[quote=spdrun]Vouchers are horrible — the goal should be to make good, local, public education available to all Americans. Not to let public schools further deteriorate while giving parents vouchers, where they need to pay EXTRA money for a decent private school.
Also, vouchers play into the hands of religious asshats who don’t want their sproglets learning about evil-lution, globull warming, and birth control methods. Everyone should have a strong grounding in math, science, literature, history, etc without it being marred by their parents’ idea of some fruitcake fairy up in the sky.[/quote]I agree that the presence of vouchers will take away from public education funds. I have faith in public school teachers (and counselors/school-site administrators) because they have always risen to the occasion … at least in my experience. Also, parents will use vouchers to send their kids to just a few schools (which won’t have room for all of their applicants) leaving the other neighborhood schools out in the cold, funding wise.
Not everyone has the ability to drive their kid(s) to/from every day to a public or private school of their choice. Many people depend on their kid(s) walking to/from school while they work or take the school bus to/from a school in their own attendance areas.
Also, in CA, vouchers are grossly unfair to homeowners who pay (exorbitant) Mello Roos. Under a voucher system, the schools built with MR bonds (more well-appointed than older schools) will be sought after by families in older areas that don’t deserve to use them because they aren’t paying for them in any way, shape or form (thru property taxes or rent). It’s unjust enrichment to a cross-section of families who are “stealing” public school seats from families who are paying extra for their own kids to occupy those seats.
For the above reasons (as well as the presence of the uber-strong CEA with plenty of top legal eagles on staff), I do not see public school vouchers taking hold in CA.
