Will school choice and school vouchers indeed lead to more segregated schools? What's your opinion?

Question

Just wanted some opinions?

Answer 1

Some people are against vouchers because they would eliminate segregation. Right now schools are segregated into public schools where the poor people go, and more prestigious private schools where rich people can send their children to get a better education than is offered in public schools. Private schools are prestigious because not everyone can get into them, and vouchers would eliminate this segregation. The quality of education offered by private schools would drop down to the level of public schools since anyone would be able to get into that school.

Answer 2

I am not sure it would lead to segregation but perhaps it would in a predominantly black area yet it would eliminate the need to bus students long distances for the purpose of integration.

Other things to consider as well, perhaps with a voucher system there could be many more schools with smaller classes and thus better education.

In cases where there is a teacher who is not the best, it would be easier to get rid of that teacher if all the parents withdraw their vouchers until that teacher is gone whereas now once a teacher has tenure it is next to impossible to remove that teacher.

there would be no controversy regarding church in school because those schools who chose to teach in a religious atmosphere could do that while those that did not could pick a school where religion is not considered.

One of the biggest reasons vouchers have not been used in schools in many areas I think is because although the majority of teachers are excellent there are those who should not be teaching and yet because of a teachers union are still employed. were parents able to influence teacher selection and able to demand a poor teacher be fired, the teachers union would be powerless and therefore is against a voucher system As it stand now, public schools in some areas are so bad that parents are sending their children to charter schools or private schools so something must be done and the voucher system may be long overdue.

Answer 3

In 1954 The Supreme Court decreed that Separate but Equal was no longer Constitutional. My mother was in High School at the time in St. Louis. Her school, Sumner, was desegregated shortly after she left. She was in the second class of black students to attend Washington University. Today when she goes back to Sumner for reunions, she's found that it has not only become re-segregated in that it is 100% black, but it's more segregated socio-economically: everybody’s poor too.

90% of American K-12 students attend public schools yet there is far greater disparity among public schools than there is between public schools for the wealthy and private schools for the wealthy. Those with means tend to segregate themselves by geography where they can't do so within a school district. The average student receives $10,000 a year in funding and those with money would rather not forfeit that in attending private school. Ironically, it's the poor who more often forfeit their funds by dropping out.

The Centre for Public and Market Organisation, a think tank from the UK, did a study on the degree of socio-economic sorting found in three different types of school districts: Neighborhood schooling, School Choice, and Voucher systems. They found the greatest degree of social sorting occurred in the School Choice model with the least occurring in the School Voucher model. The difference between the two is that in the School Choice model the government gives families a limited number of choices they are all run by the state to do essentially the same thing. In the liberal voucher model, schools are free to respond to market signals. They not only have the freedom to create the kinds of schools families want, but they can profit from creating value for their clients.

The voucher system diminishes social sorting partly because it can redistribute wealth. A poor student may come with a voucher of $13,000 a year as compared with a middle class student only getting $8,000. The latter will probably not need the degree of services of his poorer counterpart and will likely be satisfied with his amount. Also, a difference of $5,000 a year per child is more than just walk around money for almost any family in the country. Such a system will turn the poor into the “high dollar clients” that everyone will want to serve. Middle class students will have less incentive to flee poorer ones; if the poor students’ needs are being met they are less likely to be unruly and diminish the learning environment for others.

As a teacher, I am eagerly awaiting the enactment of the country’s first true liberal voucher system. Unfortunately most departments of education are unwilling to relinquish the hold they have over the industry. They see themselves as the standard bearers; only they can decide what should be taught and whether a school is successful; they do this typically through various standardized testing regimes. When they realize that education is inherently valuable and begin to trust that people will use it to their own benefit the industry will be emancipated.

While it is true that many of my colleagues do not support school vouchers, this is only because the DOE has convinced them that we need their coercive measures to get kids into our class rooms. Without them we would lose our jobs. In fact, the reverse is true. If we continue to slave under the yoke of the DOE we risk losing the confidence of our students. That is a scenario I fear much worse than losing my job.

Answer 4

I think it will lead to schools that are segregated into schools for the kids whose parents are savvy enough to get their kids into the good schools versus schools where the kids whose parents aren't are dumped. The parents who aren't might be recent immigrants with a language barrier or they might be struggling with poverty and other problems, or they might just be screw-ups who don't care. But a system with hoops that you have to jump through to get into the good schools does not help the kids who don't have an adult able to look out for them. I think all schools should be good and that low- and high-income kids, kids with troubled family lives and kids from stable homes should be as evenly mixed as possible in those schools. The kids who aren't getting what they need at home might be able to get some of what they need if surrounded by a community of stable peers and families, as well as from a teacher who isn't completely overloaded with a classroom where every child has horrific problems. And it wouldn't hurt the privileged kids to get to know children who don't have every advantage handed to them.

Answer 5

Public college gadget isn't a conflict software for persons, it somewhat is to furnish an knowledgeable inhabitants for the rustic. The justification for vouchers is that it will strengthen the of academic effect for infants interior the college gadget via offering opposition between colleges, however the trial classes have shown that they do no longer, in certainty they do no longer even strengthen the tutorial out comes for the scholars who receive the vouchers in maximum circumstances.