Losing America's Schools by Bailey Nancy E.;

Author:Bailey, Nancy E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Using vouchers is another way to dismantle public schools. Vouchers divert tax dollars to religious schools through payments to parents allowing them to place their children in private or charter schools. They were introduced in the 1950s by American economist Milton Friedman.

Voucher programs have been started in Milwaukee (1990), Cleveland (1995), Florida (1999), the District of Columbia (2004), and Louisiana (2012). In 2015, the Nevada Legislature passed the most extensive voucher program in the country. It involves Education Savings Accounts, which amount to $5,100 per child, which can be used for homeschooling or religious schools.

Vouchers deplete public schools of vital funding, cream good students from public schools, and provide financial incentives to those who are often already able to afford private school. Vouchers are worrisome when parents use them to enroll children in religious schools not open to other students. Like charter schools, many of these schools have little oversight, and it is difficult to know what a child will be taught and the kind of experience and preparation of the school staff.

In the 2013 Phi Delta Kappan “Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools,” 70 percent of parents indicated they did not want vouchers (Bushaw and Lopez). So why are so many state legislators working hard to obtain them? Some parents who support vouchers argue that they pay taxes and deserve a portion of those dollars for their child’s schooling. But funding public schools has always been about educating all children so the country will have an educated populace. Public schooling is a truly democratic institution, but these schools are jeopardized by charter schools and vouchers.

An often divided Supreme Court, however, has made the constitutionality of vouchers more favorable with rulings that include Muller v. Allen (1983), which allowed Minnesota parents to claim a tax deduction for private school attendance; and the controversial Supreme Court decision Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), making vouchers available to disadvantaged parents in Cleveland (“Church, Choice, and Charters: A New Wrinkle for Public Education?” 2009).

Milwaukee’s voucher program (where vouchers got their start) began in 1990 for poor students. Vouchers have not been successful there. Traditional public schools perform better, despite harmful budget cuts. In general, little evidence shows that voucher students do better in private schools than public schools. Education has not improved with the use of vouchers.

Nevertheless, the voucher program was expanded in 2011 with the help of Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker. Not only do students there attend private religious schools, but about 67 percent already attended the schools before they received the vouchers (Richards and Simonaitis, 2013). Milwaukee’s voucher program is also no longer considered a program to assist disadvantaged students, instead becoming a state entitlement program.

Ohio’s school system is one example of public/private and religious school conversion. Some 96 percent of students there use vouchers to attend private religious schools. Students in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency public schools are provided a scholarship that funds full or partial tuition to religious private schools, yet these schools are largely unaccountable to parents and students.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.