WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Republicans on Tuesday proposed a $100 million plan to let poor children leave struggling schools and attend private schools at public expense.
The voucher idea is one in a series of social conservative issues meant to energize the Republican base as midterm elections approach. In announcing their bills, House and Senate sponsors acknowledged that Congress likely won't even vote on the legislation this year.
Still, the move signals a significant education fight to come. GOP lawmakers plan to try to work their voucher plan into the No Child Left Behind law when it is updated in 2007.
"Momentum is on our side," said Representative Howard McKeon, R-California, the chairman of the House education committee.
I have made no secret about my staunch support for school vouchers. I think the key for solving the problems with our education system is not more money (on the federal level alone we're paying $10,000 per student per year, which is a quarter of a million dollars for a classroom of 25 kids) but rather a system that forces wiser spending of it on education.
Voucher programs do exactly that by a) putting the money in the hands of parents who are best situated to make decisions for their child's education and b) forcing schools and teachers to compete with one another for that money.
The unions, of course, aren't having any part of this:
"Voucher programs rob public-school students of scarce resources," said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, a teachers union. "No matter what politicians call them, vouchers threaten the basic right of every child to attend a quality public school."
Gimmick? Tell that to the kids in Florida who thrived (white third-graders reading at or above grade level increased to 78% from 70% in 2001, the percentage among Hispanic third-graders climbed from 46% to 61%, and among blacks from 36% to 52% while graduation rates for Hispanic students increased from 52.8% before the program started to 64%; and for black students from 48.7% to 57.3) under a voucher program almost exactly like the one proposed above.
Thrived, that is, before the program was shot down by the courts in response to a lawsuit from....you guessed it...teachers unions.
My only problem with the proposal above is that it is originating on the federal level. The federalist in me holds that education is something best administrated from the state level. In fact, I think a strict reading of the Constitution requires that education be under the purview of the various states. I guess a federal voucher program only targeting poor children doesn't exactly remove education from the jurisdiction of the states, but I'd be more comfortable if legislation like this were passed on the state level.
The only other complaint I hear (aside from the "
For one thing, a voucher program allowing tax dollars to go to a religious school doesn't violate the first amendment. The fact that the money would be available to schools of all religious denomination, at the whim of parents instead of government officials no less, means that the federal government would neither be establishing a religion or endorsing any specific religion. They'd simply be allowing parents the power to choose.
That seems to be explicitly in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution.
For another thing, all private schools are already required to meet certain state and federal standards before they are deemed an acceptable alternative to public school. A voucher system would do nothing to change that.
In short, there is no reason why we shouldn't institute a voucher system for education. Results indicate that these programs work, and the only argument against them that makes any sense is the one about teachers maybe having to work harder put forth by teachers unions.
But that's not much of an argument at all.