Crossposted at LaurinLine (
http://72.232.224.170/...)
One of the biggest issues in politics is "school choice". This is where parents would be able to use vouchers to send students to the school of their choice, public or private. This is one of the major issues in the SC-Gov and SC-Superintendent of Education races.
Voucher supporters like to use the argument that the free market will force the public schools to become better now that they will face competition. Voucher opponents say that vouchers will result in public money being used to fund private schools at the expense of the public schools with no real gain.
Let's see what will actually happen in the free market.
Currently, parents can send their children to public schools that are free, or they can pay to send their children to private school.
Now, let's say tuition at the private school is $5,000/yr.
Since I believe in the free market, I would assume that the market has determined that the private school education is worth at least $5,000/yr more than the public school education. If it was worth less, either tuition would have to be lowered or the school would be struggling to keep students.
Now, let's assume a voucher plan passes. Everyone gets a $5000/yr voucher and can send their child anywhere they want, public or private.
The public school now costs $5,000/yr, which is covered by the voucher, but what about the private school?
Since the market has determined that private school is worth $5,000/yr more than the public school, what is keeping the private school from raising tuition to $10,000/yr? This means that we are right back where we started, only now the private school has $5,000/student/yr more in public money and the public school has $5,000/student/yr less.
Now some might say that the free market will create schools that will give a quality education that is covered by the $5,000/yr voucher. Let's look at this claim in light of the free market.
If a private school was better than a public school, the market will recognize this, and allow the private school to charge higher tuition. Therefore, what we will have is a "scale" where the best private schools charge $10,000/yr, the mediocre private schools charge $7,000/yr and the bad private schools and the public schools charge $5,000/yr.
This is a best case scenerio that assumes that parents can easily tell the quality of a private school before paying their tuition. Since the schools in my home state of South Carolina's are almost completely unregulated, there is no way to know whether one is paying for quality or sending their kid to a fly-by-nite diploma mill run by hucksters that want their $5,000. The only alternative to this is to regulate the private schools, which is a whole different can of worms.
Another issue that voucher supporters do not like to talk about is that the most expensive students are the "special needs" students, who the private schools don't have to take, unlike the public schools who are required to by law.
In conclusion, the good schools would raise their tuition, the bad private schools would take the vouchers at face value and the public schools would be even more underfunded. The wealthy will continue to go to the best schools, which are now even better thanks to the large amount of taxpayer money, the middle class will pay more to go to mediocre schools and the poor will take what is left in the public schools and lower quality private schools.
Voucher supporters are asking taxpayers to "trust us" with not only millions of taxpayer dollars, but with our children's educational future.
Vouchers are a bad idea that will help primarily the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.