A kid could just purposefully fail a couple of years just to make taxpayers pay for private schooling.
Not only that, but why should I have to pay for your kid to go to private school, when I can't afford it myself?
AND, kids who fail a lot are generally troublemakers. If I paid for my kids to go to private school, I would not want a bunch of these kids there.
I don't get this voucher thing. And I don't get why conservatives are generally for it. It is a socialist program. Want a good education for your children? Work hard, pay the tuition for your own kid, or homeschool them.
Now, improving public schools is another argument.
Why should the parents who send their children to private school have to pay school taxes that won't benefit their own children? To me that sounds just as socialist as a voucher program if not more so.
Under the 1999 law, students at public schools that earn a failing grade from the state in two out of four years were eligible for vouchers to attend private schools.Notice that the subordinate clause (marked in bold) modifies the word "schools" and not the word "students." In other words, under the program kids could transfer if their schools were failing--not if the kids themselves were flunking out of school.
(I am tempted to ask if you are a public school graduate, but will politely refrain.)
The point is producing educated, literate, socially functional children at the end of the process. As long as government accepts the notion that public money should go toward that end, why shouldn't parents have a say in how those public funds are expended on their children? You want your children to go to public schools? Fine. That's your *choice.* But why shouldn't I get the equivalent of what the government pays out for Average Daily Attendance for educating your kids so that I can exercise my *choice* on where my kids are educated? Forcing public education as the only choice is closer to your socialism characterization.
"A kid could just purposefully fail a couple of years just to make taxpayers pay for private schooling."
Wrong, it is kids in failing SCHOOLS.
Meaning - if your school fails levels of performance, kids in that school get a voucher.
This is so absurd. It is a very limited program and the tortured logic of this kangaroo court would also have to outlaw *any* special program ... you know like:
- special education
- talented and gifted
- remedial reading
... it defies logic and common sense.
Now, based on your comments, you clearly misunderstand the voucher programs. Its not for 'failing students'. Ideally, the state would give a flat-rate voucher to EVERY child and be done with it. Then you comment ... "why should I have to pay for your kid to go to private school, when I can't afford it myself?"
would be irrelevent.
"I don't get this voucher thing. And I don't get why conservatives are generally for it. It is a socialist program."
WRONG. Look at it this way:
Public education is the SOVIET-style socialism.
Government pays for it, hires and fires everybody, and has a monopoly.
Voucher is more like the way we have higher education in the USA today: Government pays and subsidizes students, but students have a choice of where to attend, which can be a mix of private institutions or public ones.
"Want a good education for your children? Work hard, pay the
Work hard, pay the tuition for your own kid, or homeschool them.
"improving public schools is another argument."
that is the point of vouchers - choice means better education for ALL. the monopoly school system
is incapable of improving, just like ANY monopoly, without competition. The teachers unions hate competition because it means efficiency, and they WANT the inefficiency in the system. Choice will force the laggards to get better or lose their students.
In New Zealand the result was better *public* schools, not just more choice.
Good points.