Eduwonk Andy thinks that merit pay is the new vouchers. (Actually now he says "everyone" knows that to be the case.) Not really. Merit pay is more like charters--an issue that is promoted primarily by Republicans (especially at the state level) but which enjoys significant support among reform-minded Democrats. A better analogy is virtual schools, particularly the no-holds-barred, outside-the-system versions, which are openly despised by the teachers unions and increasingly under fire.
I used to work at K12, a company that manages lots of these virtual charter schools around the country, and have been following their "public policy challenges" over the years. Consider this episode from Wisconsin, for example, where the unions led a legal fight to shut down these options. (Thankfully the legislature later forged a compromise to keep them open, after thousands of angry parents turned up the heat.) It's easy to understand why the unions see this as a high-stakes debate: such schools replace labor (teachers) with capital (technology)--the great fear of organized workers. More specifically, by relying on parents or other guardians to provide much of the instruction, virtual charters are able to put in place much larger teacher-to-student ratios than brick-and-mortar schools can. (On the order of 50:1 instead of 25:1.)
And now it looks like the issue of virtual schools is shaping up to be a point of contention for the 2008 presidential election. (See this excellent Education Week article for the scoop.) The candidates are pretty close on merit pay--but far apart on virtual schools. So Andy, which would you consider to be the "new vouchers" now?
