How would the schools that are primarily funded by vouchers be any different from public schools? Why would vouchers be more acceptable to voters/legislators than tax credits or the abolishment of government-favoring of education?
To those who are against
Wouldn’t school vouchers be an improvement, no matter how small, over the normal situation of taxed resources only being used to fund public schools?
I hear about increased government control. Well, wouldn’t there be increased government oversight of private education if tax credits were given instead?
I hear that the schools that do not accept the vouchers and, therefore, increased government oversight will be at a competitive disadvantage. Well, aren’t you arguing against the parent(s)’ choice of school? If they don’t want increased government oversight, can’t they do what they’re doing now?
I think vouchers and educational tax credits are both a distraction from the primary problem. Compulsory education implies the state has a certain justified degree of ownership claim on all people under 18 within its borders. This egregious state of affairs doesn’t disappear under a voucher/credit system.
The lack of price signals within education stems primarily from compulsory education laws. There is an artificial demand for educational services maintained at gunpoint which allows even the most incompetent of institutions to gain a base level of clientele.
Vouchers and credits, even if means-tested, would simply first raise private tuitions and later property taxes, maintaining the current mix at a much more expensive nominal level. Worse still, state claims on educational interest would expand in reach.
Porter’s five forces are a good broad checklist for whether a true free market exists in any given set of interactions. In this case, buyer power is severely undermined by the lack of the ultimate bargaining chip: fully opting-out. Homeschooling can go a long way toward rectifying the issue, but many parents feel ill-equipped to meet the educational demands of the state. Those who homeschool must go through many bureaucratic hoops which serve as deterrents, encouraging many unsatisfied clients to simply put up with poor service in order to meet compulsory education requirements.
My goodness. See this is what socialists actually advocate. Socialist theory is based on a redistribution of wealth rather than nanny-government to control your life. No one in the mainstream is a socialist; they are little children.
My view is that forcing people to fund the educations of others is immoral and economically awful. Vouchers will only make this situation worse. The problem in education is the lack of a pricing system for consumers of education, children and parents. Austrian Economics holds that the production of goods is determined through the pricing system. Any systems whose consumers do not see a pricing mechanism and have limited ability to descriminate is bound to provide substandard products at too high of a cost.
The same is true for the system of financing health care as well.
The way out of these messes is the impossible solution. That is stop forcing people to fund the delivery of these services to others. The people demanding these services will choose the suppliers offering the best combination of price and quality. The suppliers who do not offer consumer demanded combinations of price and quality will cease business. Of course this system would not be viable with the current barriers to entry provided by the government through licensing. If you remove licensing requirements then you would allow competitors to enter these markets and drive down the prices.
It’s funny (sad) that these horrible ideas are what pass for free market thinking.
I remember an interview that I did with one of the local newspapers, when I was running for State Rep. During the Q and A the topic of education came up. When they asked what my opinion of school vouchers was, I of course replied that I didn’t care for them. They were shocked!
Because I was “pro-market” but “anti-voucher” it was assumed that I was obviously confused. When the artice was printed they said that I had “fuzzy free market ideals.” sigh
I think that vouchers are an improvment of course, it would improve education standards by making it more like the market. Of course I would rather see public education removed (I go to one right now and it literally rots your brain) but at least we can make it a somewhat decent education that might actually HELP YOU and give you skills and help the division of labor rather than just learning a bunch of pointless crap in an environment that makes you hate learning and hurts your self esteem.
A voucher system is even worse than a direct control public system. It means more efficient brainwashing. The current American system is the best in the west precisely because it is less effective. I’ve never heard of Japanese or Belgian workers being more skilled/competent anyway.
With vouchers the government continues to determine what is or isn’t proper schooling and how much of it families truly need. In addition it creates another enormous lobby trying to permanently increase the amount of money going to school vouchers and out of taxpayers.