Posted on 07/05/2002 6:49:32 AM PDT by capecodder
If a school is failing, parents simply won't send their kids there. If they do, it's their choice.
If they don't like something about a school, they don't have to go there. They can choose another.
For example; Christian schools don't have to allow Sodomites. That's their religious views. If sodomites don't like it, they can go to the public schools they've created or open their own. . It's a choice.
Look at homeschools. Parents, who are not accredited, are kicking the public schools butt! Accredation is an NEA thing. They invented that, not the parents. Actually, nonaccreditated parents are doing a better job.
Hence, according to this view, the introduction of vouchers will not create a *greater* danger of governmental regulation of schools for the same reason because these too will be under the control of consumers.
To be sure, government regulates the schools....but this was not caused by vouchers. The key issue is whether vouchers would lead to *more* regulation.
Also, as I point out, the private school would simply not accept voucher students if any government thinks it can force changes in policies.
Secondly, do you really think that private schools will be able to withstand suits brought by teachers who believe there has been discrimination in hiring practices at a govenment funded (and, therefore, no longer) private school?
And, how will private schools be able to maintain private school admissions standards? Won't they be "discriminating" if they don't take a student with "special needs" or with a "disciplinary record"?
And, if, as is the case in Florida, the students are required to take the state "assessment," who really controls the curriculum?
As a wise school administrator said to me on this topic: "If you take the king's shilling, you become the king's man."
It is one thing to control public schools when you have the support of the union, and the administrators. It is another is the private schools fight the attempt to control them.
Take the money away from the unions, you take the money away from the poloticians. Once the unions no longer have a lock on all of that money, their hold over the poloticians will weaken.
This problem did not develop overnight, nor will it be corrected overnight. Vouchers are a start.
Exactly. Its noy like private schools are "unregulated". They can't refuse to admit someone based upon their skin color, and they couldn't make rules like no lunch is allowed at school or something. We wont see accrediting of teachers. We will not see the government try to tell religious schools they cant say homosexuality is a sin. We will not see the government tell private schools they have to accept this person or that one, or that they can not expell this person.
There are stacks and stacks of legal decisions supporting the rights of privaet schools to have much tougher policies than public schools. Vouchers will not change this. The school I went to could expell anyone for any reason really, if they wanted. Usually, you were given the option of leaving if there was a problem with you. But the students were there because their parents wanted them there. All students were answerable to their parents. The student handbook even had a rule that said you could be expelled for any action the school deemed "immoral". Common incidents involved pregnancy or sex, drinking or drug parties or a generally rebelious atitude.
Excellent! Public Edumacation is not education. It is brain-washing. More third graders know about Heather and her two mommies than can read.
Your premise is false. They are not government funded. See my post #19. The student is not a conduit for government funds. The funds have been rebated to the parent, the parent is making a free choice as to how the parents 'ed dollars' get spent.
The Supreme Court and the Congress have already spoken on the issue.
It doesn't matter whether the school gets the money or the student brings the money, the effect is government power over the institution.
I think you are not quite seeing this correctly. You do not become "government funded" simply by accepting one student with a voucher. No court will see it that way.
And, how will private schools be able to maintain private school admissions standards? Won't they be "discriminating" if they don't take a student with "special needs" or with a "disciplinary record"?
This simply just will not happen. Like I said, most private schools will probably consult an attorney before they even accept a voucher student. If the school "changed" some rules because of whatever, then it would go broke, because parents would just take their kids out and send them to another private school that didn't accept voucher students.
If ANY court rules that once a private school accepts vouchers, its no longer private accept that they are privately funded, then no private school will accept vouchers. Its that simple. You are forgeting that it is the school's choice to take vouchers. No court will rule that private schools have to accept voucher students. There is as much basis for that as there would be for saying private companies have to hire any former government employee.
And we are all forgetting one important fact: Most politicians send their children to private schools. They would not vote for something that would hurt the schools they send their children to. Its that simple.
Actually, no, on two counts:
1) It's not more money, it's the same money taxed away that's been rebated back to parents
2) There is no government control. It is parents spending their money as they choose.
The funds are tax dollars, yours and mine, comingled. Once those dollars leave our hands, the money becomes government funds.
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