I am not entirely against public schools either, in most cases, but I think that by locking the poor into bad public school systems we perpetuate their problems, and reduce the opportuntity to succeed for those children.
So instead of letting them go to bad schools you fix it so they cant afford schools at all?
Vouchers force schools (even public schools) to compete -- and that will create better schools.
How would this work in reality?
1. yeah captin sounds like the solution most ppl give thought to about the school system is granting more funding from "higher up" levels of government (state and federal) and thus less containment to the low-funding results ensured by being in a poverty-stricken school district. Privatizing the system is taking the funding jurisdiction a level down from the districts (obviously) and thus contains poverty-stricken individuals to, well, poverty-stricken funding for schooling. I don't see how that could do anything but harm the situation.
2. Re: vouchers I don't see how this has to be an either-or thing politically: Ppl tend to say or imply (generally, when you look at the standpoints of the national politicians) either (a) you're for vouchers or (b) you're for reforming the public school system. Why not both??? I do realize there is a paradox in that vouchers essentially assign what would be public $$ to private schools, but it is still possible to attack the problem from both angles, albeit it would take a big increase in funding. If poorly-funded education is a big gaping wound, vouchers are like band-aids. They might help only a little -- but they ARE helping the people involved with those schools.
I also have to say that clearly the "libertarian" value of separating church and state
on this particular issue takes a back seat to providing quality education --- this is hardly an issue to be pressed. If anyone thinks otherwise I can spell it out but I think that's basically agreed upon, right?
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