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McCain and School Vouchers
School vouchers have been a Republican obsession for quite some time now. Basically, if a public school is falling behind and not offering a quality education to students, the government will give parents a voucher (translation: subsidy) to send their kids to the school of their choice: public, private, parochial, or other (home-schooling). Sounds great, right? Wrong.
Some find it hard to argue against school vouchers. What’s wrong with giving parents choices for their kids? Why should our students be stuck in failing schools when they can be getting good educations elsewhere? The reality is that school vouchers drain funds and resources away from public schools, which are meant to serve all American children to grow up to be informed, knowledgeable citizens.
John McCain has been a long-time supporter of school vouchers. Before his first run for President in 2000, Senator McCain proposed a $5 billion, three-year program for a nationwide school voucher pilot program. The program would have been limited to $2000/student with a total of a million students. The presumptive Republican nominee reaffirmed his support for school vouchers just last week: “If a failing school won’t change, it shouldn’t be beyond the reach of students to change their schools. Parents should be able to send their children to the school that best suits their needs just as Cindy and I have been able to do, whether it is a public, private or parochial school.”
The constitutionality of school vouchers has been challenged as a violation of the separation of church and state when public funds go to religious institutions. Vouchers are also criticized for taking taxpayer funds away from public schools and using the money for only a handful of students. At a time when our public schools are facing major crises such as teacher shortages, crumbling buildings and infrastructure, meager compensation for educators, overcrowded classrooms, and increased high school drop-out rates, it is deplorable that John McCain wants to take more money away from our schools and students to spend on a select few. Instead of helping failing schools left behind, McCain would rather abandon these students and forsake the public education system.
In the past, McCain has said school voucher funds will not be taken from appropriations marked for public education. He’s even supported repealing corporate subsidies to pay for these vouchers. That is praise-worthy, but why hasn’t he fought tooth and nail in the Senate to free up those subsidies to spend on education, vouchers or no? It seems it is completely acceptable to take money going to big business and give it to private educational institutions, but not public schools. Republicans have been fighting a war against public education for years now, whether it’s forcing abstinence-only education on students, or trying to privatize the system. Can the American people survive four more years of destruction aimed at public schools under John McCain and the Republican Party? Can its students?
Posted By: Tim Wilson @ Apr 9, 06:01 PM
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It’s issues like these that keep me from registering as a Democrat. Yes, I’ll be voting for Obama this year but the Dems war on vouchers is truly depressing.
School vouchers DO NOT drain money from the public school system. If a voucher recipient were to choose a private school, they don’t take all the money with them. As vouchers are less than the total ammount spent per pupil in the public system, the remainder says with the public school in the child’s district. This increases PER PUPIL spending for the rest of the students that remain in the public system.
The only party that is worse off is the teachers unions. Teachers will have many more job options as new schools start up. As one community actist put it when trying to raise money to start a school in East Los Angeles: If I go to a bank and ask for a loan to start a school to serve these underprivlaged kids, the banks are going to laugh me out of the room. How would these kids pay for tuition? Vouchers change all that.
And with these new schools the teachers unions will lose dues paying members and will have less money for the Democratic Party. The unions raise tons of money for the Democrats and that is what all this comes down to.
Democrats should be ashamed of their party’s stance on vouchers. In inner city schools across this nation dropout rates are as high as 70% and you have kids graduating that read at the 4th grade level. These failed public schools put these students at a disadvantage for the rest of their lives. How can we not try something new. Look at the success and parental satisfaction in places like D.C. and Milwaukee are having with vouchers for low income students.
These are supposed to be the Democrats constituents. To turn your back on them is a disgrace.
— PM Apr 28, 02:03 PM Permalink