DUTCH TREAT….Here’s an interesting tidbit about school vouchers from Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber:
The Dutch experience is very different ? most children attend private schools on what is effectively a voucher system, but the State subjects all schools to heavy regulation, and the vouchers are highly progressive (schools get paid much more for low-income kids, kids from homes with low levels of parental education, kids from non-Dutch speaking homes). The Netherlands is consistently a pretty high performer in international comparisons of children?s achievement.
Without getting into the messy details of just what “heavy regulation” means, this is an interesting idea: have the state support private schools via vouchers, but encourage them to take low income kids by paying them to do so. Something like this might put me in the pro-voucher camp ? experimentally, at least ? although I’d certainly insist on at least moderate amounts of regulation regardless.
Which would probably end up as a dealbreaker. But it’s still an interesting thought.
