For the public education system, of course bad. For the education of our children, probably good. I think targeted vouchers (i.e. vouchers for students in failing schools) are a great idea. I think universal vouchers would be devastating to the poor and would hurt the middle class. The rich would love it.
I think the opposite is true, if the vouchers are done right. If every kid got $2000 or so toward the school of his choice, then even the poor kids have the chance to attend a good private school rather than being sentenced to a virtually worthless public city school in which he may learn how to read and do very basic math but not much more. At a private school, he'll learn much more and have much smaller class sizes, as well as a classroom stocked with textbooks written within his lifetime, and perhaps access to a computer lab so that he can learn to use a computer. It's not the rich who benefit, if the rich benefitted, we'd have done this generations ago. What our current system does is enforce the status quo -- if your parents are rich, you go to a rich-people school where you get all of the educational benefits that money can buy. Poor kids get screwed, they get the left-overs. Books older than dirt, and quite often not enough books for the entire class. Teachers that took that teaching position because no decent school wanted to hire them. Buildings almost literally falling down. I don't get how any rational person could look at American public education and rationally conclude that it's better to keep the current system than to replace it with a voucher. The truth is that the system is designed for one purpose -- to insulate the children of the well off from ever having to deal with a child of poor people. It's also a sure way to make sure that the children of the rich get all the benefits at the expense of poor kids who will never have a tenth of what rich kids have.
If vouchers pass, most private schools will instantly raise tuition. Their business model isn't education, but selectivity and exclusion. If a $2000 voucher passes, and I'm a private school headmaster, I would increase tuition by $1500. Still keeps the riffraff out, I have more budget to pay staff better/build better facilities, and my current parents still get reduced tuition from before the vouchers. Vouchers won't help. Now, I do agree with targeted vouchers (like DC's voucher system that has been dismantled), for students ONLY districted for failing schools. That makes sense. Universal vouchers (i.e. for all) are just going to enrich the current private schools. $2k a year isn't nearly enough to pay tuition at a private school, BTW. In 2007-2008, the average private school tuition was $8k. http://www.capenet.org/facts.html
Public school pending was around 10k though. Not all students are the same, neither are schools kids should always be able to get the best education they have. There is no excuse to put school union adults ahead of children.
True, but the parents of these poor kids could possibly afford to attend the county public schools with that voucher. Which is still a step up from being forced to send your kid to a school that doesn't have textbooks. And most religious schools do have ways that a parent can volenteer to get their kid into that school. So there are possibilities, and they'd have more options than the system we have now. If you're in public housing now, you'll be lucky if the school bothers to teach your kid to read. If you're in a district with McMansions, your kid will learn to program a computer in the computer lab while the poor kids are struggling with books written when computers didn't exist yet. That's the tragedy of public schooling as it exists. even if vouchers are not a total solution, they'd at least give parents a tool to give their kids a chance at an education. except that it's a magic trick. As long as we can define "failing" as low enough, the kids remain trapped in bad schools. remember, that school districts have a vested interest in preventing the "failing school" label. They already cheat, and the stakes aren't nearly as high as having to lose 3/4 of the students (and more importantly, the money those students bring) to a voucher. In other words, what would happen is that teachers would cheat on the testing, either by changing the answer or by teaching to the test. At the same time, politicians who don't want to be the ones who lost funding for schools, would loosen the standards to the point of nonsense. In 2007-2008, the average private school tuition was $8k. http://www.capenet.org/facts.html[/QUOTE]
My local school district (district is whole county--suburbs, city and rural areas) has school choice. They allow the kids (if they have no behavior problems and can get transportation) to go to the public (or charter) school of their choice. All public schools are teaching kids to read. The problem is that not all kids are wanting to take advantage of this, and unfortunately, they are not only not taking advantage, but they are also interfering with those students who are. Vouchers won't change that. All it will do is kill of public schools, and enrich existing private schools, and encourage religious schools. I'm all for religious schools (my wife taught in Catholic schools for 5 yrs), but I don't want my tax money subsidizing them, as they do exist to proselytyze. To deny that the function of religious schools is to proselytyze is to keep your head in the sand. [/QUOTE] Yes, but if you look at the non-religious private schools data in your link the average tuition is $17k. Religious institutions subsidize part of their schools, and they get believers to work at about 2/3 of the salaries of public schools (primarily because they know this is a religious function).
School vouchers are not a fix for a broken US pubic school system. To fix the broken US pubic schools system, they need to privatize the entire system, and not pay any tax money into it. But since this will never happen. they should let the elite pay full private school tuition without tax money. After all, they can afford it, and if the poor want to get their kids into private shcool, they need to pay full too. No mercy on the lame.
