Voucher schemes work by skimming money from already poorly financed public education budgets, which leaves inner city schools in even worse situations than they presently are.

1. Private school advantage? What advantage?
Many studies, like those administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, indicate that public schools are generally on equal footing with private schools. Students doing the same coursework perform about equally in both institutions. Studies, which show otherwise, tend to fail to factor out things like income level, educational level of parents, learning disabilities, etc. When such things are taken into account, we get a dramatically different picture.

2. Why should the public pay to send any children to private schools?
Although it would be nice for poor children to attend good private schools if the parents wish, that doesn't mean that it is the government's responsibility to fund it. If private schools wish to have such children attend, they can offer scholarships, as many already do.

3. Vouchers do not really save money.
Whatever the cost of private school education, voucher systems typically will force the government to subsidize the cost of such education for students already attending private schools. That would cost the taxpayers billions of extra dollars they do not presently have to pay.

4. Private school survival?
If the public wants private schools to survive, they can donate money or authorize the government to grant those institutions some special funds - at no point is it necessary for the government to subsidize the education of specific students there. People who really do value the free market will recognize that the survival of such schools is not automatically the responsibility of the government.

5. Free market competition?
The effect of free-market competition upon bloated, non-competitive industries is often praised, but that praise can go too far and become quite irrational. The free-market is not a god that we have to unquestioningly follow - it is a tool, which we should use when and where appropriate, and we should not hesitate to question that appropriateness. Just because it works in one area does not automatically mean that it will work elsewhere.

Moreover, the idea of the effectiveness of the free-market in improving an industry is completely dependent upon the existence of real competition. However, there would be no real competition between public and private schools. Public schools must fund the transportation of students, whereas private schools have no such requirement. Public schools must abide by a whole host of governmental regulations on how to treat children, how to maintain buildings, race, religion, disabilities, etc., ad nauseam.

Private schools have few such restrictions, which they must abide by, especially religious schools. Attempts by the same people who push vouchers to enact bills like the Religious Liberty Protection Act would cause such religious schools to have to abide by almost no restrictions, diminishing real competition even further.

6. Public schools will become dumping grounds for the unwanted.
Private schools are free to pick and choose whomever they wish as students, freely discriminating for reasons of race, religion, disability, cost to educate, whatever - they are not answerable to the public, even though some people wish to give them public money. They can refuse admission or expel students for any reason whatsoever. Public schools must, except in extreme cases, accept whoever wishes to apply, including those with expensive physical or learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, contagious diseases, or language deficiencies.

Special students requiring extra effort to educate will rarely, if ever, be accepted to most private schools, allowing them to avoid the costs and problems of educating the unusual student. This is one way that voucher advocates can claim that the per capita education costs are lower at private schools than at public schools. Once again, we find an important area where real competition is entirely absent because the playing field isn't even close to level.

7. Public schools would be robbed of critical funding.
The funding of voucher schemes is accomplished by skimming money from already poorly financed public education budgets, possibly causing deep cuts in transportation costs, security, classroom improvements, repairs, supplies, and staff. There is a great deal of reverse-class envy sweeping the country, with middle- and upper-class people balking at paying to fund social services which are designed to help the poor survive with a bit of dignity.

This is really no different, since these people are looking for ways to stop paying to educate poor students while they look for better ways to educate their own. Why should they care what happens to inner city and minority students? If they aren't interested in helping to feed and house the poor, they certainly aren't going to be interested in educating the poor. A permanent underclass is developing in America, and this will serve to cement that development into fact.

8. Vouchers subsidize discrimination.
As already mentioned, private schools are free to discriminate at will, refusing or expelling any student for any reason like race or religion. Some students have been expelled because their parents were critical of the school. This is, of course, their right. But why should the government and taxpayers subsidize this discrimination?

9. Poor schools could take advantage of a voucher system.
Bizarre religious or political groups, cults, and even profiteers may be allowed to operate schools and receive public funding for doing so. Immune from government oversight, they'll be free to pursue whatever goals they may have, even including child abuse. The only way to avoid this is to subject schools, which receive vouchers to strict regulations. That, however, would force the government to become more deeply entangled with religion than is constitutional.

Many religious schools recognize the dangers of such government involvement and so refuse vouchers, which are accompanied by regulatory restrictions. In addition, the more regulations and restrictions that are imposed upon private schools, the less they will differ from public schools - thus undermining some of the purposes behind vouchers in the first place!

10. There is no double-taxation.
Parents who use private schools are only taxed once: when they pay taxes for public schools. The fees they pay to private schools are in no sense a tax - they are instead a voluntary payment to a private institution. Calling it a "tax" is nothing less than dishonest. Moreover, just because a person freely chooses to replace or supplement a public service with a private company does not mean that the government should refund any money, which would have gone to that unused public service.

People who hire private security firms do not receive money taken from police department budgets, and people who install private pools do not receive refunds because they do not use public pools. Public schools, as with public police departments, offer direct and indirect benefits to society as a whole and all individuals, even when those individuals are not immediately using their services.

Finally, unless the public decides that the government has no business providing police protection and education, then the government has the responsibility of properly maintaining and funding those services for all citizens - even for those who are not presently using them in a direct manner.

11. Private schools will not "fix" morality.
If our children suffer from any moral deficiencies, it is the fault of the parents, not the schools. Inept parents will not find sudden changes in their children just because they've started attending a private school. The problems facing our nation's youth are difficult and complex - it is absurd to try to simplify them by claiming that they are the result of a lack of prayer or Bible reading in public schools, and it is equally absurd to claim that their inclusion in the school day will have any significant impact.

12. Funding religious schools is a violation of the separation of church and state.
Religious schools are, quite properly, viewed by both supporters and detractors as ideological and educational extensions of churches. Awarding them public money for their functions essentially taxes all citizens for the religious goals of a few. Even if the money goes from government to parent to school, constitutional problems remain. The fact of the matter is, for most religious schools the promotion of religion is a key purpose. There is nothing wrong with that, but why should public dollars be used for religious teaching and religious evangelization?

In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled against a voucher program in Louisiana, which was designed to thwart public school segregation. In the decision of Poindexter vs. Louisiana, the Court explicitly declared, "The United States Constitution does not permit the State to perform acts indirectly through private persons which it is forbidden to do directly." That, of course, is exactly what voucher schemes try to accomplish. Just as the government cannot subsidize churches by funneling money through sympathetic private citizens, it cannot subsidize church schools by funneling money through those same persons.

Moreover, many state constitutions have even stricter standards when it comes to the separation of church and state in the context of schools. It is not uncommon for state constitutions to very specifically prohibit the provision of any public money for private religious schools under any circumstances - something that would not allow for voucher programs.

Supporters of vouchers sometimes argue that these constitutional provisions are products of anti-Catholic bigotry during the 19th century. Although that may be true in some cases, it certainly isn't in all cases; moreover, even when it is true, such objections do not actually provide any arguments to think that these prohibitions are themselves immoral. People are capable of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and this may be an instance of that.

13. Vouchers don't help poor families - and many minorities don't want them.
A common argument in defense of vouchers it that they are necessary to help poor, minorities students in the inner cities where schools fail to do an adequate job at educating people. It is argued that if the poor were given vouchers to attend better private and religious schools, then their children would receive an improved education and the situation for minorities in this nation would be dramatically improved.

Although laudable for its intentions, this argument fails factually on more than one level. A significant problem is the simple fact that the cost of private education is often much greater than the value of any vouchers which families might receive. The tuition at the best private schools can be as much as that of an Ivy League university and many very good private schools still cost over $10,000 each year.

Vouchers, however, may only provide $3,000 at most - and often quite a lot less. Families will have to make up several thousand dollars in difference, something beyond the means of the poor families, which vouchers are supposed to help. Only the cheapest private schools will be within the reach of poor families with such vouchers - schools that are least likely to really provide the superior education that voucher supporters are seeking.

This is partially why minority families do not generally support voucher programs. In 2000, citizens in both Michigan and California were given the opportunity to vote on voucher proposals - and voters in both states rejected those proposals by wide margins (71% vs. 29% in California, 69% vs. 31% in Michigan). Rejection by minority voters was even more lop-sided - in California, Hispanics voted against vouchers 77% to 23% while in Michigan, black voted against vouchers by 72% to 28%.

14. Vouchers are designed to end public education.
Although supporters of vouchers commonly portray them as a supplement to public education, especially in areas where public education is doing a poor job, in fact many regard vouchers as a first step towards eliminating public education entirely. For some, this goal stems from a libertarian ideology, which sees government support for education an unnecessary expense. It is argued that parents and no one else should fund education; moreover, it is argued that government necessarily does a poor and inefficient job at educating.

For many others, however, the elimination of public education is part of a religious and political agenda. According to Jerry Falwell, "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don't have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them." For such religious leaders as these, public school undermines Christianity because it causes students of different religious traditions to be educated together. They prefer highly segregated education where students are only exposed to the Truth - at least, the Truth as particular religious leaders see it.

Source from: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/cs/blcs_sch_voucherscon.htm

© 2004 by AfroStaff