Debates Over School Vouchers Essay Research Paper

Debates Over School Vouchers Essay, Research Paper

The debate over whether or not the United States government should

grant tuition vouchers to the parents of children who attend private schools has

gone on for many years, and has included many powerful arguments on both

sides of the issue. Those who support the private school vouchers believe that

they are beneficial to everyone because they promote productivity in both public

and private schools alike, and they also give low-income families the chance to

give their children a quality private school education. Those in opposition to the

vouchers say that they will drain money out of the public schools, and that they

only truly help a small population, mainly the wealthy and advantaged.

Opposers also believe that the vouchers interfere with the Separation of Church

and State, since many private schools have a religious affiliation. This issue has

truly been a controversial one, with many people fighting arduously. After

reading through the various arguments for each side, one can not help but come

to their own conclusion about private school vouchers.

There have been many school voucher programs proposed in the past,

but they all seem to share one common theme. This similarity between them is

that they all promote giving households that send their children to private schools

a tax dollar-funded voucher that would cover all or most of the cost of the

school.s tuition. Many of the proposals also include the right for parents to chose

which private school their child will attend. The vouchers allows students to use

the money that would be subsidized for them in a public school to go toward a

private school education. This system redirects the flow of educational funding,

bringing it to the individual family instead of the school district.

The idea of school vouchers first became popular after Milton Friedman,

an economist, released two publications, in 1956 and in 1962, that supported the

voucher plan. In his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom, when Friedman

discusses education, he turns to public education criticizes it for being

.unresponsive. because it has been free from competition (Lieberman, 120).

Vouchers would provide this much needed competition, since public schools

would now have to contend with the private schools that were receiving the same

payments they were. Friedman believes that,

.most dissatisfied parents have only two options. They can enroll their

children in private schools, in which case they have to bear the costs in

addition to paying taxes to support public schools. Or they can resort to

political action, an option Friedman regards as ineffective.. (ibid.)

After Friedman publicly showed his support for school vouchers, a debate began

in America, with fellow supporters and the opposers announcing their views on

the issue.

People on both sides of this issue have been very vocal over the years,

explaining why they think school vouchers should or should not be implemented

in American schools. In arguing about the same point in the debate, like the

decline in the quality of public schools or the separation of church and state,

each group has found a way to make it fit into their beliefs. Therefore, nothing is

ever accomplished because the groups blame each other for any problems

involved with the vouchers that may arise. Besides the two points listed above,

minority education and low-income student education have also been used as

powerful arguments both for and against private school vouchers.

The Decline in the Quality of Public School Education

-Voucher Supporters

Supporters of school vouchers feel that establishing this program in

private schools will be of great help to the dilapidated public schools. Like

Friedman said, public schools have not had any competition, and so, they have

let their performance slowly diminish. Vouchers would create a contest between

private and public schools, because of the high transfer rates, and the

corresponding loss of funds in the public schools. This would create an incentive

for both to increase their productivity. Standardized test scores, which have also

seen a large decline, will then be higher when the students. learning

environment, what and where they are learning, and who they are learning from,

is improved. Private schools have been typically known to give more attention to

the student, and thus improve his or her learning ability. Public schools can

learn from this and begin, in order to compete with their rival, to focus on the

most important people in this situation–the students.

Defenders of school vouchers strongly disagree when the programs are

accused of draining money out of the public school system. Their argument is

that a considerably smaller amount is spent on private students then on public.

In fact, in an article wri

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать