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opinion
U.S. should rethink
school vouchers
Last week the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a
case involving public funding for private education.
The case originated in Cleveland, but has far-reaching ramifications.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the voucher program,
more state tax money may go to private schools all over the
country.
Sending underprivileged children to better equipped private
schools sounds like a great idea, but will only be a detriment
to the education. Under the Cleveland program, eligible students
may receive as much as $2,225 for tuition at private schools.
The New York Times reported that 4,456 students are receiving
school vouchers this year. I'm not going to bore everyone
with a lot of numbers, but that works out to about $10 million
in public money basically funding private schools.
Again, this sounds like a good idea.
But I want to know where that money is coming from. Is it
coming from public school budgets? Is it coming from increased
taxes?
It's no wonder the American Federation of Teachers and the
National Education Association are against the program. Public
schools are funded based on attendance. The more students
enrolled in classes, the more money the schools receive. At
least that is the myth. We can all think of "rich"
schools with nice teacher-student ratios.
If underprivileged students get the chance to leave overcrowded
public schools for the greener pastures of private schools,
those dollars will disappear also.
Now let's take the worst case scenario. Imagine your friendly
neighborhood public school losing 80 students each year based
on 56 private schools and the 4456 students enrolled in private
schools in Cleveland.
That would mean the state government is giving $178,000 in
public funds to private schools. On top of that, public schools
are losing out on even more money as attendance drops.
The quality of public education continues to be a major concern.
Vouchers for private education only takes more money away
from our public schools, making the situation worse. We all
agree that something needs to be done. Putting $10 million
from voucher programs back into public education would be
a better solution than continuing to weaken these schools.
The debate over Cleveland's voucher program is that 47 of
the city's 56 private schools are religious schools. Despite
our Bill of Rights, President George W. Bush openly supports
voucher money paying for religious education. Bush had a great
reputation for promoting education as governor of Texas.
The question of secular and non-secular education is beside
the point. Parents have the right to choose whether to send
their children to a religious school, but public money for
private education is ridiculous. Public schools are having
a hard enough time getting proper funding. We should not make
them fight for money they should already be receiving. Vouchers
will ultimately make the state of education suffer, whether
from lack of funding in public schools or from overcrowding
in private schools.
Ken Hanson is a journalism major at Cal State Long Beach.
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