School Vouchers

reddogs · pseudo 7th-day Adventist Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 14

We all have a good grasp of the horrible disservice that public schools do to kids (and parents, and teachers), so I won't belabor the point. I am convinced that the nation would be very well served if public schools were to disband and sell their land and classrooms to the private sector and slowly redeploy its kids out of public schools. But . . .that's not gonna happen so we have to let them teach sex without responsibility, and false theories of evolution as it may be a long time before we can show them the failure of and disband the public schools.

So, we're left with whatever long-term and short-term strategies we can come up with to chip away at the monolith. One alternative very much in the news today is vouchers. What about them? Do they help or hurt? "How can the quality of education be dramatically improved?" It would be easy to give replies such as "We need school choice" or "We need school vouchers" because the ideas of "school choice" and "school vouchers" are familiar concepts with established names. However, at present it is just being starting out and need time to prove themselves that they provide the dramatic improvements that most people want.
On the one hand, vouchers ease the most pressing problem that parents face when they would like to move their children out of public schools: paying twice. Now, in theory, the same tax dollars may be applied to a private school of the parents' choice.

On the other hand, as many have pointed out, government dollars always come with government strings attached. The same bureaucrats who have saddled public schools with absurd rules and top-heavy, costly administration, will now want to stick their noses into the practices of every private school that receives government funds, and try to make them meet the same "standards" that public schools must.

There is no doubt whatever that this will take place. What is not at all clear is whether parents can insist that the goverment back off. Since the decision will be a political one, the odds are probably not very good. The public school lobby is huge, and is run by people who I have no doubt would love to see vouchers fail. That is, they would like the recipient schools to be so dragged down by the same red tape that they themselves have to deal with, that the results would come down to their spectacularly poor level.

It seems that a majority of public school teachers believe that they are not capable of competing in a free market. If true, that is very sad. Another possibility is that there is a "silent majority" of public teachers who do not fear change but fear retribution or the teacher union coming after them. After all that is the unions bread and butter to shoot fish in a barrel in the public schools since like the Mafia they make you a offer you cant refuse when you get employed in the public school system.

Of course, even if by some magic stroke all public school teachers could be made to see the advantages of a free market in schooling, there are many other entrenched bureaucrats for whom change would mean having to face the terrible prospect of getting a real job. That makes them quake in their boots at the thought of having to compete out in the open market and show their skill and capabilities as most couldnt pass their GED tests.

Therefore what? If the vouchers show that kids can get a better education, it's possible that vouchers will lead the way resulting in the perception that public schools are obsolete and replaceable. But if it is implemented incorrectly it can cause a backlash and cause the naysayers to be able to attack it much in the same way that the electric power fiasco in California has been offered as "proof" that "deregulation doesn't work." We spend more then every other country in the globe on education (even when calculated as a percentage of our GDP) our students are far behind students of other nations when it comes to basic skills like math. Which, in turn, means that all these teacher union activists who complain about our schools and teachers not getting enough money dont know what they are talking about.

Public schools and teachers get plenty of money. The problem is that public schools and teachers have almost zero accountability. Students are sent to them for education by mandate of law (except for those few families who have private schooling available to them and can afford it). They don’t have to compete with other schools for students. They don’t have to prove to parents that they are the best school. They just have to exist and meet certain basic minimum standards created by the government.

What we need is more parental choice in the education system. We need school vouchers. We need to give parents the power to send their children to whatever school they choose, so that the teachers and schools have to prove to parents that they’re the best. That competition will raise the quality of education and send test scores climbing back up the charts.

Using vouchers for Private Schools improve education with the following:
[1] Higher level of parental/grand-parental/family involvement
[2] Better organized teaching systems and teachers as they are dedicated
[3] Group religious Discussions/Interaction at the beggining of a day.
[4] Lower Teacher/Student ration for better student tutoring.
[5] Better teaching of the basics in classes...(Reading skills, Honing their literary shills in writing classes, teaching good math fundementals, using techonlogy for projects such as building websites, taking tests electronically, etc.)

American people want better education, deserve it, and will get it, and school vouchers could be leading the way.........

reddogs · pseudo 7th-day Adventist Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 14

As a example of what works we have the program here in Florida..

Florida P.R.I.D.E. gives scholarships for families like you that want a better education for their kids, you dont have to pay it back and it covers schooling, books, food, etc..

Florida P.R.I.D.E.
P.O. Box 1670
Tampa, FL 33601
Telephone: 1-866-590-5370

You get the money to pay for your childrens education and they will not charge you one penny, all you have to do is fill out the application and be a legal resident. Its done with from donations from the business sector as they want better educated workers so no red tape or taxes. Thats the beauty of it, the way its being done in Florida (which the rest of the states are looking at) is not one penny from your pocket, the businesses pay for it because they need good workers and they see the benefits of better education.