The Voucher System for Education

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The voucher system proposes funding to allow parents school of choice for their children. Whether it be private, public or in some cases home schooling, the parents would either be partially reimbursed, or have the tuition fully paid. According to an article in the Journal of Education Finance, Richard King and Lenford Sutton wrote “proponents contend that open competition would place healthy pressure on both public and private schools” (244). While challengers argue this effort exists to benefit a small sector of the United States, its supporters have already studied success in certain areas of the country and charge that it may be the best strategy to repair the public schools in the speediest manner. Increasing evidence indicate the voucher system may be the answer to incentivizing the public school system therefore bettering results for all children.

At first examination of voucher policies, apprehension began to develop with regard to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which is a law that prohibits the government from either proclaiming or adopting a national religion (web). Concerning this statute, many feel that using tax dollars for vouchers would muddle the line between church and state, furthermore, driving re-segregation of public schools (244). However, excluding faith-based organizations from the use of voucher plans that permit tax dollars to be allocated to private schools is an infringement of free exercise and equal protection, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws” (web).

According to Derek Neal, author of How Vouchers Could Change the Market for Educat...

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...ange the Market for Education." Journal of Economic

Perspectives 16.4 (2002): 25-44. Print.

Kilgore, Sally. “Public Dollars for Private Schools.” The American Journal Of Sociology 93.3

(1987) 756-759. Print

Lubienski, Christopher., and Peter Weitzel. "The Effects Of Vouchers And Private Schools In

Improving Academic Achievement: A Critique Of Advocacy Research." Brigham

Young University Law Review 2008.2 (2008): 447-485.

Rees, Nina Shokraii. "Public School Benefits Of Private School Vouchers." Policy Review 93

(1999): 16. Business Source Elite. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

Forster, Greg. "Vouchers And School Choice: The Evidence." Economic Affairs 28.2 (2008):

42-47. Business Source Elite. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

Frigaard, Craig. "School Voucher Programs: Are They The Answer?." Online Submission

(2008): ERIC. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

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