Replies

"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.