One of the most important topics in government today is the issue of school vouchers. The two sides have remained deeply entrenched in their rival positions concerning this issue. Some wonder about the practicality of using the vouchers, while others wonder if it is defeating the purpose of the educational system. Educational vouchers can be very beneficial for both the student and even the school districts involved in the program. Many people do not realize the benefits of this program. Educational vouchers are something that many school districts need to implement due to their advantages. The benefits of educational vouchers very much outweigh the disadvantages.
Educational vouchers, also known as scholarships, redirect the flow of education funding, channeling it directly to individual families rather than to school districts. This allows families to select the public or private schools of their choice and have all or part of the tuition paid. These vouchers are funded by either public (government) or private (corporations, foundations) funds. Scholarships are advocated on the grounds that parental choice and competition between public and private schools will improve education for all children (www.schoolchoices.org).
Publicly-funded education vouchers allow families to make private decisions regarding how public taxpayer money should be spent. Therefore, a voucher program hopes to create an educational market where schools must compete for students. Supporters claim market benefits, such as choice and innovation, will improve education. Opponents, on the other hand, say that vouchers will lead to greater inequality and the loss of civic preparation. Current evidence concerning the impact of vouchers is disputed (IBID.).
The Zelman versus Simmons-Harris court case that ended on June 22, 2002, is probably one of the most monumental court cases to date on this subject. The United States Supreme Court upheld a Cleveland, Ohio school voucher program by a 5-4 vote. Judges Rehnquist, O’Connor, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas were for the decision (www.law.umkc.edu). This case was the latest in a long series of Supreme Court decisions that eroded constitutional requirements for school voucher programs.
In order to comply with these constitutional requirements, a constitutional voucher program must take many actions. The prog...
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...oney to afford a better school. If the administrators continue to allow this, we are denying our children’s’ rights to a good, quality education. School vouchers are something that can guarantee a parent the right to send the student to any school that would best fit his learning style and values. Voucher programs are perhaps the most effective way to help low-income families become active consumers in the educational marketplace, helping them gain control over their children’s education and encouraging them to become more involved. Educational vouchers are a way of putting the student first…which should be the main goal of educational personnel everywhere. By implementing an educational voucher program, schools will better themselves and students across the nation will reap in the benefits.
WORKS CITED
“Case Analysis.” Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. www.au.org
“Education Vouchers.” www.ncspe.org .
“School Choices.” www.schoolchoices.org/roo/vouchers.htm .
“So You Wanna Learn About School Vouchers?” www.soyouwanna.com/site/pros_cons/vouchers.html
“Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.” www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/zelman.html .
The idea that vouchers give parents a choice of schools for their children is simply incorrect. The only people who have any real choice in the matter are the private...
She realized that choice and accountability were not the answer, but that curriculum and instruction were more viable solutions to America’s educational dilemma. Ravitch suggests that to abandon public schools is to abandon the institution that supports our concepts of democracy and citizenship and to the promise of American life (Ravitch, 2011, p. 12-14). The idea of school choice is rooted in Milton Friedman’s essay concerning the government’s role in education. Friedman asserted that society should support and contribute to the maximum freedom of the individual or the family. He maintained that the government should provide vouchers to help support parents financially on their children’s education, which parents could use at the school of their choosing; so long as the school met set standards. Therefore, this creation of choice would stimulate competition, which Friedman believed would increase the development and improvement of nonpublic schools, as well as, create a variety of school options (Ravitch, 2011, p. 115). As a result of the choice movement, the public received three versions of school choice: voucher schools, private schools, and charter schools. Each of these schools receives public funding, but do not operate as traditional public schools, and are not managed by a government agency (Ravitch, 2011, p. 121). Charter schools became the most popular choice of this new
Why would anyone wish to withhold support for a program that has the potential to revolutionize the, often, insufficient American education system? This question has undoubtedly entered the mind of proponents of education voucher systems across the country. However, despite the pressure placed on legislators everywhere, close scrutiny of the real issues should not be clouded by public fervor. It is my belief that, after a thorough examination of the merits of such programs, school vouchers would be a gross detriment to both the American education system and the nation itself.
Vouchers have grown into an important and powerful tool that government can use to provide directed goods and services to specific groups. Voucher systems have become a highly effective tool that is not only used for food/nutritional and housing services, but secondary educational and child-care services, as well. Although voucher systems continue to remain a heated public and political debate, success stories, as the one mentioned in the case examined will only give rise to such systems in the provisioning of public education in years to come.
Public School Choice is an easy program to understand and it contains many advantages but also many disadvantages. Public School Choice is when parents can elect to send their children out of a school that has not made adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years into a school that has made progress. (McClure, 2002) If there are no available schools within the original school district, then a family can choose to send their children to another district. This only happens when the other schools in the original district are all labeled as ‘underachieving schools’ and have not made the adequate yearly progress. (McClure, 2002)
There is now a great push towards choice. Choice sounds innocent enough and very positive in a democratic society such as ours. Choice is fundamental to ours roots of democracy -- it produces competition, creativity, and high-quality results. Shouldn't people be free to choose where their children go to school and with whom? Those who propose choice systems of schooling argue that the public school system is a "failed monopoly" that would improve if it were subjected to the forces of the marketplace (Houston, 1993). They also argue that it will save public school money, that it will increase the sense of community and pride of ownership in schools -- either public or private, and that it will bring about sweeping changes in education. Supporters contend that it will make the school system much more responsive to community needs, improve accountability, standards and curriculum.
Voucher plans have been brought up in many different places and most of the time they seem to receive the same reactions. They are being shot down a...
It is a growing debate in an area that American society cannot afford to ignore, as the discussion on voucher schools directly affects our youth, the very foundation of our country. Many cities across the United States have proposed school voucher programs in an effort to improve the education of inner-city children that come from low-income families. However, with this proposition arises certain questions that cannot be avoided. Although proponents of school vouchers argue differently, challengers of the system expressly state that the taxpayer-funded voucher system infringes upon our First Amendment rights. Additionally, opponents suggest that the money being used for vouchers be provided to failing public schools, as used to be, and should continue to be, the American way. At the same time, voucher advocates believe that the consequences of a full-scale voucher policy for our nation’s public schools would, in fact, be beneficial. Still, both sides of the argument agree: our nation must find a way to give every student in struggling schools the best education possible. The complex disagreement lies in the steps that must be taken in order to achieve this goal. Should the government adopt a taxpayer-funded voucher system or otherwise explore alternate routes that could more effectively ensure the success of the American educational system?
When looking at a brief overview of voucher systems it is important to realize that No Child Left Behind is the policy that really sparked the implementation of school accountability and therefore the idea of school choice. Politicians wanted to improve America’s education system so they began mandating standardized tests at public schools and designating letter “grades” to overall school performance (Garnet, 2005). The implementation of school voucher systems became a way to scare failing schools into improving because it allowed parents the opportunity to transfer their children to private schools, which would mean that the public schools would lose students and more importantly funding (West, 2005). Although this seems like a great idea it is statistically flawed in many aspects including the reach of students tha...
Vouchers redirect money that would have been spent on educating a child in the public school system to a private school of the parent’s choosing. Voucher use is based on two factors, student eligibility and school eligibility. Those students who would be eligible for vouchers are among those in low-income families. School eligibility widely varies state by state. In some states school eligibility is restricted only to nonsectarian private schools, where elsewhere any private school is eligible (Resnick, 1998). Those who support vouchers offer three reasons for their position. One reason being that most public schools are failing, secondly vouchers help the children who use them, and thirdly vouchers create competition that motivates public schools to improve (Resnick, 1998). However, opponents argue that funding should be put toward improving the current public school system for the masses instead of allowing a better education to an elite few. Research is largely opposed to vouchers. Vouchers imprudently use public funds to back religious education, degrade public education, and support elitism.
The school board of a so-called "tuition town" is required by law to pay the full tuition charged by a public school. It must pay an independent school an amount equal to the average tuition charge of the state's union high school districts ($5,903 in school year 1993-94). If the tuition at the selected independent school is greater than this amount, the school district may pay the larger amount, but it is not required to do so. The parents must cover any difference. (McClaughry, 1995)1
Roberts, Nanette M. and Glenn, Charles L. “School Vouchers: Two Views.” Sojourners (January - February 1998): 22-25.
The overriding rationale for education vouchers is the simple fact that private schools are better than public schools and public schools are a disaster, creating an illusion. There is a wide assumption that private schools somehow increase educational equity, with the interpretation that all low-income children and minorities can take advantage of private education. What is not known about education vouchers is the way it uses private school as a scapegoat in order to avoid the real issues surrounding the problems of public schools. Private school choices only serve as an excuse because they only offer admission to a limited portion of low-income and minorities. The seats are limited, “all you are doing is making tiny adjustments in the allocation of educational opportunities for a very small number of children and still condemning a large number of children to poorly funded, inadequate schools” (Hammond 10). The histories of education vouchers go back to the 1776, when Adam Smith proposed that government give money to parents in order to diversify and up the competition in the classroom. Smith also concluded that because parents are the consumers, they should have the right to choose their children education. In the late eighteen century, Thomas Pain took Smiths concept to the United Sates, “the poor should be given special aid and parents should be required to purchase education for their children”. In 1859, John Stuart Mill contradicted Pain’s argument by imposing that government should require a minimum education for every child, but parents should have the option to seek education, how and wherever they wanted. By the 1800s there was a great influx of immigrants to the United States and public schools had to be readily ...
Despite the controversy surrounding vouchers, the private school choice movement may be gaining support. In June of 1999, The Florida legislature approved a plan to give children in the state's worst schools taxpayer-funded tuition payments to attend qualified public, private, or religious schools.