Why Do We Need School Vouchers?

School Vouchers
Polly Williams was an American counselor and clerical worker from Milwaukee who first proposed her idea of school vouchers to better the education of students there. School vouchers are government funds that can be given to parents and families for their educational preferences and can be used towards private and public schools or for homeschooling. People wonder how much and how far a school voucher should offer individual families and whether or not they should be restricted to certain schools. Part of the controversy surrounding school vouchers includes the use of taxpayers’ money, the educational needs of children, and the terms of the 1st amendment that separate the church and state. Taxpayers are concerned that their money is not going into local schools and that the money they are paying is increasing due to school voucher expenses. Similarly, the public wonders whether or not public or private schools are better for the children of the upcoming generation. The biggest argument against school vouchers is related to religion. Because it is an important topic which draws out emotional opinions, personal feelings can get carried away and can
perhaps blur the lines of the first amendment. Families and students should be able to choose what school they desire to attend without limitation and with appropriate funding from the government.
In depth, the school voucher controversy has many layers and is not a black and white issue. There is a multitude of different types of schools nationwide. These schools typically include but are not limited to charter schools, magnet schools, Title I schools, and private schools. Charter schools are schools that are not required to follow local school district rules, teaching methods, and usually offer needs to kids that other schools do not have. Magnet schools are schools that are specialized for individual talents and are able to better prepare a student for a particular career after high school. Title I schools are schools that receive additional funding for internal improvements in the school system and also improvements in facility. On the contrary, private schools receive no funding from the government and are not operated by the government. A different type of schooling that a parent can resort to includes homeschooling, which is when a kid is taught in a home environment away from social settings and away from any formal school setting. Establishments set in place to aid families in affording the costs of these individual educational preferences involve tuition tax credits, funds given to reimburse families by tax credits and tax deductions, and full school choice programs, which are programs that supply public funding to families to give them the opportunity to choose what school they want to attend (Chittom).
In continuation, the first perceived problem with school vouchers is paying for them through tax dollars.
The parents that pay for their kids to attend private school, factually pay not only once, but twice (Messerli). These people are not exempt from taxes. Even if only one child attends a private school, another child in the family may want to attend a public school. These payments do not change, the funds that are already raised are redirected towards private schools and magnet schools in the tri-state area (Messerli). Additionally, a lot of schools that have received adequate funds by parent taxpayers have been poorly managing their money and their responsibility to teach children, being paid simply to babysit. Parents should not have to waste their time and money on schools that do not do their
jobs.
For example, take the Latinos and Mexicans in California. Mario Chacon, an educator and former assistant superintendent from the Sequoia Union High School District in North California, wrote, “I took administrators--my colleagues--at their word that there would be serious reform in the public schools if vouchers were rejected. But today, conditions are largely the same, if not worse,” (Chacon). California's graduation rates, college preparation and acceptance, college completion, and SAT scores explicitly show that Latinos suffer in the academic field in California due to the fact that there isn’t a school voucher program, despite more funds going into the schools. Further he commented:
“Latino scores have dropped over the years despite the fact that this district has among the highest salaries for teachers, and per-pupil spending rates in the state. Most districts also receive federal money because of high enrollments of minority and poor children, and their substandard performance. Sometimes this creates a strange paradox; some schools benefit financially over the long-term because their students underperform. Failure is financially rewarded” (Chacon). Despite the money invested, there is no improvement.