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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective
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To: epicure who wrote (3366)10/22/2000 11:54:43 AM
From: fuzzymath  Read Replies (1) of 10042
 
The possible reason that vouchers are "fair" for use at private schools is that the parents paid the taxes that fund the public schools -- so they're paying for public schools they do not use.

But, I do think the most important purpose of vouchers is to bring public schools into viewing the students and their families as customers. The public schools have a built-in advantage compared with private schools: public schools are "free" -- I don't see any huge rush to private schools if vouchers for federal money are put into place.

To me, vouchers as Bush proposes them are really about school choice: letting parents send their children elsewhere (most likely a different public school) if they are not pleased with the results at one school. Why leave kids trapped in a school that is dysfunctional when the school down the street is well run?

My guess is that we'd have a lot fewer dysfunctional schools if the administrators knew the kids had a choice of leaving if they wanted to -- ALL parents having that choice, not just the well-to-do.

Also -- vouchers and school choice are not exactly the same issue as school funding. It sounds like your district badly needs more money. Maybe where I live the schools are better off in general.

Here's a compromise I'd agree with, if it ever came up in Congress and I was a member: we'll have federal vouchers, but they can only be used for public schools. This, to me, would be terribly unfair to those middle class parents who care so much about their kids that they sacrificed greatly to put them into a lower-cost private school (perhaps a religious one), and those parents who had Mom stay home to teach home school.

To me, vouchers that could only be used in public school would be unfair to a lot of people who are not rich -- but I think we'd see improvement in the public schools, just like school choice were I live seems to be raising the standard of all the public schools in our area.

Yes, reading your last paragraph, I think the schools where I live are much better off. I think there should be more funding for education. I think vouchers are one way to make sure the extra funding is used efficiently -- even if the vouchers could only be used at public schools (in essence, "school choice").

Kevin
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