D.C. Voucher Bill Offers the Poor More Choices

[daveleau]

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/92003b.asp

The D.C. Parental Choice Incentive Act of 2003 would provide private-school tuition grants of up to $7,500 a year for low-income district families with children who attending failing public schools. If passed, the bill would provide at least 2,000 D.C. public school students federal vouchers to pay tuition for private or religious schools.

I am totally in support of education for the needy. I think this Bill, if passed, would be at least one positive step taken by Bush.

[Mike]

Well hopefully the parents that send their kids to private schools actually are going to WORK in private school.

That's one of many problems in the public school system. I have seen so many kids that don't show up to class or just sleep through all of their classes.

I have nothing against the poor going to Private schools, as long as they are doing the work to stay there.

[Theophylact]

There's just one problem: the people of the District of Columbia have voted heavily against vouchers before . But our laws can be overridden by Congress, because we don't have home rule in any real sense. It's called "Taxation Without Representation," and we don't enjoy being the guinea pig for every crank notion that some zealot wants to impose on us against our will.

[PSU2Fan]

Vouchers are dangerous IMO. A LOT of studies have been conducted on vouchers. While it's a good idea in principle, the overwhelming majority of studies have shown that vouchers can hurt the community more by drawing kids away from public schools and into private schools. The result is decreased support for the public school system, leading to a drop in funding; cancelling of programs, materials, staff, etc.

I completely agree that our education system is not what it can be, only I think we need to address the problem, not move on and create more problems. FIX the public education system; increase funding in the areas that need it. Adapt teaching techniques to what studies show actually work. And that needs to go hand-in-hand with increasing teacher salaries. Sure there are lots of teachers that make GOOD money. But as soon as you leave suburbia, you make no money as a teacher.

So let's just privatize all educational systems!

[Mike]

I think I was in Massachusetts (maybe first year of Michigan) that they proposed vouchers.
Almost sure it was shot down immediately. The people in the town didn't like that plan very much.

Although didn't a decent amount of towns/cities adopt the Voucher system? I wonder how they are doing now.

[PSU2Fan]

Was reading this and my head started to hurt

http://www.schoolreport.com/vbe/articles/goal1.htm
While the article brings up some good points, it is too quick to draw conclusions, IMO. And the article really does not address the issue of what this would do to the public schools, their funding, etc. It seems to be written from and individualistic point of view. We need to help our children's education, but by that I mean our community, not just the individual. I dunno, my thoughts.

History of vouchers...
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/dem...ories/history/

[Mike]

I don't think I will read those links you posted. Have some Linux breaking to do anyway.

Hopefully we'll see what they plan to do with the public schools funding and what not.

Also what's up with Joe Pat? He's still alive and kickin'! Have to check the schedule for next season.

[Chuckiechan]

There are several problems with vouchers that have stopped them here in California, home of last (or nearly last) place in education:

The teacher's unions will fight them to their last dying breath.

There is a huge educational bureauacracy that dosen't want their cushy $ 100,000 per year paychecks (average) tampered with.

If the schools become succesful without the administration overhead, the taxpayers may notice and start asking more questions.

Parents may begin to want input into what their children are being taught. Especially in social engineering areas.

Any teacher that teaches in a private school, including parochial, is black-ball for life. They will never teach on the public payroll again. Therefor not too many teachers will care to experiment in the private sector.

Private schools may fail to develop the expertise needed to hold Californa's last place position in education.

Personally, I think it is worth a try. It can't get much worse than it is now.