VoteMatch
Vouchers for school choice
POSITIONS
- Strongly Support means you believe: The government should not be in the business of running schools. State-funded vouchers should pay for privately-run education at private schools, parochial schools, charter schools, home-schooling, or whatever schools parents choose.
Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act sets the stage for terminating failing schools.
- Support means you believe: School choice helps the poor who would otherwise be stuck in failing schools. Why should only the elite be able to afford private school? Subsidize parents' school choices to foster equality, as long as the school respects separation of church and state, and meets basic state standards. Charter schools are a good compromise.
- Oppose means you believe: Continue experimenting with charter schools, and with public school choice, but only as a limited experiment, and no vouchers. We should create pressure to improve our public schools, not abandon them.
Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act is an unfunded mandate.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe: Public schools are an important component of American society. Improve public schools rather than destroying them with vouchers. More teachers, smaller classes, more funding - then parents will choose public schools.
This question is looking for your views on how large a role the government should play in running our school systems. However you answer the above question would be similar to your response to these statements:
- Extend school choice to private as well as public schools
- Allow taxes to fund parochial schools
- Extend charter schools nationwide
Support "No Child Left Behind"
How do you decide between "Support" and "Strongly Support" when you agree with both the descriptions above? (Or between "Oppose" and "Strongly Oppose").
The strong positions are generally based on matters of PRINCIPLES where the regular support and oppose positions are based on PRACTICAL matters.
If you answer "No Opinion," this question is not counted in the VoteMatch answers for any candidate.
If you give a general answer of Support vs. Oppose, VoteMatch can more accurately match a candidate with your stand.
Don't worry so much about getting the strength of your answer exactly refined, or to think too hard about the exact wording of the question -- like candidates!
- Strongly Support means you believe in the principle of limiting government's role in schooling.
- Support means you believe in school choice for practical reasons of improving education.
- Oppose means you believe more practical improvements could be made by focusing on public school improvement.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe in the principle of public education.
BACKGROUND
School Choice
‘School Choice’ generally refers to a school district allowing parents to decide which school within the district to send their kids to.
The political issue is whether to allow the choice to include private schools, parochial schools, and home schooling at taxpayer expense.
Taxpayer funding of parochial schools potentially violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.
Taxpayer funding of private schools is controversial because it subsidizes parents who are currently paying for private schools themselves, and are usually more wealthy than the average public school family.
Charter Schools
‘Charter schools’ are publicly-funded and publicly-controlled schools which are privately run. They are usually required to adhere to fewer district rules than regular public schools.
Vouchers
‘Vouchers’ are a means of implementing school choice -- parents are given a ‘voucher’ by the school district, which entitles them to, say, $4,000 applicable to either public school or private school tuition.
The value of the voucher is generally lower than the cost of one year of public education (which averages $5,200), so private schools (where tuition averages $8,500) may require cash payment in addition to the voucher.
Education Buzzwords
Generally, any reference to ‘standards,’ or especially to dealing with ‘failing schools’, implies support of school vouchers.
Generally, any reference to ‘smaller classrooms,’ or especially to ‘building public schools’, implies opposition to funding private schools.
Further decoding of education buzzwords are detailed under Education.
K-12 Education Statistics
- Total spending is $260 billion, (7% federal; the rest split state & local) rising by 5% per year.
- Student population is 50 million,
rising slowly (1 million per year) since 1984.
- Public school spending is $5,200 per student, staying about even with inflation.
- Parochial school costs $4,200 per student,
not discounting church-provided buildings & other subsidies.
- Private school costs $8,500 per student,
not discounting scholarships or other financial aid.
- 90% attend public schools; about 6 million attend private & parochial schools.
- 78% of schools have Internet access; 97% plan to by the year 2000.
- 27% of classrooms have Internet access; lower in poor and minority schools.
- College Statistics are detailed on the ‘Education’ page.