The Voucher/Band-Aid Problem

And now, on to a less controversial topic, but a nonetheless very present one:

Vouchers.

What are vouchers, you ask?

Well, I'll tell you.

The voucher system was designed to help improve the education of children in failing schools districts, particularly in troubled inner-city environments. Vouchers, generally of a value between $2500 and $5000, are given to parents of school-age children in these districts to be used toward the tuition of a private school.

This may sound like a potentially beneficial way to give economically disadvantaged parents more options with their child's schooling, but in actuality, it only makes things worse.

Let's look at the system's disadvantages.

• Most state voucher systems are thoroughly random, thereby ignoring academic achievement, and without emphasizing academic achievement, the public schools will never improve.
• In areas in which vouchers would be awarded to the highest achievers, it would potentially remove the majority of the good students from the public schools, thereby reducing the quality of the public school as a whole and removing the incentive of "catching up" to the best students on an academic level.
• Student recipients of vouchers have shown little or no improvement academically after several years in the program, and occasionally even a downward trend in their academic achievement.
• The idea that vouchers increase school choice is faulty at best; public schools accept all students, but private schools can turn students away. More options may seem to be available, but in actuality, it's not much of an improvement. Allowing school choice within the public school system would be more effective.
• Public schools receive funding relative to the number of students they have. Removing students from the worst schools would reduce their funding--the opposite of what needs to be done.
• The funding already given to schools may be enough to improve the school, but perhaps it's just not being spent as efficiently as possible. Vouchers remove the incentive to improve budget responsibility.
• Awarding vouchers randomly via lottery decreases the equality in education for all children.
• Most (85%) private schools are a religious setting; sending children to private schools with public funding is a backwards step in the separation of church and state.
• The money given to fund vouchers--often millions of dollars--would be better spent on improving the current public school system rather than pulling away from it.
• Vouchers don't decrease public educations costs, but increase them instead because taxpayers still pay for public education on top of the private school tuition.
• Vouchers don't cover nearly the full tuition necessary for most private schools; giving an already economically disadvantaged family $3000 to help with a $5,000 per year tuition puts them $2000 further into the economic hole every year.
• Public schools cannot discriminate in the admission process, but private schools can--and do. Giving public funding to potentially discriminatory schools will not require them to change their admissions policies; while all public-funded institutions must adhere to equality laws, vouchers are given to parents before going to the school and therefore do not qualify as "public funding" for the school. Vouchers would mean roundabout public funding of discrimination.

Overall, vouchers may help a few individual students, but do nothing to help students as a whole; in fact, they detract from the quality of the education system, creating a disadvantage for those not lucky enough to receive a voucher and be able to afford the remainder of the tuition.

It puts a tiny Band-Aid onto a big wound.

Improving education can't begin with taking away; only with adding or improving on what is there. If you want school choice, allow parents to send their kids to a different public school within the district. If you want school improvement, ensure budget responsibility.

Vouchers will not improve education.

Peace, love, and public schools,
~ RaeAn