Kirsi Halonen
Engl 1106
Argument Paper
April 12, 2011
Audience: My classmates and the instructor
Purpose: to persuade
Educational Voucher System: Everyone Would Benefit
I believe the time has come for our country to implement the Educational Voucher System. When I was growing up, the local public school was the only option. There was no incentive for this school to do a good job teaching children. Today, there are other options, such as charter and private schools. The voucher system would open up these options to everyone. Traditionally, the government decides what school children will attend, based on where they live. Tax payers pay for this education. If a parent decides to send their child to a private or charter school, they are left footing the bill for the tuition. In the voucher system, a voucher would be issued for the child’s tuition and the parents would be free to choose what school the child attends and therefore, what school would get the education dollars. Because this system is a relatively new concept in our country, it is not in force everywhere. Implementing this system nationwide really makes sense. Voucher systems improve schools, benefit children from all walks of life, while also offering teachers more opportunities.
Voucher systems improve school quality through competition. Because competition forces schools to improve, there will be academic improvement in public schools where the voucher system is implemented. Studies in areas that have started using the voucher system are showing improvement in the schools. One program, named EdChoice, was implemented in Ohio. Although opponents may think that educational vouchers hurt the public school system, studies such as the one by Dr Forster have shown the opposite to be true. Dr Greg Forster, who has a Ph.D. with Distinction in Political Science from Yale, has done extensive studies on voucher system results in the US. In an analysis of the EdChoice program, Dr. Forster acknowledges “This study adds to a large body of empirical research that consistently finds vouchers improve academic outcomes at public schools.” (5). With the voucher system, the parents have the option of moving their child into a more suitable school and therefore removing the funding from the school that is not doing well. This prospect of losing funding motivates schools to improve their programs and to do a better job teaching our children or face losing money. When competition forces schools to do a better job, our children are the ones who benefit.
In addition to improving public schools, the voucher system would benefit children from all areas, all income levels and all academic levels. Parents could make choices based on their child’s abilities and interests. Parents could choose what school has the programs that would best serve their child. For example, if a child excels in math, but is struggling in English, a parent could choose a school that has an advanced math program and excellent English tutors, improving their child’s education. In this way, the voucher system gives parents more control over the knowledge and skills their children will learn. It will also get them more involved in their children’s education by letting them choose where their child is educated. This system would also make private schools more attainable to low income families It would give these families the opportunity to send their children to better schools. Without the voucher system, if a school was not performing up to the parent’s standards, the only two choices that the parents had were to uproot the whole family and move to a new district, or pay out of pocket for a private or charter school. These are options that are not normally realistic for low income families If parents are already supporting public school with their tax money, and paying private school tuition, they are basically double paying, leaving this option closed to many families. In the voucher system, all students have access to a school that has appropriate programs for them.
The voucher system will not only benefit students, but will also benefit teachers, by opening up more opportunities to them. No longer will teachers only have the choice to teach at a public school, which is their only option at this time in most areas. Even though education is a huge industry, teachers now are very limited in their options. With the growth of private and charter schools come many more opportunities for people in the teaching profession. This is sure to attract younger people considering a career in teaching. Teachers in private and charter schools would get recognized and promoted for their achievements, not simply seniority, which is an attractive prospect to a lot of teachers. Because charter and charter schools are not held to agreements with public unions, they can hire, fire and promote based on their criteria (like performance). If there are more of these schools in existence, a teacher will have a choice of which kind of structure they would like to work in. These different opportunities will not only attract more teachers, but give them more performance incentives.
Although the voucher system has some opponents, their fears are based on the unknown. We need to look towards the areas that the system is already in place in to address these fears. One of the fears of people who oppose the system is that the public schools will all close and there will be no more public schools for children to attend. While I would imagine that some of the worst performing public schools will close, the vast majority of schools will simply improve, and in turn, attract more students. Because good public schools could attract some students from other districts, they will end up receiving more money than they do in our current system. Another fear of opponents is that the lowest performing students will fall between the cracks – that the low performing schools will close and others will not take these children. But, in a good school, this student that is low performing will benefit from better programs and become a better student. This is the type of student who will benefit greatly from this system.
All in all, an educational voucher system will improve our public schools, help students achieve academic success and opens up many new opportunities for teachers. As you can see, the educational voucher system clearly benefits all involved, we really need to start moving forward to implement this system nation wide.
Works Cited
Forster, Greg. A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Affect Public Schools. School Choice Issues in Depth . Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, 08-2009. Web. 8 Apr 2011.
