CyberPundit – I think your post makes a lot of sense.
An interesting conflict could arise after the grassroots pressure you anticipate. The teachers’ union is another big Democratic bloc. They’re implacable enemies of vouchers. So, if will be difficult for the Democrats to support vouchers or even to be neutral.
So, some voters might decide that the Democrats ar taking them for granted.
Think of the post-high school opportunities around you.
The variety should surprise you. You probably have beauty colleges, aeronautics training, apprentice programs for the trades, truck driving courses.
There are probably junior or community colleges, both public and private. There are likely several four-year institutions and graduate programs. You can learn medicine or law from institutions that range from public to religious private to secular private.
And - looky here! We have successful voucher programs that allow you to choose among all of these schools. Pell grants and the GI Bill come to mind. You have the opportunity to choose a school that will work well for you and apply. If you get in, you have funds to pay for it. Millions of people have taken these opportunities, in a system that allows far more choice than the public school system.
Why should we be afraid of vouchers with such a successful model? Public education will not disappear, just as public universities and colleges have thrived in America. Most students will continue to attend public schools. They will choose the ones that work for them. If this is not possible, they have the option too to choose a secular or parochial private school that suits their needs.
I’ll be passing along your thoughts to the folks at NARAL. 
I’m going to punch holes through your “model system”, Mr. Moto.
Firstly, Pell grants (and similar government funding programs) are need-based. They aren’t guaranteed to everyone. The GI Bill isn’t for everyone either. There are no government funding programs that are for everyone. In this model of yours, school “choice” is limited to those who meet strict criteria. Although I could be wrong, it seems to me that proponents of school vouchers want every child to have a choice, whether they need financial help making these choices or not.
Secondly, Pell grants etc. are used at both public and private institutions. While some of this federal money gets diverted to private schools, much of it still infiltrates back into public colleges and universities. This contrasts with school vouchers, which are only to be used at private institutions.
Most importantly, public universities and colleges have funding outside of tax-payers dollars. They charge tuition, win federal and private grants and endowments, profit from patents, atheletic events, etc. So while public funding is very important to them, they aren’t as dependant on government subsizidation as public K-12 institutions are.
What holes? I see no holes.
Most school-choice proposals I have read about (leaving aside very limited pilot programs) include public schools in the mix. If a student finds a public school that suits his needs better than his assigned school or a private school, he uses the voucher and pays tuition. This competition among all schools drives innovation, reform and tailoring of programs to fit individuals.
Also, universities and colleges have infrastructure needs that are not needed by K-12 schools. Most of them do not need dormatories, extensive sports facilities, electron microscopes, and research libraries. They can do very well with much less. Hell, Catholic schools in my area have less desirable physical plants than the public schools, yet consistently outperform them.
If a student wants to use a different school than his local public school, he applies to that school. Upon acceptance, he collects his voucher and takes it to pay for his education at the new school. If he takes it to another public school, it’s a boost to public education, not a detriment.
I didn’t know that vouchers were to be used at other public schools. But this does not shake my stance that this idea of “choice” will be limited to kids who already have many choices to their avail.
Then sure, means test it. It’s poor kids that have it the worst.
But I would set the bar well into the middle class income range. Even schools in affluent areas have deteriorated to the point that the establishment there needs shaken up.
When rich kids are graduating without knowing in what century World War II was fought, we have an extremely widespread problem.
The national Repug party, especially in the South, has made itself a safe haven for the anti-black, anti-civil rights, anti voting rights elements in the US. Meaningful outreach to blacks would cause Gross Old Party to lose its street cred as the white folk’s party. It’s this rep as the white folk’s party that keeps white people voting for a party that so often opposes their best interests.
Look at the voting patterns, and governmental policies of Minnesota, and compare them to those of Alabama. Which state is more prosperous, better educated? Which state has the better quality of life?
This article from Saturday’s New York Times about the impact of vouchers in New York makes some of the same points as my earlier post. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/29/nyregion/29SCHO.html
Support for vouchers in and of itself won’t cause most black folks to switch parties. And you shouldn’t discount the fact that a lot of teachers’ union members live in suburbs and vote Republican.
The results of Milwaukee’s experiment with vouchers were inconclusive, either no change in student performance, or a slight improvement. Everyone associated with the voucher debate in Milwaukee, pro and con, recognizes that private schools only have space for a fraction of public school students. So the majority of black students will still go to public schools in Milwaukee. The task of improving those public schools remains.
Also, I’m not so sure that inner city public schools are so bad, in and of themselves. Sure, the better private, parochial, and suburban schools offer more intellectual rigor. But the basics are available at most ICPS’s, if students want to learn. Too many students in these schools aren’t convinced of the benefits of basic literacy, basic computational skills, and speaking standard grammatical English. Way too many of these kids see fighting and casual sex as valid ways to entertain themselves and pass the time.
I know the last four sentences describe more and more white suburban kids, but they have the advantage of NOT being members of a historically oppressed minority group.
The issue may not be schools per se, but broader questions of family structure, individual freedom versus social responsibility, male versus female roles in society etc.
The 7/1/2002 Wall St. journal reports a survey by Public Agenda, a New York public-opinion organization, 1999
Question: How much do you favor or oppose the following idea? Parents are given a voucher or certificate by the government to pay for all or part of tuition if they decide to send their child to a private or parochial school.
Percentage saying they strongly favor or somewhat favor:
African Americans 68%
Hispanics 65%
General public 57%
You forgot to put a link december.
I’ve already had the voucher debate with you, so I won’t go into it here, but here is an opinion piece by William Saletan that’s an argument against your opinion.
Stuffy, the poll was from the paper copy. I do not subscribe to the WSJ on-line, so I couldn’t link it there. I promise you I did type every single word in the box. There was no other information.
Perhaps one could look up Public Agenda and get more info that way.
Saletan’s article was interesting, although a bit exaggerated. It predicts that Bush will not push vouchers, but he was talking about them somewhat in the last day or two.
But, Saletan may well be right about this not being a winning political issue. His point that people do not like change sounds reasonable to me.