# Explain to me what is wrong with school vouchers as an idea **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2017, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941 "2017-04-21T19:53:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/241 "2017-04-26T01:39:31Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You are correct in that the building will be made cheaper, but it will not cost that much less, because most of the “savings” will be going into pockets as profit. The large majority of private schools in America are non-profits, so on this you are simply wrong. > [@](#): > > 2 things here. > > First, the OP, as well as other voucher advocates are not proposing a means tested system (though I will acknowledge that John Mace did indicate that vouchers _could_ be means tested), but instead to be used for middle class and higher families to divert public resources for their own exclusive use. Right on the first page of the thread, multiple voucher opponents said that vouchers are used to subsidize rich families who are sending their kids to private school. This is straightforwardly untrue in the vast majority of cases, because most voucher programs in the country are limited to families beneath a certain income level. Some are made available to students from schools that the government has classified as failing, and in most cases such schools serve poor students almost entirely. Some are specifically for special-needs children. Very few voucher programs are open generally to the rich. > [@](#): > > But, at this point, we are talking about a complete overhaul of public education, which I would not argue it is not long overdue for, but just throwing vouchers at the problem so that those well off are able to use my tax dollars to give themselves another advantage at the expense of the public education that benefits myself and the community is a non-starter, IMHO. I agree, it shouldn’t be just vouchers. It should be vouchers _and_ charter schools _and_ home schooling _and_ online education _and_ reform of public school policies such as tenure and high-stakes testing. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/242 "2017-04-26T01:42:01Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Sorry, not believing you. When the government wants something, generally it wants the lowest _bidder_ that provides a laundry list of things the government wants. Since the government is not motivated by profit, it sometimes wants completely unnecessary features that drive the cost up an order of magnitude. Private firms tend to be better about paying only for the essential features that are cost effective, because that increases their profits and thus the bonuses their management receive. This means they do cut corners sometimes. I have personally seen the government buy classrooms with million dollar telecom setups - which admittedly are of high quality, but then the equipment is never actually used. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/243 "2017-04-26T01:44:32Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Some things are natural monopolies. Like utilities and the roads. Education is not a natural monopoly. Cite. The US university system. The US private school system. > > Are Yale and Harvard as good as State U or State A and M? I don’t think anyone is arguing that a well funded private school education would not be better than a run of the mill public school education. What we are saying is that we as a society have determined that education is one of those things that we do not want to distribute based solely on ability to pay so once you have determined that all children will be afforded some level of education we have to figure out the best way to do that. Every country in the world could have started off by giving out vouchers and very few do. Every state in this country could have done so, and very few do. Chile, has a voucher system because they pretty much did whatever the chicago school of economics and Milton Friedman thought was a good idea. There is no evidence that it is any better or worse than a public school system (and I can’t think of anyone doing a full voucher system better than them). If you argument is that private schools with multi billion dollar endowments are better than the public schools with almost no endowment, then sure, I agree. If you are arguing that this is evidence of ANYTHING in the public school debate, can you just tell us what that is? Because right now it sounds like you are saying “hey, why can’t we privatize school lunches, after all, Le Bernadin is better than what they are serving in the cafeteria” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/244 "2017-04-26T01:47:36Z")
Vouchers aren’t a “tiny step to the right.” They are a wholesale leap to the far right. Or off the board entirely, if **Bone** has his way. **ITR** - Just a few things. You keep throwing around the statement that the private sector can always build the exact same thing cheaper than the government. Prove it. And as for sports facilities…you do realize that sports are what keep a large percentage of kids coming to school every day, don’t you? Nobody builds a football stadium for the hell of it. In Texas, sure. But football’s a religion to those folks. To everybody else (and that includes school boards and administrators) the stadium represents an investment in keeping students in school and for some of them, a college scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/245 "2017-04-26T01:55:37Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > No problem with me. I’ll pay my own way, and you pay yours - I don’t want your money. Sometimes we may agree that it’s beneficial that we all contribute for certain things so for those we’ll agree to do so. Some areas we may disagree, and in those cases, we’ll go our separate ways. Seems fair right? > Do you think the justification for public funding of armies and roads is the same as the justification for public funding for education? If so, can you describe this sameness? I think one is quite different than the other. One of my favorite conservative commentators has an acid test for whether or not a tax or program is justified: Would you be willing to shoot a bullet into my body with a gun to collect the tax money for this program. Because when we collect taxes, we aren’t asking, we are demanding and if you don’t comply we will put you in jail. If you resist, we will shoot a bullet into your body. So there is a long list of programs I would be willing to see someone get shot to fund. Common defense, infrastructure and public education are at or very close to the top of the list of things I would be willing to shoot someone over. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/246 "2017-04-26T02:03:21Z")
Is this the wrong time to start humming “The Mikado?” ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/247 "2017-04-26T02:03:22Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Which works great, if you get to control the success criteria. In this case you’ve set them broad enough that everything deserves public funding. There would be no meaningful limit if that were the criteria employed which you may be supportive of but I on the other hand would not be. If only we could devise a form of government that would allow the people to choose the people who make the laws and decide what deserves public funding and what does not. > [@](#): > > Not society’s children, but individuals, the children of whomever parent(s) they have. > This assumes that without publically funded education society and individual parents would fail to educate children. That’s a large assumption and not supportable. It also assumes that publically funded education is the most efficient which if true, those parents that choose non-public education are somehow making a worse choice for their children, that the government knows better than the individual parent. Is that what you’re saying? Yes, without public funding, most people would not be able to afford K-12 schooling. Even at $10,000/year per child, most families could not afford to school their children from K-12 very easily. Noone is saying that Sidwell Friends isn’t better than PS 89 but Sidwell Friends costs more than many colleges. If you have $50,000/year to burn, then it might be a very good choice for your kid but wtf does that have to do with whether or not public schools are the best way to provide education to all children. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/248 "2017-04-26T02:04:35Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > A society’s goal is (or should be) to educate all of that society’s children, not just the children of a few select individuals. A system that improves the education of 5% of the kids, worsens the education of 25%, and leaves the remainder in the same situation is a society in which the average levels of education are declining, which poses a long-term threat to that society’s survival. > > If there were no public schools, yes, there would be a lot of children that did not receive an education, because their parents would not be able to afford to educate them. (Look around the world at countries that don’t have, or until recently didn’t have, readily available free public education systems–primary school enrollment, for example, increased in Malawi by 51 percent in the year after they abolished school fees. You think the Malawian parents who didn’t send their kids in the school in the previous year were people who just didn’t want to bother?) > > Publicly-funded education is the best and most efficient way to deliver education to society’s children as a whole. For an individual child, there may be better choices–we’re certainly not saying that an individual parent is necessarily making a worse choice. The public goal is to make the best choices for the public at large. Why not just call it a public option. Kind of like what we didn’t get in Obamacare. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/249 "2017-04-26T02:05:47Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Play that out - for the individual child where there is a better choice but they are prevented from doing so due to lack of means, aren’t they getting a worse alternative so that others may benefit? What’s may be a net good for the public at large may be a net negative at an individual level. Look at the early responses in this thread. Many focused on the idea of wanting to not make public schools worse. In the case of those individuals where there is a better choice than public schools, the kids that are prevented from making that choice are sacrificing so that others may be better off. That idea is abhorrent to me. And you don’t need vouchers for that ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/250 "2017-04-26T02:08:26Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I would like to see more resources, not less going to educating our children in not just rote memorization and behavioral training, but various life skills they will need, and not just assume they will pick them up somewhere. One of the problems with education today is the absolute dearth of memorization as if memory is not a academic ability that needs to be developed. The way they are teaching multiplication these days seems fucking mind-bogglingly stupid to me but I’m not a Phd in child psychology that has determined that the best way for kids to learn multiplication is to use tennis balls or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/251 "2017-04-26T02:08:39Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Public schools waste money building massive sports fields and auditoriums and so forth, things that a school can function perfectly well without. I attended a Montessori School for four years in elementary school. We had no cafeteria. We ate lunch in our classrooms. We had no auditorium. When we put on a play or performed music, we did it in our classrooms. Public schools are needlessly large and wasteful. They have huge rooms that sit empty most of the day, and it costs money to heat those rooms in winter and air condition them in the summer. Public schools have those items because the parents in the district want those things (and plenty of private schools have auditoriums and football fields too, when the parents want them). Are you attempting to assert that the parents in the district should NOT have a say in how their kids are educated? > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > [Thales Academy](http://reason.com/reasontv/2017/01/23/thales-academy-north-carolina-bob-luddy) is a group of private schools in North Carolina, built by a philanthropist and bring a superior education to thousands of poor and middle class children. Costs are about $6,000 per year per student, while costs at surrounding public schools are thousands of dollars higher. No, they CHARGE about $6K per year per student; any casual inspection of their financial reports (see, e.g., [their form 990s](https://www.citizenaudit.org/organization/208920342/THALES%20ACADEMY/)) reveals their COSTS are higher. For example, in the 990 for the tax year ending 6/30/2015, we learn that tuition brought in $7.1 million, while their expenses were more than $9.56 million (the difference being covered by grants and fundraising drives). Moreover, the costs at surrounding public schools includes items such as bus transportation, but Thales doesn’t offer it, so kids who need to ride the bus to school are SOL. Qualify for free/reduced-price school lunches? Too bad, so sad, not offered here. Go to public school–Thales won’t help you. Perhaps most egregiously, as their [Student and Parents Handbook](https://www.thalesacademy.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/pdfs/TA-K-5-Handbook.pdf) (PDF!!) notes, “Thales Academy does not have the personnel or the facilities to effectively address the needs of children who have emotional or behavioral problems or who have learning disabilities that require special programs.” In other words, the students who require the most effort and resources in the public schools, who cost the most to serve, are not even welcome at Thales. Comparing their budgets and public school budgets is comparing apples and oranges. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/252 "2017-04-26T02:11:23Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > I actually agree with you. _However_, what you are talking about is basically the newest form of socialism/communism called “universal basic income”. That certainly would eliminate poverty, by paying everyone just enough money to be above the poverty line. There would still be an incentive to work, though not as large a one, but if automation really is about to eat 1/3 of all jobs, that wouldn’t really be a problem. Essentially, the taxes to fund UBI would need to come from the capital gains/capital returns of shareholders in the now highly automated companies operating in the USA. > > In essence, it would mean that these armadas of robots would de facto be taxed for some of their output to provide the lower classes with essentials. > > However. What you are talking about is a gigantic step to the left. School vouchers is a tiny step to the right. Hence, in the plausible near future, school vouchers are far more practical an idea (and already in existence in many places) than UBI. For UBI to happen, what would first have to happen is the robots would actually have to unemploy tens of millions of Americans. Right now, officially the unemployment rate is 5%. Once it’s 40%, maybe the next time there’s a set of mass protests, people will actually join them. Once we hit the technological singularity and the cost of human labor can no longer be justified in the vast majority of cases… that’s when we eat the rich and embrace Marxism. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/253 "2017-04-26T02:15:10Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The large majority of private schools in America are non-profits, so on this you are simply wrong. > Right on the first page of the thread, multiple voucher opponents said that vouchers are used to subsidize rich families who are sending their kids to private school. This is straightforwardly untrue in the vast majority of cases, because most voucher programs in the country are limited to families beneath a certain income level. Some are made available to students from schools that the government has classified as failing, and in most cases such schools serve poor students almost entirely. Some are specifically for special-needs children. Very few voucher programs are open generally to the rich. Are you under the impression that this is what the school voucher folks are trying to attain? Essentially a scholarship program to send some poor kids at failed schools to private schools? The ultimate goal is to privatize public schools and let everyone send their kids to parochial schools on the public dime. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/254 "2017-04-26T10:57:52Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Public schools have those items because the parents in the district want those things (and plenty of private schools have auditoriums and football fields too, when the parents want them). Are you attempting to assert that the parents in the district should NOT have a say in how their kids are educated? > > No, they CHARGE about $6K per year per student; any casual inspection of their financial reports (see, e.g., [their form 990s](https://www.citizenaudit.org/organization/208920342/THALES%20ACADEMY/)) reveals their COSTS are higher. For example, in the 990 for the tax year ending 6/30/2015, we learn that tuition brought in $7.1 million, while their expenses were more than $9.56 million (the difference being covered by grants and fundraising drives). Moreover, the costs at surrounding public schools includes items such as bus transportation, but Thales doesn’t offer it, so kids who need to ride the bus to school are SOL. Qualify for free/reduced-price school lunches? Too bad, so sad, not offered here. Go to public school–Thales won’t help you. > > Perhaps most egregiously, as their [Student and Parents Handbook](https://www.thalesacademy.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/pdfs/TA-K-5-Handbook.pdf) (PDF!!) notes, “Thales Academy does not have the personnel or the facilities to effectively address the needs of children who have emotional or behavioral problems or who have learning disabilities that require special programs.” In other words, the students who require the most effort and resources in the public schools, who cost the most to serve, are not even welcome at Thales. Comparing their budgets and public school budgets is comparing apples and oranges. Thank you for pointing this out. In my experience with ITR’s cites, every single one I’ve researched has told a very different story from the story he uses the cite to tell. I no longer even click on them, assuming that they won’t support the claim he’s making about them. It’s helpful that other folks will do this grunt work! **Damuri** , people don’t get jailed for not paying taxes. I had my own ignorance on this subject fought last year. You should let your conservative commentator know. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/255 "2017-04-26T11:01:47Z")
Huh. I clicked on that link anyway. It’s big on talking about efficiency at the school–huge class sizes, little individual interaction between students and teachers, no cafeteria, no auditorium, very few scholarship packages–but not so big on talking about outcomes. Why would that be? The schools have been around for a decade, surely they’ve got some outcomes to talk about in a Libertarian propaganda website. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/256 "2017-04-26T11:10:12Z")
Also–last post in a row!–I LOVE THIS GUY. He got dismissive brush-offs from state education officials, then lost a school board election (how do you lose a school board election?), so he stopped, reflected, and realized, hey, maybe building kitchen vents doesn’t actually make me an expert on how to educate kids. KIDDING! No, after those experiences, he opened a bunch of schools predicated on the analogy between building kitchen vents and educating kids! Efficiency, man, efficiency! He’s like a Swiftian caricature of the clueless industrialist-turned-school-administrator. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/257 "2017-04-26T11:46:11Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > … > > **Damuri** , people don’t get jailed for not paying taxes. I had my own ignorance on this subject fought last year. You should let your conservative commentator know. Completely tangential, and I don’t have a cite, but I think Wesley Snipes went to jail for not paying taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/258 "2017-04-26T12:05:05Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Completely tangential, and I don’t have a cite, but I think Wesley Snipes went to jail for not paying taxes. [He went to jail for failing to file his tax returns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Snipes#Income_tax_conviction). This is a slight, but important, distinction: had he filed the returns as he was required to do, but not paid his taxes as he was required to do, he would not have gone to jail. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/259 "2017-04-26T12:35:20Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The ultimate goal is to privatize public schools and let everyone send their kids to parochial schools on the public dime. I realize someone always brings this up, but I wonder how the folks excited about parochial schools will react to publicly-funded madrasas. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941/260 "2017-04-26T13:08:36Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The large majority of private schools in America are non-profits, so on this you are simply wrong. First, in the post I was responding to, we are talking about building, not operating the school, and I was responding to someone who said that private schools could build cheaper than public schools, because they are not subject to government regulation. They are also not subject to government accounting, and so profits can end up in more pockets than would be in the case of it being a public project. Second, many, if not most of the private schools, while technically filing as non-profit, are run by a for-profit management company, so the distinction makes no difference. There is still a profit motive to take as much as possible from he tax payer, and spend as little on education as possible, so that my tax dollars can end up in the pockets of private investors. So, sorry, but I am not simply wrong on this. > [@](#): > > Right on the first page of the thread, multiple voucher opponents said that vouchers are used to subsidize rich families who are sending their kids to private school. This is straightforwardly untrue in the vast majority of cases, because most voucher programs in the country are limited to families beneath a certain income level. Some are made available to students from schools that the government has classified as failing, and in most cases such schools serve poor students almost entirely. Some are specifically for special-needs children. Very few voucher programs are open generally to the rich. Read the OP again. Yes, there are means tested voucher systems, and some are good, some are not. This is not what the OP was talking about, nor what the thread is about. If you had paid attention to the OP, you would see that he is not from a family that would qualify for means tested support, and yet he is demanding that he should get vouchers. Bone certainly would not be receiving means tested support, but he is an advocate for receiving vouchers. Yes, there probably is a place for something like means tested vouchers, and they have been implemented with varying success, but make no mistake, that is not what school voucher proponents are asking for. You say very few voucher systems are open to the rich, and this is true, but that is what we are arguing. the rich are arguing that they should be open to them. > [@](#): > > I agree, it shouldn’t be just vouchers. It should be vouchers _and_ charter schools _and_ home schooling _and_ online education _and_ reform of public school policies such as tenure and high-stakes testing. I agree, -ish. As far as tenure goes, that’s a complicated one, but I don’t think that many grade schools offer it anymore anyway. Testing is important, but should be redesigned to be an evaluation tool to determine where a student is, and where they need help, rather than deciding whther or not they have a future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-what-is-wrong-with-school-vouchers-as-an-idea/784941.md?page=14)