Posted on 06/10/2007 8:18:57 PM PDT by NavySon
I was having an argument with a classmate a little while ago about using the voucher system for education. I was telling him that free market style competition between schools would only make the quality of education better and that if a student is forced to receive an education, then they should be able to at least choose whichever one they want. The only point he made which I'm not sure how to respond to is that those students living in poor neighborhoods would still be stuck going to the poor quality schools they live near because they wouldn't be able to get the school of their choice if it's too far away. Any advice on how to answer this in the future?
Vouchers will open up free markets for education.
Entrepreneurs will see that there is demand (and based on what I know how well public education performs in the inner city, probably HIGH demand) for private education in the highly urbanized areas... and the parents of the children in the urbanized areas will now have the means to pay for private education via a voucher. The profit motive will incentivize the creation of new private educational opportunities where none exist today.
Point out that every kid going to a private school or a charter school using vouchers makes the class size in the public schools one kid smaller and increases the individual assistance.
If you're going to start a business and go into competition with someone else, wouldn't you want to compete with someone who is performing poorly? Good voucher schools will locate in proximity to the worst of schools because those will be the easiest to compete against.
So you’re saying that they’ll build new private schools in those poorer areas because of the demand? Sounds reasonable. And I guess they could always attend the old ones temporarily until the private ones are ready.
There are also private firms that handle bussing for some school districts. If the demand is there, some entrepreneur will be there.
Take a look at what has happened in Milwaukee. Governor Thompson brags that he has a minority high schools with very high graduation rates and high % going to college. The competition has caused the public schools to improve dramatically. Here in FL just the threat of vouchers had that effect.
You’d see a lot of construction equipment at churches, too, building new school wings.
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