Posted on 05/10/2007 5:29:06 AM PDT by voletti
FEW ideas in education are more controversial than vouchers—letting parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer's expense. First suggested by Milton Friedman, an economist, in 1955, the principle is compellingly simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains.
Simple, perhaps, but it has aroused predictable—and often fatal—opposition from the educational establishment. Letting parents choose where to educate their children is a silly idea; professionals know best. Co-operation, not competition, is the way to improve education for all. Vouchers would increase inequality because children who are hardest to teach would be left behind.
But these arguments are now succumbing to sheer weight of evidence. Voucher schemes are running in several different countries without ill-effects for social cohesion; those that use a lottery to hand out vouchers offer proof that recipients get a better education than those that do not.
Voucher programmes in several American states have been run along similar lines. Greg Forster, a statistician at the Friedman Foundation, a charity advocating universal vouchers, says there have been eight similar studies in America: seven showed statistically significant positive results for the lucky voucher winners; the eighth also showed positive results but was not designed well enough to count.
The voucher pupils did better even though the state spent less than it would have done had the children been educated in normal state schools. American voucher schemes typically offer private schools around half of what the state would spend if the pupils stayed in public schools. The Colombian programme did not even set out to offer better schooling than was available in the state sector; the aim was simply to raise enrolment rates as quickly and cheaply as possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
The education mafia in this country is about as liberal as they get and are indoctrinating the young of this country to embrace victimization as virtue.
More power to anything that breaks this stranglehold at the schools level.
One of the most important aspects beyond the quality of education is cost. At the rate public education costs have increased the public will go broke trying to keep the current system going in the future. While vouchers still include tax money more of the cost burden will fall on the private sector as more schools come on line in the free market system !!!
Must be talking about those parents who do not pay property taxes.
Do it, do it, do it!!!
Milton Friedman is my hero. He was a brilliant human being.
The only way to fix the ed system is to defeat liberalism/socialism.
We don’t need vouchers. Cut all government funding to schools and let the market do education. Period. At all levels. You pay for your children and I pay for mine. You don’t have children? Keep your money. That is moral and fair.
Vouchers are better than where we are, but it is not my responsibility, nor in my best interest to pay for someone else’s education. The only reason why it might be better for me to pay for someone else’s education is if I could socialistically use the government to reach into their wallet and take their money (sort of like socialist security).
I wish so-called conservatives would pay more attention to the moral issue involved. Vouchers still encourage theft. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that is the fact.
I see your point.
Having illiterates roam the streets is surefire recipe for disaster, though. There are many, among some ‘disadvantaged’ communities, from broken families etc who can’t/won’t afford pvt education. Are all such folk condemned to drugs and crime then? On a simple cost/benefit scenario, compulsary elementary education (upto, say grade 5) seems worth the cost of not having one and it is very much in each social member’s self-interest as well.
Just my 2 cents.
Have a nice day.
ping
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