School Vouchers: A Harmful Choice
Since entering office in January, President George W. Bush has given education reform high priority on his agenda. One element of his four-point initiative involves the implementation of school vouchers. A voucher, as defined in The American Heritage Dictionary, is a "certificate representing a credit against future expenditures." (The American Heritage) By diverting tax dollars from public schools to private institutions through the use of vouchers, America's public education system will become less effective, students from low income families will be set further behind, and the First Amendment will be directly violated.
The conservative economist Milton Friedman first suggested the concept of school vouchers in 1955. He laid out a plan, "to return tax monies to parents of school-aged children for tuition use in a variety of authorized public and private educational settings." (Noll 193) Now, President Bush embraces Friedman's philosophy with his four-point education initiative. In his plan, Bush advocates (1) annual testing in reading and math in every primary grade; (2) empowering schools and school districts to implement reforms; and (3) federal government assistance in transition to higher standards. Most significantly, Bush says in his final point, (4) "If any school consistently fails to meet minimal standards for three consecutive years, vouchers will be offered so that children can go to the school of their selection, rather than the choice of the government." (Thomas 1) For the most part, liberal Democrats, such as Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, agree with the first three elements of Bush's proposal; but party lines are drawn over vouchers (Thomas 1). Under Bush's proposal, stu...
... middle of paper ...
...homas, Cal. "Bush Won't Leave Kids in Bad Schools." The Grand Rapids Press. 26 Jan 2001: A13 pp. Bell and Howell Information and Learning-Proquest. 6 Mar 2001.
"Vouchers." National Education Association. . 8 Mar 2001.
"Vouchers Ignore Bush's Chance to 'Unite' Rather Than 'Divide.'" National Education Association. 23 Jan 2001. . 8 Mar 2001.
"Voucher Talking Points." Rethinking Schools Online: An Urban Education Journal. Fall 1998. . 8 Mar 2001.
Walthers, Kevin. "Saying Yes to Vouchers: Perception, Choice, and the Educational Response." Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Education Issues. Ed. James Wm. Noll. Vol. 11. Guilford: Dushkin/McGraw Hill, 2001. 194-201.
The American Heritage Dictionary. 3rd ed. 1992.
One of the most pressing issues facing the United States today is its failing educational system. While many solutions have been proposed, the idea of charter schools has been both popular and controversial. The topic of charter schools is being debated in as many places as local school board meetings to state supreme courts. Though on the surface, charter schools seem like an exciting and promising step for the future of education in America, they are not the answer to this country’s ever-increasing educational problems. Charters will drain already scarce funding from regular public schools, and many of the supposed “positives” surrounding them are uncertain and unpredictable at best.
She realized that choice and accountability were not the answer, but that curriculum and instruction were more viable solutions to America’s educational dilemma. Ravitch suggests that to abandon public schools is to abandon the institution that supports our concepts of democracy and citizenship and to the promise of American life (Ravitch, 2011, p. 12-14). The idea of school choice is rooted in Milton Friedman’s essay concerning the government’s role in education. Friedman asserted that society should support and contribute to the maximum freedom of the individual or the family. He maintained that the government should provide vouchers to help support parents financially on their children’s education, which parents could use at the school of their choosing; so long as the school met set standards. Therefore, this creation of choice would stimulate competition, which Friedman believed would increase the development and improvement of nonpublic schools, as well as, create a variety of school options (Ravitch, 2011, p. 115). As a result of the choice movement, the public received three versions of school choice: voucher schools, private schools, and charter schools. Each of these schools receives public funding, but do not operate as traditional public schools, and are not managed by a government agency (Ravitch, 2011, p. 121). Charter schools became the most popular choice of this new
According to the U.S census, about 80% of people with phantom limb experience extreme excruciating pain coming from the stump. In fact, Ramachandran and Hirstein authors of “The Perception of Phantom Limbs” (1998) report that the pain haunts victims and remains painful even 25 years after loss of limb. Hence, suffering is chronic especially after an immediate amputation of a limb, where patients describe the pain as itching, burning, stabbing, or tingling. In most cases, pain interferes with work and social life and becomes a heavier burden than the paralysis itself. There’s nothing really phantom or imagined about this suffering; however, contrary to what the amputees feel, the pain is generated by the brain not originated in a limb that doesn’t exist. To be more specific, the intensity of the pain could be found in the neurons of the brain. With this in mind, one must be sure that phantom limb syndrome is certainly not a modern discovered occurrence; however, the exact cause of this sensation has puzzled scientists for dec...
Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association of Washington, D.C., strongly holds that voucher schools are, in fact, not the answer to improving America’s public schools. Rather, Chase asserts that investing tax dollars in improving public schools is a far more advantageous step in the way of progress for the school system. Moreover, Chase writes that an overwhelming majority...
When looking at a brief overview of voucher systems it is important to realize that No Child Left Behind is the policy that really sparked the implementation of school accountability and therefore the idea of school choice. Politicians wanted to improve America’s education system so they began mandating standardized tests at public schools and designating letter “grades” to overall school performance (Garnet, 2005). The implementation of school voucher systems became a way to scare failing schools into improving because it allowed parents the opportunity to transfer their children to private schools, which would mean that the public schools would lose students and more importantly funding (West, 2005). Although this seems like a great idea it is statistically flawed in many aspects including the reach of students tha...
Phantom pain is only one example of how the brain is linked to the consciousness. Every perception in the environment and every physical action causes changes in t...
Overall, there is an immense amount of research dedicated to understanding the psychobiological causes of phantom pain. A prevalent commonality between the literatures reviewed, suggested that symptoms of phantom pain are a neuro-psychobiological experience rather than a psychological disorder. This was evident by peripheral and central factors that associate the cause of phantom pain with the disruption of sensory nerve impulses due to the damage of sensory nerve fibers after amputation. As well as studies that demonstrated a positive correlation between progressive neuroplastic changes in the cortical reorganisation of the topographical structure in somatosensory cortex and worsening phantom limb pain, inferring that cortical reorganisation mediates the extent of pain experienced.
The concept of educational vouchers originated with Milton Friedman, known as the grandfather of vouchers, in the early 1960s. Friedman argued that vouchers would improve educational efficiency. Vouchers equal to the per-pupil expenditure in the public schools would be given to parents for the purpose of sending their child to whichever school they wished their child to attend, public or private. In the 1970s it was proposed that “vouchers be used for students in poor districts to remedy unconstitutional school-funding inequiti...
Ramachandran, V. S., and Sandra Blakeslee. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: Quill, 1999. Print.
Strauss, Valerie. "Vouchers and the Future of Public Education." Web log post. Washington Post. The Washington Post, 05 June 2012. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Leaming, J. (n.d.). Voucher programs propt debate over meaning of separation of church and state. Retrieved March 12, 2011, from www.freedomforum.org: http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/schoolvouchers/part2.htm
Education reform in the United States has recently come under scrutiny after many recent failed proposals. President George W. Bush implemented one of the most popular choices of education reform with his “No Child Left Behind” system. However, that policy reform in the past five years has faded to nothing more than a mistake. This mistake has haunted the education systems in America, but it is not the only reform proposal to shake up the school systems across the States. One new proposal that has caught the eye of some current state politicians is the idea of school choice. School choice is giving the option to parents to take their children to different schools, which is different from assigning children to schools based on the location of their houses. Does giving the parents of children an option to choose what school their child goes to create a spirit of competition? That is partly the goal with the school choice reform policy proposal along with many other facets that can completely revitalize the education system in the United States. The stipulations of this proposal involve a variety of suggestions to help strengthen the core of our education system.
Betts, Julian. Getting choice right: ensuring equity and efficiency in education policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005.
Throughout modern society nothing symbolizes the fall of humankind more than a woman with feminine flowing hair and luscious lips biting into a large apple. While the biblical account evoking such imagery remains the primary authority, John Milton in Paradise Lost enlightens beyond the allegorical, offering a complexity of character and purpose. In this epic, readers are guided along humanity’s fall from grace, contrasting the ideal union of man and wife alongside harsh consequences that emerge from dangerous engendered perspectives.
Sensation, as we know it, is thought to be a result of direct contact between the body and an internal or external stimulus. However, in the case of phantom limb phenomenon, sensation is explained rather differently. The phantom limb phenomenon, in short, occurs when a person with a missing limb still has sensations of limb being there; it is having the perception of missing limbs and feeling sensations from i...