Vouchers for Education or Religion?
...od of time as well as comparisons of grade point averages and graduation rates, the results will be more extensive and therefore reliable while proving the system more effective. Opponents contest that vouchers only impact and benefit a select group of students while at the same time deplete struggling public schools of the money they would need to improve. They argue that vouchers remove students for whom a portion of money is allocated towards the schools to upkeep and possibly better themselves, those schools in which the majority of students in the United States remain. In the article “School Voucher Showdown”, the studies claiming to find that vouchers push public schools to improve out of competition were challenged. Opponents readily pointed out that in those studies, improvement was highest over a course of three years but has since then leveled out and shown little promise of further academic evolution (Jost, 1). Vouchers violate the separation of church and state, without due reason, since they are not substantially proven to be effective in improving all aspects of the education they claim to provide for the students to which they grant tuition fees. An article in Educational Week by Alan Richard reported on the most recent ruling of the Florida Supreme Courts to discontinue, for now, the use of educational vouchers in that state; they are not alone in their ruling. “About three dozen states have constitutional provisions that is some way prohibit public funding of religious education. Those provisions are often referred to as ‘Blaine amendments’…” (Richard, 2). The most troubling part of educational vouchers is that they defy the Constitution and supply public funds, whether indirectly through parent choice or not, to religious institutions. I attended a parochial school for the first nine years of my education and can testify that while I did receive a solid foundation for the rest of my education, religion was very much a part of my life while attending that school. Although the schools accepted into the voucher system are required to admit all students regardless of race, gender, and religious affiliation, there is little possibility that, in a religious surrounding such as the vouchers offer an opportunity to experience, a child will not have the specific religion of that school enforced. Alongside the general principles of Math and English a religion “course” and religious practices are parts of a parochial schools’ curriculum through out the school year. Some of the families who have accepted aide have remained in the public schools system but have relocated to a different school than the poorly performing one that their children were attending. Whether or not voucher users remain in public schools or attend parochial or private schools, the money given by vouchers deplete funds away from the public schools that need it the most. How can those schools that need to improve so drastically be expected to do so without proper financial support? Tax payers’ money is meant to be directed to support public funds and projects yet, through this voucher program, those dollars are not being properly put to use. The voucher system targets only a specific group of social classes (lower and lower middle) and picks and appoints to whom these grants of, in some cases, three- thousand dollars, go to but do not offer these same educational opportunities and funding to all families. It is understandable that the low income families who receive the voucher aide are attempting to better their child’s educational opportunities by removing them from the failing public schools of their area. Vouchers are attempting to better put within reach the opportunities that these families have little hope of obtaining for their children otherwise. However, vouchers and the schools participating in the educational voucher systems have produced inconclusive results, at best, in increasing the performance of students...