A Lemming's Lack of Foresight - More Problems with Vouchers

A Hypothetical Exercise:  For the sake of argument, let’s say that we now have vouchers.  Parents now take their voucher and go enroll (another hypothetical) their child into a private school. They give the private school the voucher (which the private school redeems) and write a check for the tuition balance and yet another private school success story is born.

Except private schools aren’t like public schools.  If the student doesn’t follow the rules, doesn’t perform, doesn’t conform, then that student will be expelled.  After all, public schools are where the undesirable students are supposed to go. 

Which means that here come the now private school failure back to the public arena.  Except now there is no money to educate the child because the parents have already spent their yearly allotment of school funding at the private school. 

So what is the solution?  Here is where it gets complicated.  Because every solution to recapture the money means both bigger government and more government oversight.  Two things that voucher proponents abhor almost as much as... public schools.  

We could just leave the money at the private schools and call it a wash. But not only would that be sanctioned government graft, but it would create a financial incentive for private schools to enroll and churn undesirable students as a standard operating procedure.  Obviously, I’m not as smart as our Legislators, but this would seem to be... bad?

We could say that they student is ineligible to return to public school until after the voucher year is complete.  But if having children not attend school is a viable alternative, then why have schools at all?   

Which brings us full circle to the overarching question, “What exactly is the real agenda of the Voucher / School Choice advocate?”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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