School vouchers

When you ask any parent that has a child in a public school about the quality of their child's school they inevitably determine that the school is of high quality. If all parents believe this where are the bad schools? I happen to live in a state that the performance of the state schools are at the bottom rung of the educational ladder. They have been like this for over 75 years and they keep blaming everyone to everything for their dismal rankings.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Critics blame the legislature, the teachers' union, the teachers, the school board, the federal government, and in the last few years the immigrant population. They are the reason for overcrowding and under performance. Forget about the last 40 years when they weren't here. But they are convenient to blame and don't speak great English anyway so how can they argue back less fear of deportation. Everyone gets blamed, but like the rest of our government, no one is held accountable. Let us not forget the parents and the students who have the most to gain and the most to loose by squandering an education. This,to me, is the root cause of failure - lack of respect and discipline for a system designed to move you forward through education a critical key to success.

So here comes the voucher discussion. The debate has long centred on issuing vouchers (i.e. taxpayer money) for school choice (i.e.private schools) to force schools to compete or else loose students thus tax payer funding. This is a free market idea. I am not a fan of government being in the free market business (look at our banks)mainly because they are so bad at how they form and deliver services, hence bad public school policy leads to bad schooling. Diverting funding from already cash-strapped schools is a no no to most if not all public school advocates. Their claim is public education is critical to the bedrock of democracy and should be supported.

There are numerous studies that indicate public schools perform just as well as private schools and moving kids to private schools does little to enhance their opportunity. We can get lost in the minutia of the debates. but my issue is one of taxation without representation. If you choose to send your child to private school why are you required to pay taxes for a system you do not use? Secondly, why can you not get a tax credit for double paying for education - tuition and taxes? Thirdly, schools are overcrowded today what would happen if all the private schools kids entered public schools? Public schools are saving millions due to the fact that private schools kids do not attend and if they did new investments would have to be made. There is a lot of public money saved due to kids attending school elsewhere. So why not give a little back. For those that believe more money for schools is the answer ignore the fact that there is no correlation between more money and smarter kids. Just as there is no correlation between money and happiness.