[capecodder]

From the back issues of FR, I thought this column deserved a re-posting.

Say "no" to vouchers!!!

They are the Trojan Horse that will bring government control into private schools.

[capecodder]

Thought you'd be interested.

[rudypoot]

I think it might be a little over-reaction. The supreme court the money was constitutional because it was ultimately the parents choice where the child was going to go to school. Private schools are going to remain exactly what they are: Private. Since private schools are doing better than public school, there is no political traction to regulate them.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Absolutely correct. Along with all that lovely money comes control. Private schools in the main escaped the social chaos into which America is descending.

[Austin Willard Wright]

I share these fears, however, there is one interesting counterargument. Those who make this counterargument, such as Milton Friedman, make a comparison between vouchers and foodstamps. Now...of course, there is a very negative side to this comparison; namely that vouchers are a form of welfare.

The positive aspect is that the introduction of foodstamps did not lead to more government regulation of supermarkets. This is because, according to people who hold this view, the consumer consumer controls the spending of the foodstamp. Because the consumer will also control the spending of the voucher, they conclude that same conditions (e.g. no regulation) will apply for schools.

I haven't thought of a good response to this argument.

[concerned about politics]

Compliance with government policy and maintenance of the status quo will assume greater and greater importance, as more workers become dependent on government-subsidized salaries.

Vouchers go to parents. Not the schools. Therefore, there can be no government involvement - separation of church and state, remember? If parents choose religious schools, the government can't get involved in their religious choices.

vote "yes" for vouchers and school choice. Shut down the indoctrination centers ASAP.
Each year thse liberal centers create thousands of indoctrobots. Only the liberals and libertarians want public schools and the lifestyles they teach. Others want the freedom from indoctrination.

Vote for parential choice. Vote for freedom. Don't let others with political motives dictate for you.

[FreeTally]

Private, religious schools are founded upon and run according to a mission. Most are doing fine, right now, without voucher students. These schools do not need a couple thousand more dollars a year from a couple voucher students. Private schools will simply not accept voucher students if the government tried in any way to control them or make them change their rules.

I firmly believe that this argument against vouchers was started and fostered by the NEA as a scare tactic. Its seems reasonable at first since government always wants control. But you must understand the nature of private schools - they are private because they do not want government control. Vouchers will not change this.

[another cricket]

The problem I have with many conservatives is their willingness to sacrifice the attainable better for some currently unreachable best. This always leaves us mired firmly in the worst, kept there by not only liberals but also our own purist members.

Say Yes to Vouchers! It is better then what we have.

a.cricket

[concerned about politics]

Here's the choice. Public schools remain as they are and parents are held hostage, or school choice to escape the Satanic minions.
Opposition to vouchers and school choice are those who dictate the choice for you.
I feel parents should be free to choose the school they want their children to go to. Opposition denies parents their freedom via laws, propaganda, and legislation.

Choose thou, whom will you serve? Forced imprisonment by the dictators, or freedom?

[Starwind]

The bottom line is: Vouchers would cause the demise of private schools because they cannot compete with what some parents will perceive as "free" schools. And government regulation will force them to be like public schools.

Vouchers would grant the government the "right" to collect your money and redistribute it to the more needy or dictate where and how you spend it by granting you a voucher. Collecting taxes and redistributing them is socialism.

Vouchers will cause private school tuition to escalate as witnessed by the sharp increase in public college tuition after the GI Bill was passed in 1943. Fewer parents would be able to afford true private schools.

Vouchers would politicize private schools the same way as public schools. Dr. Gary North, president of The Institute for Christian Economics, describes how voters/parents have consented to a system that rewards educational bureaucrats rather than serving parents as consumers with legal authority over their children. The chief losers of the political scheme are the students.

Vouchers would methodically expunge religion from private school curricula. George Bernard Shaw of The Socialist Fabian Society of England frankly stated, "Nothing will more quickly destroy independent Christian schools than state aid; their freedom and independence will soon be compromised, and before long their faith."

I fail to understand how vouchers will bring this about. Perhaps someone could explain the actual mechanics by which parents using vouchers to send kids to the schools of their choice will cause the above?

[poppytpee]

It seems that the public's general belief is that students who take advantage of vouchers will somehow miraculously become geniuses----WRONG----"You can lead anyone to education, but you can't make him take it."

[CIB-173RDABN]

Vouchers will break the monopoly of the NEA.

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.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"In reality, public funding would destroy private education. "

Excellent! Public Edumacation is not education. It is brain-washing. More third graders know about Heather and her two mommies than can read.

[LarryLied]

So why have the NEA, the AFT, the NAACP, the NCJW, the ACLU, PFAW, the AJCongress, the ADL and other left wing grops vowed to fight vouchers in every state in which they are proposed?

[Temple Owl]

From the back issues of FR, I thought this column deserved a re-posting.

It certainly made all the NEA members happy. That's the propaganda they've been handing out for years.

[Khepera]

Great post.

[rdb3]

In your dreams will I say "no" to them (and I don't even have kids).

For all you voucher naysayers, has it ever occurred to you how huge this ruling was for our side and how detrimental it was for the teachers' unions? We get a victory and I'll be doggone if we hurry up and throw it away. Political understanding is not very high on our side. But keep up the mantra. I'll work to marginalize the negativity because this is huge for us, even if some of us can't seem to get their minds around it.

[Puddleglum]

Mt take on vouchers is simple: I'm getting my money back. I want to send my kid to a private school and I want to have some of my property taxes returned ot me in order to support my choice.

And on a tangent: I think everyone should have to pay something to send their kids to school. People usually care a little more about something when they have to pay for it, and having to pay, even for public school, might make parents a little more attentive to it. It's like if you have to buy a car for yourself, which most of us do, you usually are rather quick to phone the dealer if it breaks down all the time.

When something's free, you don't expect much from it. I think free school should rank right up there with a free school lunch - should be means tested.

Or did I miss the right to a free education somewhere in the Bill of Rights?

[fporretto]

"School choice" as conservatives tend to use the phrase can be implemented several ways. The voucher is only one. Charles Murray suggested that a tuition tax credit would be preferable, both to avert the spectre of government control of private schools and to insure against kickback schemes. Of course, tax credits don't reach under-earners nearly as well as a voucher system, which is a big political demerit.

No, the food stamp didn't result in government regulation of supermarkets... but have we forgotten that government aid to colleges, and to college students in the form of loans and grants, has been used to justify thoroughgoing regulation of colleges, in particular as regards admissions policies and student racial classifications?

There is danger here. Watch the educrats' unions. If they ever cease to oppose school choice directly, their next move will strike at the choice program's point of greatest vulnerability: the place where there's leverage by which to re-establish educrat control. That's how we'll know where the political weak point is.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[rodeocowboy]

Wow! I was in favor of vouchers, but have always had reservations due to this type of thing. The author of this article really lays it out right. But, what can we do about it. We can't keep our students toiling in public education. Hell, I am homeschooling mine when they get school age.

[summer]

Ronald Trowbridge, vice-president for external programs and communications at Hillsdale College in Michigan, wrote in The Wall Street Journal "If government vouchers are extended to private primary and secondary schools, truly private schools in five, 10, 15 or 20 years will become virtually extinct."

Hi, thanks for the ping.

This article is well written and accurately summarizes all the arguments I have heard AGAINST vouchers.

However, this article reminds me of Chicken Little running around saying "The ski is falling!"

I say that because FL has thre voucher programs, and we have had a chance to see what goes on in the implementation of vouchers, on a statewide basis -- and, FL is the ONLY state in the nation that has done this.

I can tell you for a fact the fearful warnings cited in this article are basically irrelevant to the voucher situation in FL. Yet, I realize, had the voucher programs in FL been implemented differently, the author may have had made some valid points.

But, here in FL, this is what has happened, and I hope these current facts may be considered:

(1) FL private schools are not required to accept vouchers, and many private schools do NOT accept vouchers. Reasons vary: the school is small and wants to remain small; the school does not want to admit any public voucher students due to potential unhappiness parents now paying tuition perceive may come from the public schools; etc.

In short, not one private school in FL is required to accept vouchers. So, in "five, 10, 15, or 20 years" these schools may continue to decide to reject vouchers, as is their right to do so under current FL law.

(2) The voucher program in FL has not resulted in a widespread abandonment of failing public schools in FL -- not by parents and not by the governor. Out of 8,500 students eligible for vouchers this year because they attend an "F" rated FL public school, only 350+ students' parents have met the deadline, already past, for obtaining a voucher. This is a very small percentage. The reasons more parents did not seek a voucher in these circumstances vary, from non-interest to public school preference, whatever.

Also, every time a public school in FL has been indentified as "failing," it has been Gov. Bush's policy to devote ADDITIONAL resources to it, demand a plan of improvement, etc. The idea that Gov. Bush has "abandoned" public schools is just plain false.

(3) No private school accepting vouchers is required to administer state assessments to students. People keep prediciting this will happened, but the bottom line in FL is this: it has not happened thus far. Maybe because so few students use vouchers, considering the number of students eligible in all three voucher programs. Also, no one ever mentions that vouchers can be, and are, used by parents to take their child out of one public schools and into a better performing public school.

In my personal opinion, one change WILL need to be made due to the SCOTUS decision -- and the desire of Muslim parents to use vouchers, and that change is this: a requirement that unregulated private schools have students recite the Pledge, teach American history and prohibit a "LET'S HATE AMERICA" curriculum. However, in most private schools founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, this is already being done, and in some Islamic schools (but, not all), this is being done. This one change is something I would support, bvecause, frankly, it is not a change at all for most private schools in this country.

To some it up, many authors keep screaming about the terrible results of vouchers - private schools becoming like government schools, private schools becoming extinct, etc. But, I can tell you: none of this has happened in FL, where we have had vouchers for almost four years now. However, had someone in the position of governor implemented vouchers differently, perhaps then the above results would have happened. But, no such results exist so far. (BTW, one interesting result is more, new private schools -- small, religious ones -- are opening and accepting vouchers. This is a trend I expect will continue.)