School Vouchers

I feel our public education system has not been doing as well as it should to educate our children. I also feel that school vouchers are the answer to fixing this problem. School vouchers would allow parents to choose the school they want to send their children to be it public, private, or religious. I believe in competition and that through competition it will raise the level of quality in all our schools.

I am a child of public education and feel that my overall education experience from elementary to high school was very good. I also feel there are many great teachers and administrators in our public schools. At the same time there are many people in public education that are only there for the paycheck, benefits, and summers off. The real problem with public education is with the politicians and activist groups as they try to socially engineer our children for their own agenda.

The fact of the matter is that there are great public, private, and religious schools. Those schools that are successful will continue to be successful, but those that are failing should be allowed to fail. We need to support those schools that are successful be it public, private, or religious. Rewarding success breeds success. By using school vouchers it rewards schools that produce good students. Those schools will get the best teachers and make the best use of public funds. School vouchers will also benefit those students that are a higher risk. Higher risk students will have the opportunity to get out of schools that are failing them and finally get the education they deserve.

Finally school vouchers will actually help get more money to the public education system. This is from an article from the Heritage Foundation, “Dr. Aud, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, studied eleven school voucher programs in eight states. She found that the programs saved state and local taxpayers $444 million from 1990 to 2006-$22 million for state budgets and $422 million for local school districts. Those savings mean that more can be spent on those students who do remain in public schools. The explanation for this result is simple: Educating a child in a voucher or scholarship program usually costs less than what would have been spent on the child in a traditional public school.”

Parents should have the choice in the education their children receive. Capitalism and competition are the foundation of our nation and when we use those same techniques for our schools we will receive better results and a better return in our investment.