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Message: <blockquote data-quote="d20fool" data-source="post: 2040274" data-attributes="member: 5956">Why we have public schools.But you don't have a choice of post office, unless you want to drive further.  Or what policeman pulls you over for a speeding ticket, or what fireman comes to your house when it is burning down.  Education is not a dry cleaners, it's a state institution.  What you are asking for is consumer's choice when it comes to education.  Let's look at that a second.You see, the whole voucher thing comes about with the premise that competition is good, ergo schools should be competitive.  This will give us better students, right?  Wrong.  That's because by the time the clients (the students) are in a position to reflect on whether or not they had a good education, it's already over.  I automatically distrust any system that leaves children wide open for exploitation.  If each child comes with a fat voucher check, that school is going to be interested in keeping as much of that check as possible.  That means less qualified teachers who are paid less, poorer quality buildings, outdated curriculum (since new curriculum costs $) and so on.  Children find it hard to advocate for themselves in such a situation.  We would like to believe that parents would not subject their kids to such a school, but that simply is not the case.  They might not have a choice, if the only school in town that doesn't require extra money is that way.  Can't parents complain?  Sure, but when you're the bottom rung on the ladder there is no place else to go.You can see why the wealthy like vouchers.  By supplementing their voucher, they can send their student to a quality school that is likely to give in to their input, while poorer parents have to send their kids to lower quality schools.  In one bold stroke, the wealthy get their private school AND more say in the school (they have a lot to say now in public schools, I HATE affluent parents) AND seperation of class.  Wow.Vouchers are based on the capitalist presumption that competition is good.  However, this is based on greed.  Reducing students to dollar amounts can only be bad and undoes over a 100 years worth of work.  I think it's a seriously bad move and would rather talk about improving public schools than waste more time on an idea voters hate anyway.Remember the two reasons for public schools is to 1.) produce better educated citizens for a better democracy.  This is hard to do if we have a variety of private schools producing students of differing quality.  2.) To keep kids from being exploited.  The reason for mandatory school attendance was to get kids out of factories.  Vouchers put kids right back in that exploitation category.  John "d20fool" McCarty</blockquote>

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