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I only went to public schools during my youth and ended up dropping out at the end of the 11th grade. I guess I'm one of those children "left behind". I did take a GED test and aced it, so I got my diploma. I didn't drop out because I was dumb. I dropped out because I was bored and uninspired. The only reason I was going was because I had to go and the majority of stuff they were teaching, I already knew. I didn't care anymore and nobody seemed to care that I didn't care.
Dropping out of high school has been one of the most important parts of my life, but I still don't regret it. It has changed my views on the educational system here in America. Because I dropped out, education has become an issue that's really close to my heart. I found out during the time I was getting my GED that most high school graduates can't even pass a GED test. It's only now that I can look back and realize that things are much different than what I was lead to believe back then. I do not want other kids to have to go through what I went through and I can only hope that they get a better quality of education than what I did.
I honestly believe that the majority of my public education was a huge waste of time. Based on what I saw while I was in school, I think that applies to most children. I'm not saying that some public schools can't educate some kids, I'm just saying that we are not getting what we're paying for. I am against public education, in the sense that our governments run the schools. I think that private education is much better than public education and instead of funding the the schools, I think voucher programs would work much better by funding the kids directly. I think the money should follow the child instead of taking the child to where the money is. This creates competition for schools to do better on educating children. Good schools flourish and get better funding while bad schools either change their ways and do what's right, or go out of business. We should not feel sad whenever a bad school goes out of business because they are not doing the job we're paying them for and are greatly harming our children.
I'm usually against government taxing people to give the money to others and vouchers aren't perfect. I would much rather see it all based on people's own money and funded by private charities. However, vouchers are a lot better than the current public school system and for right now, they seem to be the only choice this country would be in favor of supporting. I would much rather give money to be used to send a kid where they and their parents want to send them and have them get a decent education, than to be wasted on funding a failing public school that kids are forced to go to.
So what does all of this have to do with Obama? In 2004, Congress authorized the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is a school voucher program to help D.C. kids in poverty be able to go to private schools. Well, Barack Obama is letting this program, one of the few that actually works, go under. I think I'll just let the ReasonTV video speak for itself...
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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2 comments:
Hey oh! Found your blog when doing a search on Vouchers-
While I agree with your sentiment that the public school system in this country is atrocious. I have serious issues with my tax money going to fund religious education. It is patently against the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.
Constitutional Issues aside, I believe that injecting market competition into the school system will increase the efficiency and value of a large amount of children and that looks GREAT on paper. However, in any competitive economic system there are losers. The losers are not only the private entities running the 'failed' schools - but the children who are weeded out and not accepted to the private institutions based on a myriad of things, the largest of which is those that simply don't get picked to participate in the program. Others will simply be 'rejected' by private institutions based on religion, test scores, or a myriad of other reasons.
These children will be forced into an even MORE substandard system of education that now has money being funneled away to pay for those who are lucky enough to get vouchers.
I feel it will exacerbate the achievement gap between some, while narrowing it for others. I believe that the solution lies somewhere else.
How do we clear the constitutinal hurdle as well as mitigate the 'losing' side of the education equation?
Thanks for leaving a comment. You're the first one to do so since I started this blog :) I hope to see you around more often and please feel free to invite any friends to view the blog as well.
I do realize that a limited voucher program has its drawbacks by only allowing so many kids to participate. Even though I do consider myself religious, I would not want my kids going to school that tries to force religion onto them. Of course I sure wouldn’t want them forced to go to a public school either. As of right now, public schools are like having this one sized round hole in a community and we're trying to fit all these different shapes through it. A few would pass through alright, but others just couldn't. I think that if public schools gave way more to private schools and vouchers, you would see more variety in private schools and many non-religious schools would eventually pop up.
While some people, like you, are concerned with government getting involved in religious institutions, which is a legitimate concern, I don't see a problem with it in this case. This isn’t a case where they’re writing a law saying someone must believe in God, the 10 Commandments must be shown in schools, or gay people can’t get married. People who get money from the government in the form of tax returns, welfare, or whatever, spend it sometimes on churches. At the point the government gives them money, it's their money to spend as they like. It’s the same as if you buy a car off of some guy and he spends part of that money you gave him to give to a church. It's not really the government saying, "You must go to this Catholic school." If they did, I would be against it for sure. The money would basically go to a parent that didn't want their kid going to a public school and the only thing the government says is that it must be spent on a school, or educating the child. If an atheist wanted to send their kid to a private school and could find one that wasn't religious that they liked, the government wouldn't be able to step between them and their decision and tell them to go to the Catholic school instead.
I don't believe that a lot of kids will be turned away from getting an education because they don't fair well on a test, or because of their religion. As of right now, lots of Catholic schools have non-Catholics going to them. Private schools have to support themselves and if they go around denying people entry into their schools, that's just not good for business. If they start getting overcrowded, they might deny some until their business could expand to accommodate them, but I think most wouldn’t turn away kids. Not only is it bad for them because they aren’t getting the money, it just doesn’t look good and is bad for their reputation to turn away kids from getting educated. I'm not saying that it won't happen, it's just very unlikely and even if they do turn a kid away, there should be other places this kid can go. There might still be a need for public education in some cases for a while, but I think the majority of the kids in this country could get a decent education in private schools.
I think a good example of how this might work is by looking at daycare. I live in a relatively small town with a population of about 4,000 and there's at least 6 daycare centers just in this town and then about 24 in the town north of here. That's a lot of choices for just this one area. I doubt that all of those would turn down the same child, unless that child had some kind of extreme medical problem they weren't equipped for, in which case, I doubt a public school would be prepared for that either. Now not everyone needs daycare since it's basically just a babysitter and a lot of people have relatives to watch their kids, but if you don't have that option, daycare centers are there for you. You'd have a lot of smaller schools that could better specialize to the needs of the individual child. Having more choices is just better and most places only have 1 public school and if their kid isn’t designed for that system of learning, they are going to fail. As in any other business, you try to find a niche that hasn't been taken and if people want a non-religious school for their kids, or one that specializes in teaching around music, art, or mathematics, one will pop up.
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