Mixed feelings about this issue. Obviously some districts are in far worse shape than others and parents should be offered a viable alternative. My number one choice would be a seat in a district that isn’t too far from them and isn’t having the same issues.
I’ve mixed feelings about private and parochial schools, & don’t some offer their own vouchers or tuition assistance for deserving students? Would such an institution, if receiving government funds, be required to teach ideas that, if a parochial school, go against their values?
Government programs tend to go from serving the needy to any number of individuals wanting to make it for them, too. Medicaid for those lacking any other means of paying their bills?
I encounter a number of individuals who whine they should be able to get that, too—even when offered group health benefits. Government tuition vouchers for the neediest of students whose families cannot afford private schools is one thing.
But would our tax dollars also be used to help families who simply don’t want their kids exposed to minority children to attend these schools? Eventually it gets to be if it’s offered to one, it must be offered to all. IMO It’s best to let the secular & private parochial schools decide who enters & provide their own tuition assistance to needy students.
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Just curious about how some people think vouchers would work?
#1 Are private and religious schools going to be able to turn down students with vouchers or will they be required to take all applicants?
#2 Once politicians get involved, will a schools ability to accept vouchers be conditions on Teachers meeting government determined education requirements?
#3 Will vouchers allow any parent of a public school student to transfer their student to another public schools and will the school be required to accept the student? Let’s say elementary school “A” has a capacity of 500 students and has utilization of 480 students. 300 Students from a neighboring district sign up for to attend school “A”, that is 780 students in school “A” causing overcrowding or will school “A” say run a lottery for the open 20 seats meaning?
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.WW, PHS
A lot of high income kids attend public school in this part of Pennsylvania. The rich can generally live in the area and thus the school district of their choice and they tend to flock to the better school districts.
It is the rich that live in the big cities that generally ship their kids to private school to avoid both the economic and racially “undesirable” students.
In Pennsylvania, other than the Philadelphia area, that goal can be accomplished merely by the judicious selection of a home site.
This makes sense. I live in LA so that’s my frame of reference. Unless it’s Beverly Hills High School or Brentwood High… they are paying 30k a year at Sierra Canyon or Oaks Christian.
In Pennsylvania, if you want an economically desirable and all white school system it is easy as moving to the right address. I live in just such a district.
So what would you suggest as a solution? Here’s the problem, parents are required to send their child to an institution every day until that child graduates from high school or reaches a specific age (I believe that age is now 21?). Anyway, if the school is teaching things a parent doesn’t agree with, if the school isn’t safe to be in, if the heating system doesn’t work, if the child is being bullied, etc, the child is still required to attend. If the child doesn’t attend, if the parent deems the school an unsafe environment, the child will be deemed truant and if the parents don’t put the child back in that unsafe environment they run the risk of losing their child. And all the while, that parent is still required to pay that school. Do you know that under current truancy laws, a parent is not allowed to decide if their child is too sick to attend school? If a parent calls in their child absent it’s now an unexcused absence. In most states after 3 unexcused absences, your child is truant and DHS is called in. If you sent your child to a daycare center and paint was falling from the ceilings, the other children were beating on your child and the facility wasn’t properly heated you’d have the choice to remove your child and send them to another daycare center, and you certainly wouldn’t be expected to continue to pay that daycare center. However, once your child enters that school, you not only lose your parental rights to keep your child safe, you have to pay whether or not you use that facility.
“It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end.” --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Navigation of the Mississippi, 1791.