School vouchers, with conditions
John Hood writes about school choice and vouchers in today's Carolina Journal.
I could support private school vouchers -- in effect, public grants to defray tuition cost for children to attend private schools -- on three conditions.
1. They are means-tested. In other words, don't subsidize wealthy families who can afford to send their kids to private schools anyway.
2. All participating private schools must accept all applicants, except when no space is available or when the applicant poses a severe discipline problem. It's easy for private schools to appear successful if they can pick and choose their students.
3. And no religious schools can participate. This is my weakest condition because I believe in the benefits of religious education. However, I can imagine the uproar if we end up subsidizing radical Islamic schools or other programs that many taxpayers would find objectionable.
A taxpayer-funded exodus to private schools can harm public schools by clearing out many of their better students. On the other hand, that will relieve crowding and reduce the need to build new public facilities. Besides, No Child Left Behind already has provisions allowing students to transfer from failing public schools to more successful public schools. But what happens when there aren't enough "successful" schools to accommodate the transfers?
What counts most is giving kids a good education. For a $5,000-a-year voucher, some kids might be able to get a better education at a private school -- and the taxpayers might save money at the same time.
Comments (3)
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Great topic for discussion, Doug. So far, though, the voucher movement hasn't gotten any traction in North Carolina, for better or for worse.
Vouchers aren't likely to gain much ground here as long as both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor's office are controlled by Democrats. The N.C. Democratic Party strongly opposes school vouchers - the party's official platform refers to them as "welfare for the rich in many instances."
A Democrat who came out in favor of vouchers would alienate one of their party's most powerful bases - public school teachers. So barring a change in North Carolina's political landscape, I just don't see it happening here.
Posted on August 1, 2005 12:14 PM
Thanks for the observations, Bruce. I think you're exactly right.
Posted on August 1, 2005 4:46 PM
Private schools will kick and scream about No. 2. That's precisely why private schools are successful -- they can price themselves out of the market to dissuade most families from applying, and they can pick and choose their kids.
If you include No. 3, about the only area schools that would eligible for voucher kids would be Greensboro Day, Forsyth Day, Westchester Academy and Oak Ridge Military. Most of the other sizeable private schools in Guilford/Forsyth (Wesleyan, Bishop Mac, Canterbury, Caldwell, Vandalia Christian, New Garden) all have religious affiliations.
The money-saving issue is bogus, IMO. If, say, 200 GCS students got vouchers and went the private route, chances are they're not all going to come out of the same school and the same grade levels. You'd still need the same number of teachers and TAs, but you'd have a few fewer state and county dollars to work with.
Posted on August 2, 2005 6:55 PM