Reply #98: No. [View All]

It is a waste of taxpayers money.

Look at it this way. There has never been anything preventing the development of private (for profit) schools. Many have existed for hundreds of years.

If there was money to be made delivering a universal high quality education to our children, the private system would already exist. Profits taken from the voucher system are additional taxpayer dollars spent on something other than educating children.

The very nature of the proposal depends on disparity, on a seperate and unequal education system. It depends on the very problem we are attempting to solve continuing to exist.

Proponents of the voucher system will in fact lobby against measures that would improve the public education system because it cuts money available for vouchers and eliminates the need for them.

The major flaw in the thinking behind this notion is the concept of free market competition itself. Look at the automobile. Free market competition produces some very nice cars, and a fair number of lemons. Free market competition does not create a universal standard of high quality.

The notion that it is acceptable for there to be a batch of "failing schools" (lemons) to be defeated by competition is not moral and it is plainly anti-american. Yet market competition only works when there are better and poorer options (good and poor schools) to work with. It's very essence will perpetuate disparity. It is not moral to accept that some children will attend the worse than average schools.