Ethnic minorities want vouchers for private school why do white democrats oppose their freedom of choice?

Question

I know from personal experience how the socialist state and union controlled public schools underserve ethnic minorities.

I volunteer with a private school and have helped ethnic more ethnic minority kids get a great education at private schools; a real education as opposed to the drivel and waste of time provided by the state-union public schools.

Answer 1

Because the teachers unions all contribute heavily to the Democrats.

The Democrats only care about what the special-interest groups (who give them money) want - not what is good for the nation.

Answer 2

Sounds like dstr above is a member of a teacher's union and like a good union member, he is more concerned about his job than the product public education provides. In the end, emphasis should be placed on improving education, not public education per se. The beauty of the voucher system is that it gives the consumer of education choices, and like any other industry in the free market private schools will have to perform well to compete. Who cares that teachers in private schools may lack some of the credentials to those in the public schools if they provide a better education. Public education is failing us. We need the voucher system to improve education in this country.

Answer 3

It's not just white Democrats who oppose vouchers, pretty much all Democrats do. They are opposed to freedom of choice (except abortions, of course), and think the government knows best where people should should send their kids to school.

Vote for Rudy!

EDIT: To dstr, private education is usually cheaper than the abyss we call public education. In California, each student in public school costs something like $12,000. Give half of this amount to the parents as a voucher, the parents pay the rest, and the government saves $6,000. Everybody wins! Except the California Teachers Association, of course.

Answer 4

What a self-serving question.

sigh...There are non-white Democrats (big D) who oppose this so-called "freedom of choice" as well, if this means opposing school vouchers that would take money away from public education, that is.

I am one such non-white Democrat, so it's pretty annoying to see someone try to make out Democrats as racist for SUPPORTING a robust public education for all students when I know from experience that true equity of educational opportunities will truly lift my own people and ALL other peoples up together in equality and harmony, instead of having two American educational systems, the private system for those select few lucky enough and a defunded public system for everyone else.

Does that make me racist?

Answer 5

Give me a link, your personal experience does not constitute proof just anecdotal evidence. All the ethnic minorities I have talked with hate the idea of vouchers, they couldn't afford to pay the difference between the voucher and the public school. And my anecdotal evidence does not provide proof either.

State your opinions as opinions, don't make believe they are "facts"

Answer 6

Because it takes control from their hands and gives it to the parents. Most parents won't willingly let their kids be indoctrinated to believe that they they must have sex, that they can exterminate their preborn and that get an inferior education to boot.

Answer 7

Because the Teachers Union says they should.

Answer 8

It comes down to them wanting To control what the children are taught or not .

Answer 9

How would the government pay for this private education if every single child opted out for vouchers?........answer that.

The voucher system is more costly, and waste funds by diversion to private institutions who are also (strangely?) Republican donors.

The effect of free-market competition upon bloated, non-competitive industries is often praised, but that praise can go too far and become quite irrational. The free-market is not a god that we have to unquestioningly follow - it is a tool which we should use when and where appropriate, and we should not hesitate to question that appropriateness. Just because it works in one area does not automatically mean that it will work elsewhere.

Moreover, the idea of the effectiveness of the free-market in improving an industry is completely dependent upon the existence of real competition. However, there would be no real competition between public and private schools. Public schools must fund the transportation of students, whereas private schools have no such requirement. Public schools must abide by a whole host of governmental regulations on how to treat children, how to maintain buildings, race, religion, disabilities, etc., ad nauseam.

Private schools have few such restrictions which they must abide by, especially religious schools. Attempts by the same people who push vouchers to enact bills like the Religious Liberty Protection Act would cause such religious schools to have to abide by almost no restrictions, diminishing real competition even further.

Public schools will become dumping grounds for the unwanted.
Private schools are free to pick and choose whomever they wish as students, freely discriminating for reasons of race, religion, disability, cost to educate, whatever - they are not answerable to the public, even though some people wish to give them public money. They can refuse admission or expel students for any reason whatsoever. Public schools must, except in extreme cases, accept whomever wishes to apply, including those with expensive physical or learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, contagious diseases, or language deficiencies.

Special students requiring extra effort to educate will rarely, if ever, be accepted to most private schools, allowing them to avoid the costs and problems of educating the unusual student. This is one way that voucher advocates can claim that the per capita education costs are lower at private schools than at public schools. Once again, we find an important area where real competition is entirely absent because the playing field isn't even close to level.

Public schools would be robbed of critical funding.
The funding of voucher schemes is accomplished by skimming money from already poorly financed public education budgets, possibly causing deep cuts in transportation costs, security, classroom improvements, repairs, supplies, and staff. Inner city schools could find themselves in even worse situations than they presently are. There is a great deal of reverse-class envy sweeping the country, with middle- and upper-class people balking at paying to fund social services which are designed to help the poor survive with a bit of dignity.

This is really no different, since these people are looking for ways to stop paying to educate poor students while they look for better ways to educate their own. Why should they care what happens to inner-city and minority students? If they aren't interested in helping to feed and house the poor, they certainly aren't going to be interested in educating the poor. A permanent underclass is developing in America, and this will serve to cement that development into fact.

Vouchers subsidize discrimination.
As already mentioned, private schools are free to discriminate at will, refusing or expelling any student for any reason like race or religion. Some students have been expelled because their parents were critical of the school. This is, of course, their right. But why should the government and taxpayers subsidize this discrimination?

Poor schools could take advantage of a voucher system.
Bizarre religious or political groups, cults, and even profiteers may be allowed to operate schools and receive public funding for doing so. Immune from government oversight, they'll be free to pursue whatever goals they may have, even including child abuse. The only way to avoid this is to subject schools which receive vouchers to strict regulations. That, however, would force the government to become more deeply entangled with religion than is constitutional. Many religious schools recognize the dangers of such government involvement and so refuse vouchers which are accompanied by regulatory restrictions. In addition, the more regulations and restrictions which are imposed upon private schools, the less they will differ from public schools - thus undermining some of the purposes behind vouchers in the first place!

There is no double-taxation.
Parents who use private schools are only taxed once: when they pay taxes for public schools. The fees they pay to private schools are in no sense a tax - they are instead a voluntary payment to a private institution. Calling it a "tax" is nothing less than dishonest. Moreover, just because a person freely chooses to replace or supplement a public service with a private company does not mean that the government should refund any money which would have gone to that unused public service.

People who hire private security firms do not receive money taken from police department budgets, and people who install private pools do not receive refunds because they do not use public pools. Public schools, as with public police departments, offer direct and indirect benefits to society as a whole and all individuals, even when those individuals are not immediately using their services.

EDIT: Now unlike ALL the other answers here I gave you reasons to question your assertion....but go ahead and award a know-nothing best answer.