What About Vouchers?
Why not just provide government vouchers so parents can send their children to school where they want? Wouldn't that solve the funding problem?
Not in the least.
Vouchers are still state financing of schools, which comes with endless meddling, regulations, strings attached — rules about what can be taught, said, displayed, who can be hired, testing requirements, not to mention continued dependence on government for our preparation for life. It wouldn't be long before a private school system turned into another top-heavy, enslaved, mediocre government system. It's the nature of the beast.
Some people like to claim that this pitfall can be avoided — just force the government to agree that people have the right to send their kids where they want, at taxpayer expense, and the government can do nothing but collect and hand out the money. These people would do well to talk to the thousands of colleges that accept government taxpayer-funded vouchers in the form of students grants and loans. Not one has escaped the government's endless rules. The only thing that saves some colleges from total deterioration is that a large portion of their funding still comes from parents and students who expect something for their money. It is amazingly naive to think that grade and high schools would escape what colleges cannot.
Vouchers still involve forcing your neighbors to pay for your children's education. Some people find this acceptable because it relieves them of the burden, others find it a just use of their neighbors' earnings. Whatever your point of view, there are other serious reasons to dismiss the idea and embrace total independence from the state. The surest way to kill independence is to accept money from the government.
Tax-financed vouchers will destroy the very private education that their proponents so much desire. The goose that is laying the golden eggs is the combination of voluntary parental sacrifice and the ability of schools to locate those parents. Converting this 'sacrifice system' to a 'welfare system' with school stamps, a.k.a. vouchers [like food stamps], will kill this goose. If government funding of parental duties weakens parents, would removal of government funding enable them to regain parenting strength? I think so. Parents who increase their sacrifice for their children subsequently work to become better parents.
- Marshall Fritz, founder of The Alliance for the Separation of School & State
http://www.schoolandstate.org/Case/case5.htm
Can you convince 50% + one of the voters that they can schuck off government schools. How will you overcome it when the day care element is so convenient?
They know their kids are getting a substandard education and one that is morally corrupt. I find a rare parent who defends the system as is, but you won't get there from here without vouchers.
Tie them to inflation plus population growth to limit the cost and set them at 1/3 to 1/2 to cost of government schools. Watch government schools fail worse and save a bunch of kids. That is the way.
The argument you make here works for libertarians and smart conservatives, how do you convince the mushy middle?