I'm all for vouchers under the following conditions:

1) 80% of the kids don't end up in religious schools

2) The distribution of vouchers is progressive - i.e. poor kids get the most, rich kids - WTF do they need vouchers for?

It doesn't seem like the pro voucher crowd even see these as issues, much less seem to address them with proposed solutions.

Perhaps I'm wrong, in which case I'd love to have some pointers or explanations of the above.

Until then, no way, no how.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that there's no reason those vouchers can't be used in religious schools. In fact, denying them to religious schools is religious discrimination and fundamentally un-American. This issue has already been addressed, ad nauseum, by pro-choice advocates, and has been ruled on, definitively, by the courts. You can no more discriminate against religious schools in K-12 education than you can against religious schools when it comes to student loans, the GI Bill, Pell grants, or other areas of government funding for education.

As for denying them to "the rich": since almost every serious school choice proposal has so far been targeted specifically to lower-income families, this is a strange thing to say. It has, again, been addressed exhaustively by every serious pro-choice organization.

I'd suggest, JC, that you should spend some time at the Inistitute for Justice web site, or better yet, just head on over to the definitive site, www.schoolchoiceinfo.org.

JC, Dean gave you the calm and rational. I'll give you the not-so rational.

Who are you to tell people where they can send their kids to school?

Reverse it and see how it sounds: "I'll support vouchers only if I can FORCE 80% of the students to attend religious schools."

It's not complicated. A parent is given a voucher. They get to decide which school to attend. PARENTS get to decide. YOU don't get to decide FOR THEM. The government doesn't get to decide--as Dean made plain, that is a violation of the First Amendment.

I don't understand where this irrational fear of religious schools comes from or a legitimate basis for an anti-religious agenda. It's UNAMERICAN!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. (Emphasis mine)

The fact that this question was even brought to the Supremes was ridiculous.

Regarding the "rich kids" argument. They aren't IN public schools now. And if they are, their parents pay MORE taxes. If they get a voucher to cover a portion of their tuition costs, that seems like the LEAST we can do when they're paying 5 or 6 figures in property taxes. Their property taxes are funding the vouchers for 10 other kids so our tax burdens are lower. We should be THANKING the rich, not punishing them.

Mrs. du Toit:

I just gotta say - I LOVE YOU!!!

Not in a gay way, not that there's anything wrong with that...

I feel like you are my lost twin sister, sister!!!

:)

Well, I'm saying they have no choice but to send their kids to religious school because it's pretty much the only choice in their price range. And that is a major flaw in the system design from my point of view.

I remember vividly the discussion about vouchers when I was going to a Christian School way back in sixth grade (in the early seventies). And the issue had NOTHING to do with a higher quality of education, rather the use of public money for religious indoctrination. The school I went to had the bottom of the barrel math and science education (biology wasn't even taught). But it sure had a top of the line religious education.

Again, I'm not against school choice. I'm against unleashing these parents where their ONLY choice is essentially a religious school. This seems like a rather silly, Taliban like result. Thinly disguised as a "good idea".

So get off your high horse, Mrs. du Toit. I've been there. I've seen it first hand. Been following this issue a very long time (my brother works for focus on the family, so I have mole). I, as a voter and as a reasonably large contributor to the public funds, do not wish to see this happen with "my" public funds. And that's my right, in case you haven't noticed.

Oh and the "prohibit the free exercise thereof" argument is pretty lame on its face. It only makes you sound like an someone hopped up on Oxycontin.

And as to rich kids argument, I feel your compassion. Anyone who pays 5 or 6 figures in property taxes trully is hurting and desperately needs to be helped out.

I wish you had 1/10 of that compassion for the 50 million without any health care at all, or perhaps the millions of kids who actually go hungry each day.

But I guess you have your priorities straight. Charity starts at the top.

(yes, that's just being snarky)

As to a serious response to Dan, I'll check them out. But we're talking a serious amount of infrastructure here. Maybe there'll be a miracle of the market and the schools will sprout up over night, and the distribution of vouchers will be progressive. But this isn't the rhetoric I hear, regardless of what may be happening in the background. Like Mrs. du Toit, I hear the Christian Right here loud and clear. And since these schools aren't subject to teaching standards requirements or even No Child Left Behind testing, it seems like a system tailor made to do the absolute wrong thing.

Seems like if you don't take care of the testing issue, we'll end up with a lot of people knowing nothing about Evolution and genetics.

Boy, won't that be a great labor pool.

So you're saying what? That parents will be critical enough consumers to remove their children from inadequate public school environments but not critical enough to recognize when the religious schools are inadequate?

Trust the parents. PERIOD.

I love you too, Rosemary.

Nothing needs to spring up "overnight."

The school choice systems currently in operation have all panned out fairly well, without the dire predictions of harm from the anti-choice people coming to pass. The public schools do NOT deteriorate, they improve because they're forced to change if they want to keep students. Religious schools do NOT deteriorate, religious conversions do NOT become pandemic, and other private schools DO eventually come into business.

Not that other schools need to come into business. JUST being able to switch which public school you go to has been proven to be helpful. Throwing the religious schools into the mix just expands choice and improves performance by the public schools. There's no need for new schools to spring into existence, although over time--after a few years--they do.

Empowerment of parents is empowering them to say, "SEE YA!"

Bottom line: trust the parents. Trust freedom of choice!

JC,

For a while there you did a pretty good job of disguising it, but what it comes down to is that you don't like religious schools and thus you'd rather the kiddies remain stuck in horrid public schools than have them "suffer" religious education.

And that, my friends, is what it comes down to on the philosophic level - the opposition on this level is entirely based upon anti-religious animus. The other part of the opposition is union bosses (and their pocketed politicians) fearing being cut off from the gravey train.

There is no logic, justice, charity or humanity upon the anti-choice side of the argument....just hidebound bigotry and greed.

Right. That's the ticket.

Look, let me make this perfectly clear. If the private schools are held to the same standards that we are pushing on our public schools, and we have tests to ensure that they are doing so, I don't have a problem with religious schools.

Oh, and y'all should read the fascinating study of Chile's nationwide school voucher system that Brad DeLong pointed out on his web site.

If you're seriously interested in a discussion, I have a copy squirreled away that I'll "lend" you if you really want to discuss it. But the bottom line of probably the most comprehensive study under the best conditions possible for vouchers to succeed is:

In 1981, Chile introduced nationwide school choice by providing vouchers to any student wishing to attend private school. As a result, more than 1,000 private schools entered the market, and the private enrollment rate increased by 20 percentage points, with greater impacts in larger, more urban, and wealthier communities. We use this differential impact to measure the effects of unrestricted choice on educational outcomes. Using panel data for about 150 municipalities, we find no evidence that choice improved average educational outcomes as measured by test scores, repetition rates, and years of schooling. However, we find evidence that the voucher program led to increased sorting, as the best public school students left for the private sector.

Bottom line is, unless you actually have proof that this plan is going to work - not just "faith" - then I don't want to venture into a wonderful adventure from which we could suffer significant damage.

But I'm guessing that most of you out there put your beliefs way, way above the facts and don't really care what the data says.

JC,

Hold the private schools to public school standards? Why on earth would you want to do that? Don't ya get it? The public schools we are concerned with ARE AN UTTER DISASTER.

No, no, no - what we insist is that the public schools come up to private school standards and if they don't, we provide vouchers so that the kids can attend the private schools.

The facts do not in any was support the public-sector employee union propaganda that there is no improvement in student achievement in private school voucher programs - every iota of evidence shows that the kids, regardless of social background, do better in private schools than they do in the really horrible public schools they come out of. The only way you get a "no improvement" thing is if you put the best public schools into the mix - the public schools in Brentwood are probably fine, but no one is advocating voucher programs for Brentwood...what we are advocating choice programs for is places like Detroit.

If you are opposed to vouchers being used for religous schools, are you then also opposed to food stamps being used to buy kosher food?

JC - If you want to start a school where the students are taught that there is no Higher Power than themselves, no higher morality than their own whim except for nanny state altruism, that everything that happens is either random or sommebody's fault, and that teaches arithmetic by letting students juggle numbers till they grok their essence, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to pay for it if you aren't willing to pay for the sort of school I would want a child of mine to attend.

So, you're telling me that standards are required for public schools, but we're just going to take it on "faith" that the private schools are better? Yea, I'm sure the 15-20K a year schools are superb. I'm talking about the ones that are actually affordable and teaching crap like creationism as a "science" (or it's bastard son Intelligent Design). I've been to these religious based private schools, and that's the kind of crap they teach. I was "taught" - seriously - that there was a ring of ice around the earth and when it melted, that was Noah's flood. The crap I learned about how "evolution was wrong" made me roll around laughing around the floor - and this was when I was in 7th grade.

Again, I'm NOT opposed to vouchers for a religious school IF (and ONLY IF) they meet the same standards we're imposing on the public schools. If you're living in a fantasy land where we don't measure, well then I think you're simply a fool.

I can't believe this. Here I am a LIBERAL arguing for school testing against a bunch of CONSERVATIVES. This is pretty darn surreal.

I guess Liberal really is the new conservative.

And, I'll just note, that not a single one of you have even mentioned the Chilean study on vouchers. You really, really should take a look at it. As I said, I have a copy squirreled away that I can lend you if you don't want to spend the $5.

This is a study of the 20 YEAR experiment with vouchers in Chilean society. This is the BEST possible experimental system for proving vouchers do what you claim that you could possibly ask for.

The result?

Simply stratification. A two class society.

NO improvement in test scores.

I think that just the facts are enough to call into question you're ideas on vouchers. Certainly I'd be willing to hear arguments about why the study came to this conclusion and why your ideas will work.

But right now, you're operating on FAITH. And quite frankly, I don't want to trust my future to your faith.

I've already seen where this kind of strategy ends up.