered, action can be taken. No need to burden the 97% of honest people and institutions.
I had a conversation with your father in the 00s in which he seemed to be stuck on #2, not taking seriously the extent to which it constrained "education" to that which had been defined by the current schooling establishment. Did you have this conversation with him, and were you able to persuade him of the serious tensions you've outlined here? Your children were already in alternative schools at the time, so I expect the issue may have come up.
I don't remember any such conversation. We thought of vouchers mainly as a way in which private schools could compete with public schools, with innovation occurring within the school framework. Having vouchers cover home schooling was a fairly extreme version of the idea.
I started thinking of the issue in detail and in the context of multiple possible modes of schooling pretty recently.
The problems in defining tax-payer subsidized proper education are no different from defining education in colleges. There, it's the faculty, subject to some competition from other schools.
A solution for voucher eligibility could be determined by each private school, with a board of directors chosen from the parents of those kids going to that school. That board would also determine who administers. Hell, the incentives would be right!
Frank, to be clear, your proposal is for any entity that a) Calls itself a School, b) has one or more relevant age students ("kids"), c) has a Board of Directors chosen from the parents of kids going to that school, and d) follows a curriculum selected by that Board of Directors, then the expenses of that entity count as "Educational Expenses" reimbursable by the educational voucher. Is that correct?
If so, that sounds like 1 for Home Schools, and somewhere between 1 and 2 for other schools.
I am a well educated moderately intelligent person. The problem I have with a libertarian approach to education is that there are many, many unintelligent parents and to handover education, however defined, may suit a "free" society but condemns millions to a dismal future
Any guess at how many millions at present, in the public school system, end up without an education?
Those unintelligent parents are also unintelligent voters, have much less relevant information about candidates than about their own kids, and much less reason to care how intelligent a job they do about voting than about choosing an education for their kids.
I'm not sure. On one hand vouchers give more choice to the parents, on the other it corrupts private educational institutions by imposing bureaucratic control over them via requirements and regulations. I used to think vouchers probably is net good, now leaning towards probably net bad.
That was obviously a worry. Vouchers or similar arrangements now exist in a good many states. Are there examples of their being used in the way you describe?
As far as I know in all states that use vouchers there are many requirements and regulations for schools to qualify for them, which affects their programs, curriculums, and policies.
I'm not able to find specific requirements for schools to accept vouchers, only requirements for parents to use them. Either I'm bad at looking, or this information isn't public. However, these requirements exist, they are written by bureaucrats, and they motivate private schools to change their programs and policies to meet the requirements.
I have long thought that "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing" was an interesting idea. There would be a test for something like Third Grade Arithmetic. A student has to pass that test to pass Third Grade Arithmetic. The second purpose is if the student does not pass that test, then the school does not get paid for teaching that student Third Grade Arithmetic. This generalizes across the entire public school curriculum. There are tuning parameters. For example the system could have more finer-grained tests, or fewer tests of larger scope each.
One failure mode is that, since the students have to pass the tests for the schools to get paid, the tests could become garbage tests that anyone could pass without knowing anything, so the existing schools are guaranteed to get paid whatever they do. When there was just "High Stakes Testing," some schools and school systems were already cheating. A fix is to add "Free Entry." Anyone can set up a school to teach willing students, any such students must be allowed to take the same tests on the same terms, and if these students pass the test, then the new school gets paid the same. "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing with Free Entry" then becomes a version of 3. Unlike 3a or 3b, this does not use a percentile to determine passing, but a fixed test threshold. In principle, every student could learn the material and pass; every student could fail to learn the material and fail.
In terms of "Controlling the tests," if this is just a mental exercise, then I sketch out the curriculum myself, which can be fun. For a real system, however, the only mitigation I have seen is transparency; every parent gets their child's fully graded tests back, can see every question, and can see how each question was graded. This makes clear to parents on what students are actually being graded. For further transparency, anyone can take any of the tests, for the standard fee, seeing the tests and their results. Also, the curriculum and testing standards need to be announced ahead of time, so schools can know what to teach, but parents who do not home school won't necessarily pay attention to that..
One problem you do not consider is the school cheating — the teacher either telling the kids what the questions on the test will be or rewriting the text after the kid hands it in. I gather it happens with the present system.
Cheating is absolutely a risk. One aspect of dealing with cheating is "...on the same terms...." I skipped details to keep the post shorter. If Public School Teachers get to administer these tests themselves with no oversight, then Charter, Private and Home Schools get to administer these tests themselves with no oversight. Pursuing this scheme for real probably requires something like proctoring the high stakes tests off-site by people who are not allowed to be connected to any school system, or allowing all schools, including Charter, Private and Home Schools, equal involvement in proctoring.
That said, for me "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing" is an interesting gedanken experiment. It requires being more explicit about what Public or publicly-funded Education is supposed to achieve. It also starts to drive home to what extent should anyone be accountable for anything in this area.
All this becomes moot if we take the step that needs to be taken: get the government OUT of the education business altogether. Stop taxing for education and let parents use the money saved to choose how to educate their children best.
The moment the government sticks its nose into something, anything, you have an instant mess.
My second-hand experience with unschooling (i.e. watching it as an interested observer rather than a participant) in several countries is that even where children are required to pass regular tests on the standardized curriculum, studying for these tests takes up a very small part of their time and unschooled kids usually pass these tests with flying colors. Since traditional schooling is so inefficient, any test that can be realistically passed by children attending it would be at most a minor inconvenience for unschooled children. Thus, whoever controls this exam has only a minor influence over what children learn.
In countries with compulsory schooling, it would seem simplest that whatever is considered compliant with that compulsion (e.g. privately funded private schooling in some countries, home schooling in others) also be considered eligible for vouchers. No reason to complicate things by making up new criteria.
Another choice; no government money for education, or at the most government monetary support, in as well as out of the public school system, for the 3 R's, period. Anything beyond or differentiating from that paid by the parents, private grants or charity.
Proof of competence; Standard tests, nation wide, produced, monitored by a government agency or, preferably, private agency, passing grade necessary for credit.
One might argue that such would leave many or most without a grounding is science, history, art, etc. My reply to that; many or most exiting the present system lack such. I suspect my modest suggestion would produce far far more well rounded citizens.
Written as a comment to young Davie Friedman’s essay on school vouchers;
But the cost! Today there is no rub, internet, Khan Academy on youtube, ebooks, Wolfram Research, etc., etc., etc. the cost of a superior education, today, is affordable for most.
For those that can't afford it, charity, or enlightened self interest on the part of you and me, if you will. If your daughter decided to marry the boy next door, for example, wouldn't you rather he had a bit more than a smidgen of education? Self interest very enlightened.
Your initial point is a legitimate one — there would be much to be said for simply eliminating all government involvement in education. I was writing in the context of the argument that opening up the present system to competition would be a large improvement and one that may be politically practical.
The basic problem here is that some kids are always going to "lose," in education or life, but nobody wants this to happen.
So they spend ridiculous sums and come up with ridiculous regulation or policies trying to make sure nobody "loses," but since it's guaranteed, all this does is waste massive amounts of resources and time, while degrading credentials (ie distributing more "loss" to everyone, even conscientious and hard working students) and still having a large amount of kids "losing" (dropping out, going to juvie, etc).
Just take the loss, and build a system that will ensure the top 10% get the best education possible. I personally plan to completely homeschool my kids with myself and 1-1 tutors and grad students to fill in whatever gaps the kids are interested in going deep on, because I think that will provide the best education and let them enter undergrad around 14-16.
The top 10% are the ones driving overall innovation and economic growth anyways, and a faster-rising tide lifts all boats (including losers' boats) faster. Focus on what actually works, not performative signaling that gives people warm fuzzies but wastes huge amounts of time and resources and still doesn't accomplish the end goal of the regulations and efforts.
But this is unconscionable in the US because it's "tracking" and it won't end with exactly equal amounts of all races in the top 10% as exist in the base population. DEI-driven racism is why we can't have nice things, societally. But it's how meritocracies work, and we should strive to be a meritocracy instead of the current Harrison Bergeron-ing systemic abominations we have today.
Be careful you don't burn your kids out. I was lucky in (most of) my public schools. Basically had tracking (two grade levels combined team teaching) in elementary school; Jr. high was a waste (moved from Fairfax Co., VA to Texas beginning of 7th), except the small engine repair class; but high school had advanced physics, chemistry and biology as well as comprehensive creative, article and research writing classes.
I started working part time at 15 (lied about my age) and finished high school at 16. I was entirely self-motivated, by which I mean my parents set a good example, but they had no idea what was going on in my education.
I started college with 27 hours of advanced placement credit at an 'A'.
And when I reached college, I didn't realize it, but I was burned out. I had run so fast for so long, learning everything I could find, I just became exhausted. The stress of being on my own for the first time, probably didn't help either, but all those little stresses can eventually overwhelm.
So, yours sounds like a well thought out plan, but keep a little mindfulness that you don't run them ragged in the process. (I guess I ran myself ragged....)
I also entered college at 16, having gone to a private school that let me skip second grade and saved everyone another year by combining seventh and eighth, didn't find it a problem. But that wasn't a case of getting ahead by serious pushing.
I think this is an underrated concern, although as often as not seen with parents who push their kids hard with a million extra curriculars and classes to get into the best college etc. The kids get out from under that and say "Whew... I am done... thank god college doesn't make me actually attend class."
I think there is a lot to be said for a year between high school and college to just work a job. Not necessarily a fun screw around year, but get a job that will support you, and get a feel for what that is like, then see where your brain wants to go from there.
The stuff colleges expect now days, almost forces parents to push their kids with all those extra-curriculars. Meanwhile the "educators" adhere to this myth of 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night or some such, meaning that by 10th grade there's no time left in the evening for extra-curriculars.
When I went to school, we generally had time in class to work on homework. There were projects that required substantial home time, but they didn't intentionally schedule another 2 - 3 hours of ad hoc school day through home work every single day like they do now.
The first time I went to college, UT at Austin basically had a beating pulse admission policy. Your heart is beating, you're in. Oh, the SATs might have needed to be above 900 or 1000 or some such, but nothing substantial. Now days, they admit less than the top 7% of each high school class and they're still overcrowded.
Of course, back then tuition and fees for a semester were about $500.
Yea, I have noticed even with my young kids the teachers are sending lots of homework for them to do (and for me to teach them how to do). It rather makes me wonder what they are doing during the day that they need to be doing so much at home. I can't help but think they are hoping that a fair few of their students' parents will be able to teach them things so they don't have to.
They (teachers) repeat that "10 minutes per grade per day" like a litany with no thought behind it whatsoever. I even heard it from a new student teacher. It's clearly part of the "teaching narrative"...
Try talking to the school administration about it and they'll parrot it to you too. No justification, no studies, no documentation, just a rote litany with zero sense behind it, being used to ruin our kids' childhoods.
Despite the fact that multiple studies show that there is absolutely zero benefit in homework for students before high school (or jr. high?). At any rate, certainly no benefit in elementary school. All negatives, no pluses.
Happily my "boy" (man?) just finished undergrad, so other than good of society impulses, I don't have to take that idiocy personally any more.
Yes, unfortunately my wife is very "school is always right" and so the girls spend a lot more time on homework and "enrichment packets" than I would like. Fortunately they are pretty good at getting things done quickly so I don't spend all my time arguing.
I think I was well served by being in a public school classroom in the 50s and 60s. Relatively large (numbers in the upper 30s) class sizes stretched the teachers attention so that I was left alone to read whatever I could get my hands on as soon as I completed my class work. People have an exaggerated expectation of formal education—it’s just credentials and baby-sitting. If you want to learn something the resources today are magnificent. Vouchers are an invitation to grift more than an opportunity.
A good teacher with a class who are all on the same level can make a huge difference and facilitate way more learning.
I resent paying for the education of another man's child. A real man would not agree to compel strangers to give him a darn thing, much less their money, and certainly not for another man's child. Pay for your own kids with your own money.
There is something to be said for the positive externalities of education. There are theoretically many benefits to be had from others who are well educated, or at least well raised.
Well, often, yes. But it is outrageous for any man to ask -- even more so, even pusillanimous, to compel through a third party, the state -- another man to pay for the life-learning or the upkeep of children not his own.
Depends on your moral framework. I count myself as slightly more of a utilitarian than David Friedman, but I suspect i think utilitarianism justifies quite a bit less non consensual transfers than most might think.
There's something to be said for that. However, that is currently nowhere near politically feasible.
Americans have become a nation of thieves, each stealing something from strangers in every aspect of life (academic plagiarists, vast internet copyright infringement, scammers, welfare fraud, politicians on the take, government taxation that feeds the bureaucrats whose job is to take from us, etc.) but in such a way as to make it seem as if the practice of taking what is not yours is laudable, as long as you can offer a cover story. That way of life is coming to an end. Oh, yes, it will become politically feasible, and much sooner than one thinks, as the ideas spread to all and sundry.
This problem is actually being tackled in practice by charter schools that cater to homeschoolers. These charter schools have no fixed curriculum, and give a portion of the funding they receive from the government to the parents to spend on educational expenses. Depending on the charter school, the definition of educational can be quite different, with some schools being very prescriptive and others being very open.
A little complicated, but you could have 3c: you can collect the voucher if, at the end of the school year, your kid shows a certain incremental gain or at worst a modest loss in incrementally difficult standardized tests.
The idea here is that education occurs when a child learns more than he knew last year. That requires a baseline.
For example, if a highly gifted kid scores in the 99.9th percentile on a test, but next year scores at the 90th percentile, his absolute score is good, but his relative score declined. Similarly, if a low-performing student scores in the 20th percentile one year but scores at the 35th percentile the following year, that student is learning something despite the low score.
One caveat is that the tests must accurately measure some level of performance.
A second caveat is that percentile rankings are a zero-sum game. To the extent someone moves up, someone else moves down. A system can avoid this problem by allowing modest decreases (say, up to 5 or 10 percentile points). So if a student scores at the 60th percentile last year and the 58th percentile this year, the student would still qualify for the voucher.
To really ramp up the system, we could allow a base voucher along these lines and then a performance bonus based on the incremental scores. A teacher or school that takes kids at the 20th percentile and moves them up to the 60th percentile has done a tremendous service to the students and the world. Paying such teachers a huge bonus would encourage good educators to go into education and find their niche. (Think Jaime Escalente.)
It always seemed like a dumb argument to say some people might spend their vouchers selfishly to the detriment of their children. How many could it possibly be? 3%? We already require parents to see to the education of their children, so the better way of handling that is like other forms of child abuse are handled. When this abuse of vouchers is discovered, action can be taken. No need to burden the 97% of honest people and institutions.
I had a conversation with your father in the 00s in which he seemed to be stuck on #2, not taking seriously the extent to which it constrained "education" to that which had been defined by the current schooling establishment. Did you have this conversation with him, and were you able to persuade him of the serious tensions you've outlined here? Your children were already in alternative schools at the time, so I expect the issue may have come up.
I don't remember any such conversation. We thought of vouchers mainly as a way in which private schools could compete with public schools, with innovation occurring within the school framework. Having vouchers cover home schooling was a fairly extreme version of the idea.
I started thinking of the issue in detail and in the context of multiple possible modes of schooling pretty recently.
Sorry, I had to think a while. :-)
The problems in defining tax-payer subsidized proper education are no different from defining education in colleges. There, it's the faculty, subject to some competition from other schools.
A solution for voucher eligibility could be determined by each private school, with a board of directors chosen from the parents of those kids going to that school. That board would also determine who administers. Hell, the incentives would be right!
Frank, to be clear, your proposal is for any entity that a) Calls itself a School, b) has one or more relevant age students ("kids"), c) has a Board of Directors chosen from the parents of kids going to that school, and d) follows a curriculum selected by that Board of Directors, then the expenses of that entity count as "Educational Expenses" reimbursable by the educational voucher. Is that correct?
If so, that sounds like 1 for Home Schools, and somewhere between 1 and 2 for other schools.
Yes. I took to hear the question "Who decides?"
I am a well educated moderately intelligent person. The problem I have with a libertarian approach to education is that there are many, many unintelligent parents and to handover education, however defined, may suit a "free" society but condemns millions to a dismal future
Any guess at how many millions at present, in the public school system, end up without an education?
Those unintelligent parents are also unintelligent voters, have much less relevant information about candidates than about their own kids, and much less reason to care how intelligent a job they do about voting than about choosing an education for their kids.
The conclusion that follows from this post is that educational vouchers should be abolished together with education funded by taxation.
If you cannot abolish the latter are you still in favor of abolishing the former?
I'm not sure. On one hand vouchers give more choice to the parents, on the other it corrupts private educational institutions by imposing bureaucratic control over them via requirements and regulations. I used to think vouchers probably is net good, now leaning towards probably net bad.
That was obviously a worry. Vouchers or similar arrangements now exist in a good many states. Are there examples of their being used in the way you describe?
As far as I know in all states that use vouchers there are many requirements and regulations for schools to qualify for them, which affects their programs, curriculums, and policies.
Examples?
I'm not able to find specific requirements for schools to accept vouchers, only requirements for parents to use them. Either I'm bad at looking, or this information isn't public. However, these requirements exist, they are written by bureaucrats, and they motivate private schools to change their programs and policies to meet the requirements.
I have long thought that "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing" was an interesting idea. There would be a test for something like Third Grade Arithmetic. A student has to pass that test to pass Third Grade Arithmetic. The second purpose is if the student does not pass that test, then the school does not get paid for teaching that student Third Grade Arithmetic. This generalizes across the entire public school curriculum. There are tuning parameters. For example the system could have more finer-grained tests, or fewer tests of larger scope each.
One failure mode is that, since the students have to pass the tests for the schools to get paid, the tests could become garbage tests that anyone could pass without knowing anything, so the existing schools are guaranteed to get paid whatever they do. When there was just "High Stakes Testing," some schools and school systems were already cheating. A fix is to add "Free Entry." Anyone can set up a school to teach willing students, any such students must be allowed to take the same tests on the same terms, and if these students pass the test, then the new school gets paid the same. "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing with Free Entry" then becomes a version of 3. Unlike 3a or 3b, this does not use a percentile to determine passing, but a fixed test threshold. In principle, every student could learn the material and pass; every student could fail to learn the material and fail.
In terms of "Controlling the tests," if this is just a mental exercise, then I sketch out the curriculum myself, which can be fun. For a real system, however, the only mitigation I have seen is transparency; every parent gets their child's fully graded tests back, can see every question, and can see how each question was graded. This makes clear to parents on what students are actually being graded. For further transparency, anyone can take any of the tests, for the standard fee, seeing the tests and their results. Also, the curriculum and testing standards need to be announced ahead of time, so schools can know what to teach, but parents who do not home school won't necessarily pay attention to that..
One problem you do not consider is the school cheating — the teacher either telling the kids what the questions on the test will be or rewriting the text after the kid hands it in. I gather it happens with the present system.
Cheating is absolutely a risk. One aspect of dealing with cheating is "...on the same terms...." I skipped details to keep the post shorter. If Public School Teachers get to administer these tests themselves with no oversight, then Charter, Private and Home Schools get to administer these tests themselves with no oversight. Pursuing this scheme for real probably requires something like proctoring the high stakes tests off-site by people who are not allowed to be connected to any school system, or allowing all schools, including Charter, Private and Home Schools, equal involvement in proctoring.
That said, for me "Dual Purpose High Stakes Testing" is an interesting gedanken experiment. It requires being more explicit about what Public or publicly-funded Education is supposed to achieve. It also starts to drive home to what extent should anyone be accountable for anything in this area.
All this becomes moot if we take the step that needs to be taken: get the government OUT of the education business altogether. Stop taxing for education and let parents use the money saved to choose how to educate their children best.
The moment the government sticks its nose into something, anything, you have an instant mess.
My second-hand experience with unschooling (i.e. watching it as an interested observer rather than a participant) in several countries is that even where children are required to pass regular tests on the standardized curriculum, studying for these tests takes up a very small part of their time and unschooled kids usually pass these tests with flying colors. Since traditional schooling is so inefficient, any test that can be realistically passed by children attending it would be at most a minor inconvenience for unschooled children. Thus, whoever controls this exam has only a minor influence over what children learn.
At least you got 'Reading' right. The other two 'R's need work...
In countries with compulsory schooling, it would seem simplest that whatever is considered compliant with that compulsion (e.g. privately funded private schooling in some countries, home schooling in others) also be considered eligible for vouchers. No reason to complicate things by making up new criteria.
That raises the same question in the context of compulsory schooling.
Written as a comment over at young Davie Friedman’s essay on school vouchers; https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/defining-educational-expenditure
Another choice; no government money for education, or at the most government monetary support, in as well as out of the public school system, for the 3 R's, period. Anything beyond or differentiating from that paid by the parents, private grants or charity.
Proof of competence; Standard tests, nation wide, produced, monitored by a government agency or, preferably, private agency, passing grade necessary for credit.
One might argue that such would leave many or most without a grounding is science, history, art, etc. My reply to that; many or most exiting the present system lack such. I suspect my modest suggestion would produce far far more well rounded citizens.
Written as a comment to young Davie Friedman’s essay on school vouchers;
But the cost! Today there is no rub, internet, Khan Academy on youtube, ebooks, Wolfram Research, etc., etc., etc. the cost of a superior education, today, is affordable for most.
For those that can't afford it, charity, or enlightened self interest on the part of you and me, if you will. If your daughter decided to marry the boy next door, for example, wouldn't you rather he had a bit more than a smidgen of education? Self interest very enlightened.
Your initial point is a legitimate one — there would be much to be said for simply eliminating all government involvement in education. I was writing in the context of the argument that opening up the present system to competition would be a large improvement and one that may be politically practical.