Could Vouchers Be the Answer?

It’s been shown through history that one reason this country is great is the market system economy. It’s also caused some problems, but it’s what has made our economy strong and our products desired throughout the world. We see it in education as well. Universities and colleges thrive on the market system economy. It forces professors to improve themselves in order to keep jobs and it forces these colleges to spend the money they have well so that they can offer their product for the cheapest price possible.

And yet, for some reason, we think that public education is the best route. Some of the Founding Fathers even promoted the idea of free education for all, even though it wasn’t mentioned in the Constitution. The idea of giving everyone the opportunity of learning is a good one, but public education has shown to not be the best solution. Too many teachers are able to gain tenure (often after only a few years of teaching) and then become lax on teaching. They stop showing they care for their students and even state comments to difficult students such as, “You’re mother should be paying me to babysit you.”

But what is the right solution? If we are purely on the market system, then parents will have to find money to pay for schools and children of lax parents won’t be educated. The solution is school vouchers. With vouchers, parents choose the school (making it a market system) and yet the government provides the funds for the student.

Choices Save Schools

There is no question that our public education system needs help. There is no question that the United States is quickly falling behind other countries when it comes to test scores. Unfortunately, there is a major division within the halls of the US government buildings when anyone brings up the topic of education. This is especially true if the person who is approaching the subject, is also talking about freedom of choice when it comes to schools.

Many people who are against choice start with the problem of religious schools. They believe that government funded education should not have any sort of religious ties due to the separation of church and state. They also believe that school choice could give certain parts of the population advantages by allowing them to choose whichever school they wanted, therefor possibly segregating themselves.

Those who are for having the ability to choose their child’s school make the case that schools who are competing against each other for higher enrollment numbers and more tax dollars will likely be more careful in choosing their curriculum and their teachers. Teachers who have under-preforming classrooms year after year will be dismissed so that more successful teachers can be hired to take their places.

Another reason that school choice can be a popular option, is that it gives the schools a chance to diversify interests. One school could focus on art and music as another focuses on math and science. As the schools promote these areas of interest, more students will be attracted with similar interests. This gives the school a large of pool of students from with to draw out a certain number for an interesting program. One example of this would be the math team. At the same time, while the art themed school has math and science, they work on holding art shows and developing more creatively.

Nobody knows if school choice will actually be an option in the United States, but the results look promising for those who wish it was.