Republican legislators in Missouri and across the nation believe that school vouchers are the only way to improve learning for K-12 students. At first glance, vouchers seem like an okay idea – give parents tax money to get their kids out of under-performing schools.
A little history first – the United States has always had schools – private schools. Private schools cost money, so only the wealthy could send their kids to school. Everyone else – too bad! There may have been some underhanded pragmatism involved also — if you keep people uneducated, they’re easily manipulated.
Around the middle of the 1800s, some people started thinking that education for all would be a good thing. Educating children would be a point of pride and provide a sense of nationhood – we would be a nation in which all children would have a certain level of competency. What could be better for a country founded on the idea of personal success. Furthermore, with an educated populace, our nation would have smart people doing smart things! It worked out very well!
So, back to vouchers. What’s wrong with choosing your child’s education and having the money to pursue it? In rural areas there may be no choices – you get what you get. In urbanized areas you may have the choice of a couple of church schools, another school not in your district, maybe a private school. However, private school tuition is steep – maybe more than your voucher amount. You can transfer to another public school until that district reaches full enrollment. Church schools carry the same limitations. If you are one of the lucky ones who are accepted, transportation could be a problem because transfer does not include bussing. Parents who send their kids to private school make that choice and generally can afford the extra expense. When voucher money is pulled away from public schools eventually the quality of the public schools will suffer due to cutbacks and where does that leave the poorer kids — in bad schools. Seems like a return to the 1800s with students who are uneducated and easily manipulated. Is that part of someone’s grand plan? Like many subsidized programs, the wealthy benefit and the kids who were meant to benefit are left on the margins.
What’s best about a public-school curriculum: students learn from an evidence-based curriculum presenting students to a world beyond their day-to-day existence. Students learn critical thinking, the difference between fact and theory, reading takes them to places and times they have never been; they are learning of other worlds and other people. Writing and research teaches them to figure out where their beliefs lie.
Just one of many solutions – poor schools are generally in poor areas – imagine the tax base in a community of mobile homes and smaller older housing stock, very little commercial base. Compare that to a community of half-million-dollar houses with lots of restaurants, shops, etc. Easy to see why schools in the first example don’t have as much to offer. However, the playing field can be leveled by funding each student the same amount regardless of how wealthy their district is. Another benefit lies in bringing talented teachers to work in less-affluent communities since there would no longer be huge disparities in pay.
For these reasons, Democrats oppose school vouchers.
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