| steven787 said:You are right, someone doesn't understand. You are the independent-ish libertarian-ish one, you should see the big glairing flaw in your reasoning.
If the government creates even one restriction on what school or type of education they fund, then they are selecting who to give the money to. If they don't then there will be horrible abuse as schools will entice parents with kickbacks, ideological,religous, or attractive teaching methods that may or may not be effective. It's a lose-lose scenario. There's also a key difference between food stamps and this program. Food stamps goto the poor, this would go to people who are able to use it. Who would be more likely to send their kids to the school of their choice? A wealthier parent who can pay the difference and provide transportation to the private school or the poor parent who takes the bus to work or leaves too early or too late to provide transportation? A parent in the suburbs would be more likely to use it than a parent in poor urban (real estate and staffing problems for private schools) or rural areas (distance and staffing problems). Of course the wealthier parent would take better advantage of it. This is another Psuedo-libertarian/psuedo-conservative plan for the government to provide welfare to people who don't need it. A true conservative would want to manage public education, keeping it mostly the same and find ways to improve it with out spending more money. Their conservative nature would also want a program that is applied equally across race, income, and gender. |
Even if the government placed certain restrictions on where the funding could be spent, the parents are still making the choice. Regardless of your misunderstanding of who chooses where the money is spent, I trust the parents to make the correct decisions on which school and methods work best for their children. You can continue to believe the bureaucrats know what is best for children, and I will continue to believe a parent is most capable of making those decisions.
This would be the most desirable scenario for those people of less privilege. With our current system, they have no choice. They are forced to send their children to public schools. Under the system of choice, they can take their money out of the failing school and send their children to whichever school they desire.
Please, spare me your discourse on ideology. I could not care less what a conservative would do. I do not advocate this stance because I am beholden to some ideology. My stance on this issue is based off of research. I studied numerous educational systems, and I chose the systems that I thought were the most effective. The system I advocate is similar to the educational systems of Sweden and the Netherlands.
