Vouchers compromise Republicans’ platform

Letter to the Editor Vouchers compromise Republicans’ platform

Posted: Friday, January 27, 2012 3:43 pm | Updated: 3:45 pm, Fri Jan 27, 2012.

Vouchers compromise Republicans’ platform 4 comments

Republican ideology is conflicted over vouchers.

In 1955, Libertarian Milton Friedman (University of Chicago, 1976 Nobel Prize winner in economics), wrote “The Role of Government in Education,” where he said that government should fund schooling but not run schools.

Friedman proposed that government supply vouchers to every family so every student could attend a school of choice (like they do in Sweden — known for its great social programs). Friedman suggests that government give money to schools for every student in this country with no oversight, accountability, or requirements for using/spending taxpayer dollars.

Realistically, governments will not support Friedman’s desire to give taxpayer dollars to schools without any regulation. We see this in the criteria that the Douglas County School Board has already set for private schools receiving voucher money. If you look at other states where vouchers have been implemented, the rules and regulations continue to expand the longer the voucher system is in place.

The Republican platform clearly supports voucher programs in order to undermine teachers unions. However, the Freidman voucher system contradicts two other important Republican planks: 1) vouchers increase the tax burden for property owners by increasing the total number of students that taxpayers must support, and 2) vouchers create a need for more government regulation and staff to manage the program and oversee the schools receiving voucher money. This means that the Republican planks for smaller government and free markets are completely compromised in order to implement a voucher program.

Dianne Bailey

Parker

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Posted in Opinion, Opinion on Friday, January 27, 2012 3:43 pm. Updated: 3:45 pm.

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4 comments:

kp3 posted at 7:34 pm on Sat, Feb 11, 2012.

Posts: 1
Miss Bailey, In Sweden the government does run schools, although not exclusively.
Not sure how you equate increased regulations with a free market approach.
Have you read the book you are referring to?
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MathMan posted at 8:59 am on Sat, Feb 11, 2012.

Posts: 2
It seems to me that any voucher program amounts to giving individual taxpayers the right to spend their own tax money, and the taxes of others, at their own discretion. For some reason this seems to make sense to Republicans when it comes to education. I doubt that they would hold the same view regarding taxes for other government responsibilities like, say, defense.
We live in a Republic and Republicans ought to understand that a Republic cannot stand when our representative form of government is undermined in this way. If I can chose to spend a portion of my tax dollars, and the tax dollars of others, on the school of my choice, then it follows that I should be able to do the same in other areas. This is not the way a Republic works! It only works by representation of the majority. Individuals simply do not have the right to do as they please with tax dollars!
The purpose of public education is to ensure that every child in a given community has the resources available to receive a quality education. If individuals in the community do not like the type or quality of the education in their community they can work through our republican form of government to reform it. The problem here is that a minority of persons in our community do not like how their children are being educated and have been unsuccessful in working through the representative process to conform our schools to their own philosophy or priorities. They want direct control of their children's education. But they want the rest of us to fund it!
However you might feel about the current state of public education in your community, it cannot be reformed by bailing out of it. Furthermore, we cannot allow it to be undermined by the few who don’t want to fund it. If we do so, we only expand the class divisions in our society. And we will completely destroy the foundation upon which the very idea of equal access to education is built.
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Dano posted at 6:45 am on Tue, Feb 7, 2012.

Posts: 23
Students cannot be paid taxpayer money for religious education. Period. No way to spin that, although they sure are trying!
Best,
D
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johneblock posted at 12:11 am on Sun, Jan 29, 2012.

Posts: 2
Ms. Bailey has obviously not read much about the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program as it clearly has rules and regulations and provisions that limit the impact to existing students and the overall district budget. And by limit I mean completely mitigate without increased cost.
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