School Vouchers
The emphasis on improving public education in the United States has been growing for years. Legislators, privately owned companies, school boards and community organizations are trying to come up with intelligent ways to rescue children from deteriorating public schools. Inner city schools in particular are in dire need of improvement. Some believe a possible solution to the problem involves offering voucher programs, which would provide financial-aid for families not financially able to pay for their children to attend private schools. Vouchers are only available to the students who need certain guidelines and rarely cover the cost of the entire education. Taxpayers will be paying higher taxes to compensate for the students attending private schools through voucher programs. This method of segregation not only widens the gap between public and private education but it also isolates a small percentage of 'desirable' students from the rest of society. Voucher programs will only benefit a minute amount of students while hurting the entire school system and the general public.
Tax-funded vouchers are highly disputed among politicians and anyone with school-aged children. The main idea of the voucher system is that parents or guardians choose the school that they want their children to attend, with hopes that good schools will flourish, and bad schools will either improve or lose so many students that they will be forced to close down. Politicians originally initiated tax-funded voucher programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland to force public schools to shape up.
Taxpayers who agree with having the option to send their children to whatever school they choose are not looking at the big picture. One example is that there is a possibility of students being sorted according to their family income, race, and religion, which drastically cut down the diversity among American students. Another area of...
Vouchers
The idea of vouchers scare the present public school system. They like it the way it is with no accountability and a stong teachers union. People with money can pull their child out of public school and place them in private schools without the use of vouchers. It is the middle and lower wage earners who are traped in poor performing school with no way out. Where I live the amount of money spent on one student per year is close to 6000 dollars. There are private schools who spend 3500 dollars per student and these pupils score higher on the standard tests taken. Public schools are a bottomless pit always begging for more money with bad results. I say offer vouchers to the parents who want to opt out of the public school system. Make the public schools responsible and accountable for the way students are taught and the money is spent. The threat of competition can only help improve this terrible situation; make the vouchers available to those who want them.
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