Friday, March 27, 2009

Another instance of voucher programs suffering

I am of two minds on vouchers.

On one side I think vouchers are a great idea. It would give parents more control over where and what their children are taught. To compete with private schools, public schools would have to treat parents as customers, instead of victims. Faceless bureaucrats often make decisions that are not in the best interest of some children, often not even in the best interests of most children. Yet parents have to fight a huge battle to make even the slightest change.

On the other side I don't think vouchers will really ever happen in the United States. When ever vouchers are tried politicians and teacher unions get involved and craft the laws such that the vouchers are only for poor students, or only get half as much money as the public schools get, or some other limitations. When a few students don't do well they will then trumpet the message that "vouchers don't work."

Jillian Bandes's recent column on Unions Trump Students In Arizona just reinforces my second belief. She reports some sad news:

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State laws that prohibit school boards from giving money to private educational institutions are now the reason disabled kids in Arizona can no longer attend specialized classes that meet their needs.
A unanimous Arizona Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday held that vouchers were illegal in their state, and the children who used them to attend private, specialized schools can no longer do so. That’s because the private schools could violate stipulations that are attached to public money, such as regulations on gender discrimination, politicized instruction, or separation of church and state. Students had used the vouchers since 2006, but will have to relinquish them at the end of 2009.

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Given the current law in Arizona it appears the judges may have made the "right" decision. It has thrown the voucher movement back, yet again.

It is often very hard to fight against tradition. For decades millions of children have gone through government schools. Currently the majority both recognizes that public schools are broken, and thinks they can be fixed. Implementing vouchers is trying to work within the system. Recent events make me doubt even more that vouchers will even succeed.

This is yet another reason we homeschool. We don't have to wait until some day when (or if) vouchers are fully funded and parents have control. We now have control. We can decided what is best for our children and not have to ask permission.

If you are struggling with your children suffering in public schools, yank them out now. There is not much of the school year left. You can try it out for a couple months, and then break in the Fall. If after giving it your best shot, you can always put them back in the government schools.

Homeschooling rules!


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Technorati tags: government schools, vouchers, public school, public education, homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think vouchers are a terrible idea. It would give the parents SOME control, but mostly the government would still have control over which schools your child could attend. I wouldn't think this would be very good for private schools - especially private religious schools - because the government would potentially have some say in the curriculum used as well.

Tax credits are the way to go. That way homeschoolers could benefit as well and the government would have no say-so in how the money is used.

BTW, we homeschool and I enjoy your blog!

Henry Cate said...

The way vouchers were first proposed by Milton Friedman parents would essentially take a check for the education of their child which could be redeem at any public, or private, schools.

You raise a good point that once the government starts giving money, they would probably start messing with the cirriculum.

I think vouchers are better than what we have now, but there would be potential problems we'd have to watch out for.

I think homeschooling is better than vouchers.


Thanks for the kind words about our blog. It has been a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun.