NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
School Choice Mitigates Educational Opportunities It is a widely accepted fact that the quality of education in American had substantially deteriorated in recent years. There are many factors causing such situation. Critics of American public education system name a growing incompetence of government officials as the main reason for this. In 1950 Milton Friedman suggested that the educational system in U.
S. had to be reformed. He was the first one to come up with a concept of educational vouchers that would enable low-income parents to send their children to private schools. The idea of these vouchers is based on the fact that public education is solemnly dependent on government subsidizing, which gets its money out of taxpayers pockets. So, if parents send their kids to private schools, they nevertheless are still paying taxes, as if their children were attending public schools.
Therefore, people with children in private schools, should be given a tuition tax deductions. Friedman developed his idea even further why not allow all the families to have choice between public and private education for their children? Although, the ground for implementation of educational voucher has been prepared long ago, for the first time such educational alternative was given to the families in State of Milwaukee. In 1990, Wisconsin Legislature and Republican Governor Tommy Thompson enacted the MPCP (Milwaukee Parental Choice Program), which allows low-income families to receive government vouchers for as much as $ 5. 943 to have their children enrolled in private schools. The number of students, whose parents took advantage of this vouchers program, has grown from 341 in 1990 to 15. 035 in 2004. Observers say that by year 2006 the number of such students might grow to as many as 40. 000.
Apparently, parents just love educational vouchers program. Eluanda Johnson of Cleveland says: When I got the letter saying she (her daughter) got a voucher, I was so happy I didn't know what to do. I feel like this is the best thing that ever happened to my child. I just want my child to have a good education.
I don't think that's asking for too much (Schoolchoiceinfo. org). Opponents of school choice tried to challenge vouchers program twice. The first time it happened in 1990, right after Wisconsin Legislature had enacted it. The second time they appealed to Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1995, saying that program contradicts American constitution, since private religious schools were also included in it. Yet, each time the members of Supreme Court had voted against banning the program.
One of main factors that influenced Courts decision was the fact that MPCP is overwhelmingly supported by majority of Milwaukee ans. Parents brush aside the considerations of Mpcp's doubtful constitutionality, when it comes to their children being able to get good education. In Florida educational vouchers programs are called A+Scholarships and McKay Scholarships. There was much controversy, surrounding introduction of these scholarships. About six court appeals took place since 2000, when these programs were made available to public.
First District Court of Appeal has decided on August 16, 2004 that A+Scholarship program violated Florida Constitution, which explicitly prohibits taxpayers funds to be used for financing private institutions. Yet, school choice supporters have now brought the case to Florida Supreme Court, so the final decision is still to be made. Jay Green and Marcus Winters in their article When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement take quite an aggressive stance, defending school choice: Florida's low-performing schools are improving in direct proportion to the challenge they face from voucher competition. These improvements are real, not the result of test gaming, demographic shifts, or the statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean. (Green, Jay and Winters, Marcus). These two individuals are very respected in Florida educational circles, the fact that they can so assertively criticize government-sponsored tests that meant to prove ineffectiveness of educational vouchers, shows that there is a strong popular support for school choice in Florida, even though this state isnt very popular place for gatherings of Bible thumper's. Let us analyze this issue at depth.
What is so appealing about vouchers to people that so wholeheartedly support them, according to statistics? The reason for this appears to be purely psychological if fat cats are able to have their children attending private schools, why cant we? There is no doubt that private schools offer much better quality education, if it wasnt so, private education wouldnt be so appealing. The freedom of choice is one of the main principles upon which American Constitution is based. Yet, on practical level, peoples choice is severely limited by many considerations, among which the most important is financial one. But do parents really choose?
As a matter of fact, private schools chose their students and no other way around. Parents can only petition to have their children enrolled and than its just a matter of whether it is going to be approved or not. It is not a secret that many private schools owners are really reluctant to admit colored children, as they believe that this would lower general educational level of their students. They use the example of American public schools with large percentage of Blacks and Hispanics that had deteriorated from places of learning into places where what children really learn is crime. Having taken this into account, itll appear that the main motivational factor in white parents support of educational vouchers is that they believe that quality of their childrens education directly depends on whether they are going to be surrounded by many colored students or not. It appears very doubtful that White racism will ever extinct, despite all governments efforts.
White parents have the right to wish their children the best but many people question whether racism can be allowed to play role in it Statistically, 45 % of all private schools are religious ones, where students are being told stories of world creation in 7 days, talking donkeys and other nonsense. American Constitution clearly states that that in this country Church and State are separated. Opponents of school vouchers rightly point out that the situation when public funds are being used to bolster religious education is unconstitutional. American Federation of Teachers supports parents rights to send their kids to Christian schools but it thinks that this is intolerable when public funds are used for this: public funding of private or religious education transfers precious tax dollars from public schools, which are free and open to all children, accountable to parents and taxpayers alike, and essential to our democracy, to private and religious schools that charge for their services, select their students on the basis of religious or academic or family or personal characteristics, and are accountable only to their boards and clients (AFT). Teachers are also concerned with the fact that religious schools can teach children of outdated morals but it cant really provide them with quality education, because this can only be accomplished when scientific principles are applied: advocates of public funding of private and religious schools have argued that "school choice" and the ensuing "competition" between public and private schools will improve public schools and student achievement. The evidence does not support this argument.
In contrast, the research clearly indicates that reducing class size or adopting scientifically based reading programs, for example, improves student achievement (AFT). In my opinion, there are many good points that AFT makes about school vouchers, yet it also appears that the real reason for teachers to be concerned with the issue is quite simple the more students attend private schools, the less there is need for public school teachers. The unions exist for no other reason but to protect its members jobs. In the same way pharmaceutical industry's official concern is helping people to stay healthy, but if universal cure for cancer was found, it would constitute a huge blow for this industry. There is no doubt that the practice of having school vouchers available to public has many unresolved issues. We witness phenomenon when something that totally contradicts American Constitution has gained so many supporters nation-wide.
Still, as long as we live in society that is ruled by law, the public opinion shouldnt influence adopting state policies. Only when government make changes to countrys Constitution, American educational system can be reformed. In this respect, opponents of school choice have a totally valid reason to be critical of educational vouchers. Instead, most the opponents indulge in emotionalism, which only makes position of school choice supporters more appealing to the public. Americans become increasingly dissatisfied with government bureaucracy, which shows many signs of incompetence, while handling the issues of public concern. Thats why, although criticism of school choice is fully legitimate, it nevertheless cant gain much popularity among citizens.
When government workers speak against vouchers, they only discredit their cause even more, because people subconsciously feel that there are probably other issues involved. Michael Apples article Are Vouchers Really Democratic? can serve as a good example of this. In it, author mentions many shortcomings of school choice initiative, yet what bothers him the most is that Voucher proposals do not stand alone. They are connected to other widespread attacks on public institutions and public employees (Apple). There are only handfuls of authors that make an effective case against school vouchers.
Among them is John Witte, who has done an extensive research on the subject. He rightly points out that numerous assignment school tests that effectively prove the better quality of private education are based on the principle of randomness. When inclusive technique is deployed to evaluate childrens performance, we get to see much different picture: The general conclusion is that there is no substantial difference over the life of the program between the Choice and MPS students, especially the low-income MPS students. On a positive note, estimates for the overall samples, while always below national norms, do not substantially decline as the students enter higher grades. This is not the normal pattern in that usually inner-city student average scores decline relative to national norms in higher grades (Witte, p. 236). Witte's approach is totally deprived of irrationality, which makes it especially valuable from scientific point of view.
He criticizes voucher system because, in his view, it wont benefit the system of American education as whole, as the factors that influence its quality arent necessary of educational nature. For example, he says that current American immigration policy has much more to do with maintaining educational level among students in this country than the issue of improving public educational facilities. Witte seems to be influenced by Bell Curve theory, which emphasizes biological factors, although he doesnt mention it in his work. Even though Witte is critical of school vouchers, he nevertheless recognizes parents right to have their children attending private schools, if that is what they want: choice can be a useful tool to aid families and educators in inner city and poor communities where education has been a struggle for several generations (Witte, p. 237). Another author, who had dedicated a great deal of time researching the issue of school choice, is Peter Cookson. In his book School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education he effectively proves the private schools do not have the moral right to be considered as superior to public ones.
The main reason for this is that privately owned schools are nothing but commercial enterprises. Private schools owners arent obliged to report about the educational methods, which are used on their premises, to the state officials. They are also track their students records with a great reluctance. Basically, people are encouraged to believe that such schools are much better because it simply cant be otherwise. Cookson rightly notices that the aura of many private schools superiority is artificially maintained. Author gives us a numerous examples of even religious schools being often founded by people with questionable past.
The most striking one is Alex's Academics of Excellence, which received close to $ 2. 8 million from the government, as part of voucher program, before its founder James Mitchell has been reported to have served 10 years in prison in 1971 for an attempted rape. The great danger lies in the fact that teachers in private schools do not have to provide employer with their criminal checks, which is a regular practice at public schools. Author says: Private schools are private; they are not common schools and they are not ex officio public institutions. They may or may not do public good, but from a policy perspective, creating public good belongs in the public sector (Cookson, p. 180). Cookson also finds it very disturbing that private schools promote the notion of exclusiveness among its students, whore are encouraged to despise children in public schools. This, of course, only adds to the problem of class inequality in this country.
Author calls it American little dirty secret. Were constantly told about the dangers of racism, while there is another, equally acute problem that many people arent even aware of a widening gap between rich and poor. According to Cookson, 56 % all the wealth in America is owned by 1 % of its population. Many private schools lack funds to provide their students with even basic facilities, needed for successful education process. There are numerous cases reported when children are being asked to bring their own toilet paper, as schools simply dont have enough money to provide it to students. Taking money prom public schooling will only worsen the situation.
Parents do have the choice to send their kids to private schools, but can they do it at the expense of others? Cookson makes a very good case against school vouchers when he says: The time has come to rethink and redesign public education not by invoking such back-to-the-future strategies as school vouchers and privatization but by creating a genuinely democratic public school system adequately funded and held to high standards. What we do not need is an unstable system of private schools - some good, some mediocre, some appalling - touting their virtue as they quietly go about the business of reproducing the very inequalities most Americans find repugnant (Cookson, p. 201). Personally, I think that school vouchers program has the right to exist only under following conditions: 1) No religious schools can be allowed to participate in it 2) Under no circumstances funds can be taken from public education system, so that few low-income families might enjoy the fact that their children are being accepted in the club 3) Private schools need to become the subjects of government inspections, just like public ones.
American government spends millions of dollars on non-essential programs, like helping Third World countries that never return back their debts, while conditions in many of our own public schools are often described as appalling. The issue of how private and public education system must interact is far too complex for us to take one-sided approach, while dealing with this issue. Still, there are things that we shouldnt even be allowed to argue about, such as whether it is acceptable to let the public schooling system to go astray, so that chosen few receive better quality education. As studies show, the majority of American people are really concerned about the issue of school vouchers, yet there seem to be only government bureaucrats participate in discussion about it, one side, and theoreticians of private schooling, on the other.
Yet, representatives of both sides prefer to send their kids to private schools Citizens need to take more active stance when it comes to deciding of what would benefit the quality of their children education the best. Bibliography: Apple, Michael Cannot vouch for vouchers Fighting Bob. com, April 14, 2004. January 15, 2005. web Cookson, Peter School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994 Greene, Jay A Survey of Results from Voucher Experiments: Where We Are and What We Know Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. July 11, 2000.
January 15, 2005. web Greene, Jay and Winters, Marcus When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. August 2003. January 15, 2005 web Gunn, Eric Voucher schools: the inside story Wisconsin Education Association Council. September 5, 1996. January 15, 2005.
web Findings from the Condition of Education: Public and Private Schools: How do They Differ? National Center For Education Statistics, U. S. Department of Education. 1997. January 15, 2005.
web Policy Debate: Do School Vouchers Improve the Quality of Education? Economics. Recourse Center. 2002. January 15, 2005. web Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Schoolchoiceinfo. org, 2002.
January 15, 2005. web A+ Opportunity Scholarship Program and McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program Schoolchoiceinfo. org, 2002. January 15, 2005.
web The Many Names of School Vouchers American Federation of Teachers. March 2001. January 15, 2005. web Witte, John The Milwaukee Voucher Experiment, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1999, pp. 236 - 7.
Free research essays on topics related to: school vouchers, school choice, religious schools, private schools, low income families
Research essay sample on School Choice Mitigates Educational Opportunities
