The school choice movement, often called the school voucher movement, has taken off in the past few years. Coming into this conversation, Jadrian didn’t know as much about it while Matt taught about it in his classes. It turns out that there were a lot more pros and cons to discuss on the topic and the conversation introduced some interesting perspectives.
In this episode, we discuss:
* What is meant by school choice/school vouchers
* The arguments for and against vouchers that are made
* Some pop culture and economics references
* And a whole lot more!
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Some show notes:
Matt checked in from home and Jadrian is checking in from a hotel before some summer travel. Matt enjoyed a Good Fortune IPA by Common Roots Brewing Company that he picked up from Trader Joe’s on his last trip to New York. Matt and Jadrian were stuck with Pennsylvania’s arcane beer laws for so long that it can be really exciting to go buy beer in a grocery store in another state. Jadrian cracked open a Sour Me America (Rocket Pop Sour Ale) by DuClaw Brewing Company.
Part of the motivation for our chat was the relatively recent news that the Governor of Pennsylvania vetoed a plan to introduce school vouchers despite running a campaign that said he would support it.
Broadly speaking, a school voucher program takes some of the money that people pay in school taxes and allows those taxpayers to use some of that money to send their children to private schools instead of the local public school. Each state does things a little differently, but the idea is mostly to give parents some options in where to send their children.
A slight majority of Americans do support school voucher programs:
We spend most of the episode going over the pros and cons, but let us know if you think we missed one or undersold one of the arguments. We’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you’re a public school teacher!
This week’s pop culture references:
Matt brought up a behavioral economics reference. Several years ago, two poker players made a weight loss bet where Mike Matusow risked $2 million vs. Ted Forrest’s $100,000 on how much weight Ted could lose. It was captured in this ESPN segment and is a good example of behavioral economics incentives.
The World Series of Poker just ended, so this seemed like a relevant reference to Matt.
Since we’re on the topic of schools, Jadrian discussed a standup clip where Chris Rock discusses his experience of attending his daughter’s high school orientation. It was a good way to squeeze in a bit about signaling and human capital investments since Jadrian and Matt touched on the topic a few times when discussing the pros and cons of school vouchers.
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