Implementing School Vouchers Program

Most Americans believe that improving our system of education should be a top priority for government at the local, state, and Federal levels. Legislators, school boards, education professionals, parent groups, and community organizations are attempting to implement innovative ideas to rescue children from failing school systems, particularly in inner-city neighborhoods. Many of these groups support the voucher program.

The standard program proposed in dozens of states across the country would distribute monetary vouchers (ranging in values between $2,500-$5,000) to parents of school-aged children, usually in troubled inner-city school districts. Parents could then use the vouchers towards the cost of tuition at private schools, including those dedicated to religious indoctrination. School vouchers might seem a relatively great way to increase the options poor parents have for educating their children, when in fact, vouchers pose as a serious threat to values that are vital to the health of American democracy.

These programs subvert the constitutional principle of separation of church and state and threaten to undermine our system of public education. Implementation of voucher programs sends a clear message that we are giving up on public education. Even though vouchers would help some students, they will not help all. Public education is for all children, regardless of their religion, academic talents or their ability to pay. This policy has made public schools the backbone of American democracy, helping young people grow into responsible citizens.

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Supporters of the voucher program, include that the program offers parents a choice. In fact, vouchers only guarantee that some parents will have some taxpayers money to put towards a child"s private school tuition. No voucher system will cover the total cost of tuition, when tuition in a private school averages $10,000 per year, and the voucher totals less than $5,000. This leaves the parents still having to pay thousands of dollars, and most families cannot come up with the rest of the money to cover tuition costs.

Voucher systems do not guarantee that every child who applies will be selected to attend the private school. Many religious schools currently reject two of every three children who apply. The only thing that vouchers guarantee is that taxes will go up. Taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill for the vouchers, but they will have to pick up the tab for a whole new bureaucracy, including hidden costs like transportation. Vouchers will also force taxpayers to support two entire education systems, public and private.

To make things worse, no extra money will be given to the schools that desperately need taxpayers support. Being one of the most diverse countries in the world, the public school system stands as an institution that unifies Americans. Under the voucher program, our educational system, and our country would become more separated than it already is. With the help of taxpayers" dollars, private schools would be filled with wealthy and middle-class students, and the motivated students from inner cities.

Some public schools would be left with fewer dollars to teach and the poorest of the poor and other students who, for one reason or another were not private school material. All these situations would hardly benefit public education. Many studies suggest that vouchers are good for public schools yet, there is little evidence that they will ultimately improve the quality of public education for those who need it most. Proposition 38 would change public education statewide without first experimenting to determine what type of state subsidy would lead to high quality education for most children.

California"s public school enrollment exceeds 6 million, and the number of students willing to leave public schools in unknown, but there is an even smaller percentage of the number of spaces existing in private schools for these students willing to leave. ("Draper Initiative") Proposition 38 is a huge and costly experiment that hold little accusations of improving student achievement, and does not provide real education choice. In conclusion, school voucher programs undermine two great American traditions, universal public education and the separation of the church and state.

Instead of embracing vouchers, communities across the country should dedicate themselves to finding solutions that will be available to every American school aged child. Voucher programs will not allow the parent to make the choice of what school their child attends, but the voucher school will make the choice in which what school students can attend. Voucher schools get the money that taxpayers" are paying for, these children to attend these private schools, but these children are still being rejected for many reasons. The end argument should be whether or not vouchers will lead to full educational freedom, and most likely it will not.

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