The School Voucher Conundrum
1. School A receives state money.
1a. School A is a state public school.
2. School A sucks.
3. School B does not receive state money.
4. School B is better.
4a. School B is a private religious school.
5. State Y has responsibility to give children free and decent education.
6. Student X of School A is not getting a decent education.
THEREFORE,
7. State Y has an obligation to:
OPTION 1: Give School A more money.
OPTION 2: Put the Student X in another public school.
OPTION 3: Give the family of Student X money to help X attend the (better) private schools.
Let’s really reason this out.
OPTION 1: Give School A more money. It sounds good, but it is often times the case that many failing public schools have been given resources but poorly managed them. So perhaps Option 1 will fix the situation, but perhaps it will mean throwing money into a bottomless pit. And how long will it take this public school to get its act together after getting more funding? Not nearly quickly enough to salvage Student X’s academic career and future, probably.
OPTION 2: Put Student X in another public school. Assuming there are other, better public schools around, this wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. However, most public schools are already crowded, and to continually add students from the poor-performing public schools to the better public schools would only to serve the one purpose most of these commie–liberal–radical egalitarians worship: levelling. It would bring the good schools down. Mediocrity is to be the order of the day.
OPTION 3: School vouchers to private (usually religious schools). Okay, I’m not so much of a hack that I won’t note that this option is particularly tricky when it comes to the Constitution.
As far as Florida is concerned, it would seem as if the plan has some problems. The Florida state constitution states that the state can only pay for, “the support and maintenance of free public schools.”
Now if the state is paying families, though, then they are nto paying pricy private schools. Just like if the state gives someone a tax refund so large that they turn around and build a church with it, that would not be considered a violation of the Establishment Clause. Why? Because the government gave that person his or her money, but cannot control what he or she does with it. In the same vein, could not the state argue that they are simply giving families financial reimbursement for failing to live up to their duty to provide quality education? Then whatever the families do with the money (enroll their children in private religious schools) is not the government’s responsibility.
What pisses me off the most here, of course, is the involvement of the Not Allowing Any Colored Progress (NAACP) group. Their lawyer stated,
What the state is paying for is religious indoctrination of young children.”
Alright, let us consider then this point. Exhibit A: He lacks the proof there is “religious indoctrination” going on here (idiot). Exhibit B: He is forgetting that people get to CHOOSE with a voucher program what schools they will send their children to. This leads to Exhibit C: If someone has a problem with the religious nature of a school they can CHOOSE to go somewhere else, or CHOOSE to stand on principle and get a crappy education from the public school. Their choice.
I don’t know. Having gone to a relatively good school (North Meck) and a relatively bad school (Grover Cleveland) and having done horrible in the good school and just great in the bad school, I would venture to say that much of your education is what you make it. (It would seem as if I am on a path to repeat this if I go from City College to Yale Law as planned).
Then again, it is nice to have the resources, options, and attention that people in very good schools get. Just compare the debate budgets of a school like the one my girlfriend went to (Stuyvesant) and the one of my school (Cleveland). No contest. Never mind all the programs and course offerings that Stuy has that Cleveland will never have.
Hell, if it is really a matter of education v. freedom of religion, then the courts should have no say in the matter. Let people decide for themselves. If they are threatened by religious schools, then they can stay out. If they think the benefits outweigh the costs, then let them send their kids.
Claudio