> The Public schools in America stink. They are drastically overfunded. It's been complained that school vouchers would reduce funding for public schools. Well, by all means. The system is failing. Let it fail. The public schools spend million campaigning for and against propositions and candidates. They've become a political entity.
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> It's been said the private schools which take vouchers would not be accountable for how they spend the money. Not true. They would have the best accountability possible-the parents. Rather than saying that the government decides which schools are bad, and which schools are worthy of being funded, parents could have the choice of where to put their children, and how their tax dollars are spent.
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> The problems that plague the public schools are incomptence and lack of accountability. The teacher's union in America is incredibly powerful. All teachers are forced to pay union dues, whether they chose to join or not. And the unions constantly fight for more funding. If the government opened up the system to allow parents to decide how their education dollars would be spent, the public schools would be forced to change in order to survive. Some, probably wouldn't. But I'm less concerned about the system than I am about education in America.
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> Sure, the money would also most likely help parents whose children are already in private school. But don't they deserve to be helped? It's a big investment to put your kids through a school which you pay for... and which you're paying for twice, through taxes. They're already paying money to the government for education. Why shouldn't they receive the benefits?
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> Continuing to throw money at the public schools won't fix them. Both candidates for president have promised to fill the Pentagon with truckloads of thousand dollar bills, but that isn't the answer for our military either. The best way to improve education is by accountability, and the best kind of accountability is the one in which parents, rather than the government, decide for themselves.
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> Mark"I'm right, and the rest of the world is wrong!"N

I stated my views on this topic in an earlier post, so I won't repeat myself. However, I will pose one question to you, MarkN. How will your plan help the children whose parents cannot possibly afford to pay any extra money for education? In California, the voucher proposal that recently got voted down was for $4,000. After you add up all the extra fees, a lot of private schools cost more than $4,000. If you do away with public education for all, America's citizens will become even more stupid. I say this because, if you privatize the school system, you can no longer legally require that all children go to school. If that happened, you would see that the current public education system is better than none at all.

Ell"Not so narrow minded that I would even pretend to believe that I am right and the rest of the world is wrong"myruh