How Vouchers Will Enrich Public Schools
By TERRY M. MOE
TANFORD, Calif.
This week, Washington's public schools got some very good news when Congress approved a plan to provide school vouchers to low-income families in the nation's capital. For critics, however, the fight against vouchers goes on. And they continue to repeat their mantra: vouchers drain money out of the public schools.
This argument is persuasive because it seems so obviously true. After all, vouchers do allow students and money to flow out of the public schools, and it would seem to follow that schools are worse off with fewer resources. End of story.
But like many obvious arguments, this one is thoroughly misleading. True, when students use vouchers to go to private schools, the vouchers' costs come out of the government's education budget. So if the total budget stays the same, there is less money available for the public schools. What the critics don't say, however, is that the schools also have fewer children to educate, and would receive the same money per child as before.
In fact, the public schools should actually come out ahead. In a typical voucher program, the cost of the voucher (say, $4,500) is far lower than the average amount the public schools spend on each student (say, $8,000). This means that when students go private, only part of the money budgeted for their education goes with them. The remainder stays in the government's pocket. If these savings were put back into the public schools, the schools would actually have more money per child. And the greater the number of students using vouchers, the greater the increase in spending per child could be.
But the cost of supporting the physical support a school system requires doesn't change. And how many private schools will accept a student for the amount these voucher programs will pay?
Most of all, when did the school system coming out ahead even become a consideration in the face of the NEED to educate children, the NEED to keep the society literate?
Posted by P6 at January 24, 2004 11:25 AM
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Comments
My principal objection to the voucher idea is that there is no way the name amount of money will be adequate to pay for a student's education in the s. Bronx as in Albany (both NY). The cost of maintaining a school in the former area will always cost far more.
The other fact is that the cost of education is necessarily going to rise faster than GDP (education is the extreme case of a "superior good" in welfare economics), but once a viable private, voucher-funded, school system in place for the middle class in the 'burbs, the polity will NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER agree to raise vouchers faster than inflation. Result: all remaining determinants of success and social standing will be determined by parental affluence. The USA will become a big banana republic.
Posted by James R MacLean at January 25, 2004 04:19 AMMost of all, when did the school system coming out ahead even become a consideration in the face of the NEED to educate children, the NEED to keep the society literate?
I'm already using that argument for vouchers! No fair!
Posted by Phelps at January 26, 2004 01:39 PMKeep making that argument. I guarantee you, a fair examination will show that privately funded education has nevere produced a society with literacy rates even approaching ours.
Posted by P6 at January 27, 2004 04:46 PM