Vouchers are essentially a form of “tax scholarship” for public school students, wherein the educational tax (which typically is given directly to public schools) can be used to pay for alternative forms of education. With the voucher approach, taxes allow parents to send their children to a school of their choice; in fact, ...
For students in a district with lower achieving schools, vouchers often provide a great deal of freedom and opportunity, as students can utilize their tax “worth” to pay for private or alternative public education.
As schools depend on taxpayer dollars, providing families with the opportunity to personally control the direction of each tax dollar can lead to some public schools succeeding, with other public schools failing.
Most individuals in support of vouchers argue that students who have been assigned to failing schools should not be forced to endure a lower-quality education. For students in a district with lower achie ving schools, vouchers often provide a great deal of freedom and opportunity, as students can utilize their tax “worth” to pay for private or alternative public education. By putting tax money towards private education, many individuals argue that the public and private schools would be forced to compete in a free-market system, where both systems would improve and enhance in order to pull in more students—or, with this approach, “customers.” This video from the Washington Policy Center discusses the benefits of school choice.
With the voucher approach, taxes allow parents to send their children to a school of their choice; in fact , this money can even be used for private schools . While many parents and educators believe that vouchers give students the freedom to seek out better educational opportunities, other individuals and experts assert ...
Joseph Viteritti observed in 1999 that “the more relevant ques-tion of our time is not whetherto enact choice, but howto enactit to achieve desirable public objectives.”1There are many different ideas about how vouchers ought to beimplemented. This chapter presents design principles drawnfrom model voucher bills, pilot programs implemented by statelegislatures, and programs challenged and upheld by courts.Legislation and model bills discussed here can be found on theWeb at www.heartland.org.
Many states (including Colorado,Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) have streamlined and/or lib-eralized regulatory procedures. Some states (Iowa and Michigan,for example) have chosen to enact impediments, such as requir-ing that parents meet teacher certification requirements.Should vouchers be issued for home education expenses?Those who say yes contend that homeschooling, even thoughunsubsidized, has proven an attractive and effective alternativefor more than a million children; that as a matter of fairness,homeschoolers are entitled to the same financial relief as parentswho choose other kinds of private schooling; and that distinc-tions are difficult to draw between a tiny school with innovativepolicies and a group of homeschooling families who cooperate onscience projects, field trips, and other activities.
In Capitalism and Freedom,Milton Friedman envisioned governmentand private schools accepting vouchers set at current per-pupil spend-ing levels of government schools.7Two decades later, in Free to Choose,he suggested that the voucher amount could be set slightly lower thancurrent spending, so inclusion of children already attending privateschools would not require higher taxes.8 Setting vouchers at eitherlevel would provide complete financial relief for most parents whochoose private schools, encourage most existing private schools toparticipate in the voucher program, encourage new schools to bestarted, and place great pressure on government schools to improve.These remain the goals of most serious voucher proponents.9To avoid increasing taxes or reducing government-school per-pupil spending, some voucher proposals set a lower voucheramount for private schools—half the current government-schoolper-pupil spending level is often proposed. These proposals eitherdo not require government schools to participate in the program orelse set the vouchers of government schools equal to their currentaverage per-pupil spending. This can be called a two-tier approachbecause government and private schools are treated differently.The special treatment given to government schools under thetwo-tier approach can be justified by pointing to special burdensgovernment schools must bear. These include collective bargainingagreements with their staffs, being required to accept all students intheir attendance zone, and regulation and interference by schoolboards and agencies of state government. Because private schoolscurrently spend about half as much per pupil as government schools,their lower-cost vouchers may still be sufficient to cover tuition. Ofcourse, a two-tier voucher program would deliver less financial relief