Privatizing Education

Here is an interesting post about making public education a thing of the past. The idea is that each student is worth a dollar amount and they can make their choice of any school to attend and whichever school they choose that is the school that gets the dollar amount (from the government). The idea being if schools had to compete for students then they would be better from the competition and poor schools would go "out of business." Capitalism of education.

The idea is very interesting to me. My question is would this mean that since students could choose their schools then schools could also in turn choose their students? Meaning if my school has a child that won't do any work or is a constant behavior problem can we "let them go?" Will we as a district also have a right to refuse to teach some students?

Obviously there is much that would need to be worked out. A school built for 2000 students that had 5000 students that wanted to attend it would have to turn some students away, but could schools turn away students even if they had the room? I personally love the idea! The kid who refuses to pay attention or even open his eyes in my class, gone. The guy who has been suspended more than he has been in school, gone. It makes my life much easier if I can essentially "fire" students.

BUT, who will teach the "problem students?" Who will educate those we let go? Anyone? Does it matter? (I'm not saying it doesn't I'm just saying it as a question.)

The other question I have is how does this dollar amount per student work? I think there is some flawed logic going on. I would guess that my school spends the same amount on my classroom whether there are 25 students in it or 26 students, but under this capitalistic style my school would have $x less because my class only has 25 students instead of 26. I would be intrigued to see a study that would show how the costs break down and how that would affect a schools budget.

Now all of this really is for nothing because I am very doubtful of any change as radical as this happening in the US because of how proud we are of everyone getting an education but it raises some very interesting questions.

Thoughts?