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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
So your solution for the single mom who doesn't like that her kid is stuck in an urban school district with a 30% graduation rate is to...do nothing? Because vouchers might harm the wonderful egalitarian system we have today?
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My problem isn't with vouchers per se, but with any voucher system that does not take into account disparities in access and schooling costs, or leaves parents with little option but to send their kid to parochial school because it's the only one within reach that gets adequate funding. Propose a system that doesn't screw over the people with the least ability to make use of it.
Let's say a school in an impoverished area normally is allotted $3,000 per year per student, but in an area with more property tax revenue each student is allotted $6,000 and the education costs, facilities etc, have grown to match it. Will the voucher given to the person in the poor area be based on their local tax revenue, or the costs of the school they wish to send their kid to? Who pays the difference?
Do we honestly believe the higher graduation rate in private schools, or schools in affluent areas, are due to some magically better system or a staff of Miracle Workers? In some school districts, getting any graduation is a hard won battle accomplished against impossible odds by teachers dealing with disenfranchised kids from absent families. Those schools are like outposts in hostile territory plagued by social and economic inequality. That isn't gonna disappear by installing an education system based on the "to each according to what he can afford" free-market fantasy that caused these social problems to begin with.
Ya know..and stuff. Whatever.