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I'm not sure vouchers will help all that much. Vouchers will be competing for tax dollars just like public schools. The money they receive wasn't "hard earned" by the parents of the children they are educating, it was a free ticket. Most of these failing schools are in neighborhoods where the parents didn't qualify for the $300 tax check. Here in Texas parents who have gotten vouchers report higher approval of their voucher schools, but the students aren't testing any better than public schools.

I still support choice, but just because one is given a choice doesn't mean the new alternative is any better than the old one. If parents can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice via vouchers why should homeschooling be permitted?

sparky

I'm a supporter of vouchers, which means giving parents – rather than usually disinterested bureaucrats -- control of the tax dollars used to educate this country's children.

What I have tried but generally failed to do, is point out the true benefits of this policy – taken to its maximum --for those who actually teach.

A class of 25-- assuming it spends $8,500 per pupil -- costs a school district about $212,000. The teacher gets about $65,000 with another $20,000 in benefits.

Add $10,000 per year for rent and utilities (that's high,) and $10,000 a year for textbooks and classroom supplies (that's way high.) Now give each kid a computer -- an expense I'll put at $25,000 (also high.)

So now we're spending $130,000 on our class of 25.

So, what do we do with what's left over? Let's split the difference between the teacher and the taxpayer. Our teacher is now making $106,000 plus benefits for the same hours and the taxpayers – most of whom are not rich -- are saving $41,000 per classroom. Very roughly this would be would be about $6 million per year for a typical school district,

So the teachers gain. The senior citizens gain. The losers are the NEA and the unnecessary assistant principals, and all the other non-teachers

The loudest and strongest opponent to school vouchers are liberal democrats and the NEA. That should tell us something right off--that the vouchers are the way to go.

If parents can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice via vouchers why should homeschooling be permitted?

1. Vouchers is just a transfer of tax money that should not be levied in the first place.

2. The state does not own children, or any citizen, for that matter.

3. Parents are ultimately and eternally responsible for the way they raise and edcucate their children. Remember the millstone that that Jesus spoke of?

4. Many parents know that all the money and the "finest" educational institutions possible can not substitute for the love and attention that homeschooling offers to their children.

If parents can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice via vouchers why should homeschooling be permitted?

Homeschooling is not yours, nor anybody's, to permit.

The union's constant drumbeat of the necessity of institutionalized schooling has been by and large successful; most folks simply cannot fathom the concept of education occurring outside such a system. Nonetheless, as it is my decision how my children are clothed, fed, housed, and reared, it is also my decision how they are educated. Statists can kiss my *ss.