“School vouchers are evil.”
“Why?”
“Because they take money out of the public school system.”
“I’m not
so sure your math works out there, buddy.”
“Come on. The money
goes with the voucher. Voucher out—money
out. Easy.”
“Mm-m, not really, no. You’re leaving a whole bunch of money on the
table there, sport.”
“What, are you using some sort of new math?”
“Nope. I’m just
saying, you’re missing some key pieces of the puzzle.”
“Oh, do so enlighten me, master.”
“First, you know I sent my two to a private faith-based school, right?”
“That explains a lot.”
“Watch it, you!
Look, back in the 90's, it cost me $4500 for tuition per year to educate BOTH of my
children at a time when the county had a recorded rate of $9000 per child to
educate one in the public system. Now, I
didn’t get a break in my property taxes to offset my kids’ tuition, and I’m
pretty sure you nor anyone else did either.
So where did that $18,000 per year that my children would have cost the
system, go? We might be surprised.”
“Wait a minute. You
spent $4500 for two and it cost $9000 per head in the county system?”
“You’re doing fine, drop your landing gear, but keep your
nose up.”
“Smartass. So, you’re
saying that by taking your two out of the system, the system was $18,000 to the
good, per year?”
“Ding, ding, ding. We
have a winnuh! You just have to do the
math to find the fallacy in arguing against vouchers by way of draining the
system of supposed scarce funds. Heck,
if they offered vouchers to every kid, imagine all that leftover cash they’d
have on hand. Think the teachers might
get a piece?”
“Doubt it. Since the public schools would be empty. Okay, so it’s
not just about the money. What about the
education? These faith based outfits don’t
have to adhere to any state defined curricula or standards.”
“They meet standards.
Just not the standards defined by the state. Now, for complete disclosure, I transferred my two
to public high school from ninth grade on.
My daughter saw a classmate get his scalp laid open with a box cutter on
the first day. I told her, 'welcome to public school, pumpkin.' She maintained an A average and earned a full
scholarship to a top shelf private college.
So, I’m guessing that little unregulated school did something right,
huh?”
“I don’t know, I’m still not convinced that’s the way we
should go. I mean, our schools are
falling apart at the seams. But if what
you say is true, then there’s no way we can go wrong with vouchers. Just issue a thousand and maybe a few schools
can get new roofs.”
“Go now, grasshopper.
Go now, and tell the world what you have seen.”
“You know, there are days when I really… really hate you.”
