Silly question.
And I would be all for taking the schools out of government hands completely, and privatizing the whole thing.
Let me start off by saying my children attend public schools. They are suburban city schools, and they are pretty good. I have had a few problems with the liberal mentality, but have fought them each successfully.
My taxes are approximately $2100.00 per year, some of which obviously goes to mill levies. Let's assume that $1500.00 actually goes to the schools.
It costs $7500.00 per student in my district per year. If they give me a voucher of $7500.00, that means that still other people are helping to fund a private education for my children. If the voucher is only for the amount that I personally pay through the levy, then I only get a $1500.00 voucher. I used to send my oldest daughter to private school. We have three Catholic schools, and two charter private schools. The school I sent my daughter to was $13,000.00 per year.
Neither of the above voucher scenarios would cover that amount. So where does the rest of the money come from? My uncle owns a private school in Southern California. It is $30,000.00 a year per kid. No voucher in the world would cover that.
So, would private schools have to accept these children from failing public schools at a reduced rate?
Here is another problem I have with the voucher proposal. Say I own a private school. I have very strict standards for which students I will admit. Will I be forced by the government to accept children who do not meet my standards, but want to go to private school because their public school is failing?
If a public school is failing, odds are that the children who attend it have thus far received a sub-par education. Who would pay to catch these children up, given that children who attend private schools generally are far more advanced than public school kids?
Not to mention the fact that, I would think, the majority of children who are in areas where schools are failing would be inner city kids. Some of those kids would bring additional problems, such as behavior, attendance, and lack of parental involvement. Most private schools have no desire to accept those children, and parents who pay to send their children to private school have no desire to see those problems added to their schools. For many of them, those are some of the reasons they chose to put their kids in private school in the first place.
If I were a parent who paid to have my children sent to private school, I would be really angry if other people who did not choose to make the same sacrifices that I did could now have the same benefits that I had worked so hard for, just because they live in a crappy school district.
And what happens when private schools start denying entry to certain students? Since the government would be involved with the voucher funding, would that put private schools at risk for discrimination lawsuits? You can bet your bippy that the ACLU would be all too happy to start suing based on this or that kid not being accepted into a private school. Then I have a problem with private businesses being told how to operate, who to accept, and how much money they will be able to ask for from each of these children. You know if the government gets involved in funding children going to private schools, private schools will then be told how they can operate by the government. That is wrong.
Here's another problem I see. Given that there are so many fewer private schools, what happens when two or three public schools are deemed failures, and all of those kids receive vouchers? There are only so many private schools, many of which have waiting lists. There is not room in private schools for them to accept all of the children who would fall into this category, even if some of them would not qualify academically.
I just do not like this idea, for many reasons. You want to privatize the whole system, fine. But then we get back to the problem of some kids not getting an education at all, which is why we started the public school thing in the first place.
I say the government needs to address the NEA and their entities with an iron fist, and we fix the existing school system. That is the only solution that I think is fair.
Your choice as a parent is to evaluate the school system BEFORE you move into a neighborhood. Your choice is to move if you don't like the school, or work yourself to make it better.
Don't give me the "they don't have any other choice" whine. We all have choices. And when you make poor choices as a parent, your children suffer the consequences. Yes I think this voucher thing is a socialist piece of crap, and no, I do not think it takes a village to educate your child.
hillary's "it takes a village" book is nonsense. But it does matter to all of us that children get an education. If for no other reason, we will all be old someday, and will need doctors and bankers and military to keep us healthy and safe. That's why people who don't have children contribute to the education of children they didn't bring into the world.
The important thing is that the money we spend on education actually works for that purpose. Anyone who thinks we can educate every child equally is having a pipe dream. What we should be trying for is to educate every child to the best of their ability. And many of our public schools don't do that. I'm happy for you that yours does, but that's relatively rare these days.
And, yes, private and charter schools in most places are allowed to have entrance requirements.
Areas that do allow vouchers wind up with many schools for problem students - the "bad seeds", the special needs, etc. They just don't interfere with the bright kids who might go far.
And we don't all have choices. Do you honestly think that anyone would live in a crime-ridden inner city if they had a choice?
Lay all your concerns to rest because you are using extremes and misconceptions put out buy the msm, the teacher unions and the NEA. These schools can not discriminate any more than the public schools can. Most private and Charter schools out perform public schools on all levels and deal with your concerns instead of turning a blind eye. For example here is a study from Harvard and The National Bureau of Economic Research on charter schools. http://www.wacharterschools.org/learn/studies/HoxbyCharters_Dec2004.pdf
Overall the study showed a 5.2% increase in reading and 3.2% math for charter schools. However vouchers and Charter schools are a growing trend and the longer these schools have been in business the proficiency figures go up. For example the study showed those schools in question that were open for 9 to 11 years had an increase of 10.1% in the category of reading at about 40% of the funding.
That’s right! Instead of paying that $7,500 into a failing system you can get a better education for your child at $3,000. However, instead of cutting funding to $3,000 lets find the best schools for the $7,500 you are already spending.
Here are some more studies.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp81.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp67.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp66.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp86.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/wm710.cfm