School Vouchers Aren’t the Solution

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The overriding rationale for education vouchers is the simple fact that private schools are better than public schools and public schools are a disaster, creating an illusion. There is a wide assumption that private schools somehow increase educational equity, with the interpretation that all low-income children and minorities can take advantage of private education. What is not known about education vouchers is the way it uses private school as a scapegoat in order to avoid the real issues surrounding the problems of public schools. Private school choices only serve as an excuse because they only offer admission to a limited portion of low-income and minorities. The seats are limited, “all you are doing is making tiny adjustments in the allocation of educational opportunities for a very small number of children and still condemning a large number of children to poorly funded, inadequate schools” (Hammond 10). The histories of education vouchers go back to the 1776, when Adam Smith proposed that government give money to parents in order to diversify and up the competition in the classroom. Smith also concluded that because parents are the consumers, they should have the right to choose their children education. In the late eighteen century, Thomas Pain took Smiths concept to the United Sates, “the poor should be given special aid and parents should be required to purchase education for their children”. In 1859, John Stuart Mill contradicted Pain’s argument by imposing that government should require a minimum education for every child, but parents should have the option to seek education, how and wherever they wanted. By the 1800s there was a great influx of immigrants to the United States and public schools had to be readily ...

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...ents were to oppose to their children private school accepting education vouchers, all they have to do is move their children to another school or provide home schooling. There should be a law that bans private education, and government should work on integrating and developing public education. People are already paying taxes for public education; why not work on developing what you’re paying for rather than multiplying your debt? If there were more parents willing to invest in public schools and live in culturally diverse neighborhoods, then they could benefit from a free education, with many other perks. Teacher and businesses would move to these neighborhoods and schools, because income is going in. It would be more effective to eradicate private schools only because there would be no other options for the rich but to send their children into public schools.

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