School Vouchers

I believe in school vouchers. I believe in vouchers for the rich and poor. I believe in choice, competition and the free market. I believe school teachers and administrators are government employees. While many are good and hard working they suffer as employees of a huge, monolithic system.

Vouchers are good for everyone.

Arguments against vouchers:

Public money shouldn’t be used for religious schools

I don’t hear arguments against pale grants going to students of Notre Dame, BYU, Pepperdine, TCU, Baylor, Duke or any of the other hundreds of religious colleges and universities.

The Rich

I’ve been debating vouchers on blogs for months. Those against vouchers always return to the rich vs. poor. The crux of the argument seems to be that people who want to put their children in public schools are rich snobs. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve only known four people with kids in private school. None of them were rich. I know one guy who makes decent money but he has 5 children in private school. He is paying $25,000 out of pocket a year. That’s just for tuition. That expenditure cuts extremely deep. That is after tax money. He does it because his children are #1 in his life. He worked with the system in two different districts and was dissatisfied.

Accredited Schools

Accreditation is important on a university level because you want your credits to transfer. But on the elementary level it means nothing! The same is true for junior high and high schools. There are hundreds of organizations that accredit public schools. They all have different standards and they are all run by teaching organizations.

Accredited Teachers

My local elementary school is loaded with student teachers, teacher’s assistance, volunteers, etc. I don’t hear the UEA squealing about that.

Bureaucracy

The UEA complains about bureaucracy yet they want the money to go to the biggest bureaucracy in the state. They give an example of wasted money on vouchers–do they really want to get into a debate on wasted money in public schools?

Vouchers Take Money from Public Schools

Not true. They don’t take money from public schools anymore than building a new road. Voucher money is coming from the general fund. The problem is that UEA thinks the general fund should be the education fund.

Competition is Not Necessary in Education

Try an experiment. Some Saturday wake up, read the paper, pay your bills, going to the grocery store, eat out and perhaps finish the day with a movie. At the end of the day, write down all the goods and services you consumed and write down which one’s you which didn’t have competition. Send me your list.