School vouchers appeal to parents who want to send their children to private schools. Many leaders tout them as a cure for the ailments of our public school system.
A few questions, first, please:
- If I decide to send my kid to a school across town, how do I get her there and back? The school bus doesn't travel that route. My wife and I work, so we can't drop her off in the morning and pick her up at night. Will vouchers cover taxi fare?
- How will I find out what the schools are like across town? Will these new free market schools advertise, like lawyers and tobacco companies do?
- Will private schools be required to accept my kid if his grades are good and he doesn't have a bad record? If not, what's to keep private schools from cherry picking the best, brightest and "right color" students?
- If a star eighth grade running back can spend his parents' vouchers to go to any high school in town can you imagine the recruiting wars for that student?
My guess is that parents who care enough about their child's education to research the answers to those questions will see to it that their child does well no matter what school she attends, vouchers or no. And those who don't care about anything but the quality of the football team will insist that coaches provide transportation for the players who attend on vouchers. Those students without some special ability, either athletic or academic, will be left where they are.
Whatever the system, there is no substitute for parent involvement, and that means more than shouting from the recliner, "Have you done your homework?"
And if schools were funded fairly, say from general funds instead of local property taxes, we wouldn't need vouchers.
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Comments: 13
To find out about schools, go to Greatschools.net- it compiles all sorts of data- from test scores, to kid to teacher ratio, etc. It's a fantastic source for seeing what a school is like. They do not have much info on private schools, though, because they are not required to do the same tests as public schools.
Private schools are not required to accept a child, and the schools are less likely to take on what they would call 'scholorship' students over paying students. First and foremost, even with the public schools, the kids who live in the district, already go there, or are willing to pay for the private school will have top choice over school of choice students.
For the last question- it's not unheard of for big schools to do private recruiting, no, but it's technically not allowed.
And when you do find a problem school, you can bet it won't be in a wealthy neighborhood.
It is EXACTLY the same argument that I use about faith-based charities. I have no problem with them. They are free to help the poor or disadvantaged. Just don't ask ME to give them any money, because regardless of what they say (and this goes for parochial and church-based schools too) they WILL inject their religious dogma into their operations. That is fine if they are paying for it but it is totally unacceptable if I am paying for it...and it violates Article ! of the Constitution.
Private schools do advertise ... if they are below desired enrollment. Most will not spend money if they don't have to. Few private schools are lacking in enrollment at this time.
Private schools do "pick and choose". Technically, their qualifications list should not discriminate on race, but religion, pre-testing, family money, etc are fair qualifiers. Practically, private schools are never "first come, first served", and because of location or cost, are rarely truly egalatarian.
If a star eighth grade running back can spend his parents' vouchers to go to any high school in town can you imagine the recruiting wars for that student? Yes -- although that happens now without vouchers.
Vouchers don't cover transportation, so the poor parent of a voucher student has to find her own way to get to the "good" school.
If there were enough vouchers to let all students from failing schools move to a "better" school, there wouldn't be enough spaces available for them, and the new school would probably reject most of them anyway.
So maybe I need to ask another question. Why does anyone believe that vouchers are the answer to poor public school performance?