http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54802-2002Jun27.html Thank goodness, our government is finally listening to the cries of inner city parents who are forced to put their children in failing inner city schools. Despite the fact that inner city parents consistently prefer school voucher programs in poll after poll, Congress refuses to listen. Teacher unions have the cash your congressperson needs, so the voices of the poor are not heard in this matter. Poor children will benefit greatly from this ruling.
a few will benefit but more will be hurt by it. $2,500 isn't going to do much towards tuition at most private schools but it can buy books and computers and supplies that more than one child can use. if 50 kids get vouchers that's $125,000 taken away from that school. likely the ones to benefit from this are middle class families who can afford to pay the rest of it.
An extensive study by the Cato Institute (a Libertarian think tank) found that the average private school tuition is less than $2500. http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-025.html Parental school choice is widespread — unless you're poor. http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/what/private.jsp http://www.baeo.org/home/index.php
How about we see what happens before talking like we know the future? (Sorry if this comes across hostile; I just came back from Minority Report)
giving the poor a way out of the schools that have continually failed them over and over and over again is a good thing. the system is broken...we've thrown money at it over and over again. it's time to introduce the variable that forces excellence...competition. i'm very happy with this ruling. i don't know totally how it plays out...but i'm much more willing to give people a choice about where their kids go to school; a choice that was previously impossible for them to have. the teachers unions cry for the meltdown of the system...i sympathize more with those who cry about the crappy education their kids have received in inner city public schools. as someone said today in the article in the Chronicle related to this story,"when kids are going through 12 years of school and still can't read, the system is broken." i grew up in the public schools and received a tremendous education...i'm confident that public schools can work under the right conditions...but they're not going to do so when they don't have to...in the past, they didn't have to. there is nothing wrong with accountability...and this time accountability, as in all other fields, arrives via competition. improve or you will be replaced...welcome to the real world, education bureaucrats.
