# When school vouchers and NIMBYism collide

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-school-vouchers-and-nimbyism-collide/665027>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 31, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-school-vouchers-and-nimbyism-collide/665027 "2013-07-31T22:30:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-school-vouchers-and-nimbyism-collide/665027/5 "2013-07-31T23:47:18Z")

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> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> The real mystery is why liberal Democrats are almost uniformly opposed to education vouchers while at the same time being happy about vouchers in other areas.

For the near future, most children will be educated in public schools. Public schools have disadvantages compared with private schools; for one thing, unlike private schools _they cannot reject applicants_.

Thus, however strong the arguments for school vouchers may be, the majority of American children will be adversely affected if voucher programs “scoop off the cream” and reduce funding for public schools.

I think many progressives support such programs when they’re part of a plan to cooperatively improve education overall. Instead, some of the programs are motivated just by a philosophy of “I want mine. Screw you.” and a pretense that public schools will benefit from their own _creative destruction_.

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