Why conservatives need to understand capitalism and economics
One of the common screeds from conservatives advocating vouchers for schools (I’m a liberal advocate of vouchers), is that private schools are cheaper and so vouchers would save money.
This ignores that some private schools are cheaper than public schools based tuition. Tuition doesn’t cover all costs in such schools. Catholic schools are the primary example. Catholic schools are a horrible comparison to public schools. Most diosceses subsidize the schools, physcial plants are shared with other facilities, and teacher pay is low.
If you look at other secular private schools their tuition is similar or more than most public schools per student expenditures. And such schools often have other sources of income.
The NY Times Rothstein points out we have good examples of how to increase teacher retention and it shouldn’t be hard to figure what that is for those who understand economics. He suggests, increase salaries for teachers. Surprise, in New York this worked.
The claims of vouchers being cheaper fails to grasp this and many other issues. There is a pool of cheap labor out there for private schools, but it is limited and highly unlikely to expand greatly. Increasing teacher salaries is going to be necessary to increase the labor pool.
Duh.