DeSantis--School Vouchers For All!

I support public schools with my taxes. I don’t support them by sending my kids there. I already applied for these vouchers and would welcome the 16k rebate for a year or two before some means testing is introduced.

 

That is a good bill. Giving parents an eject button from the public education system and the financial means to pursue what is best for their children is a what a free society looks like.

 

Yes just like all other tax monies and to your second point certainly can happen.

How about we do it like the United Way and let each tax payer choose where and how their tax dollars are spent in education. To really give people a choice. There can even be a don’t care do what you want with it selection.

 

Not very LGBTQ-friendly of you. Many would say, "transphobic."

 

A cynical observer of politics in general and DeSantis in particular might think it was because the owners of for profit schools stand to make a lot of money and they will be "encouraged" to be grateful to the one who got them the public monies.

 

Yeah, sort of like what is already happening with Dems and the Teachers unions?

 

Again, we have no way of knowing what actually goes on in a voucher school because that information is not available to parents nor taxpayers. Public institutions have publicly available budgets.

 

How School Voucher Programs Hurt Students

 

So much empathy.

 

Man up and stop being such a crybaby.

 

Maybe you have better examples. Illegal drugs doesn't belong in the conversation, and subsidized housing comes with built in price controls. It's almost seems as if your hyper- partisanship is compelling you to nonsensical facts.

 

NOTHING will EVER convince supporters that, when all is taken into consideration, vouchers are the absolutely wrong way to reform our educational system.

 

Sounds like a good idea until you think it through, accounting for factors such as . . . . parents. Like vouchers, it would just be another matter of catering to the middle/upper class while screwing those with less.

 

Fell into river's trap, I see.

 

From the article . . .

Aren’t private schools supposed to be elite educational opportunities? When it comes to private schools accepting voucher payments, the answer is clearly no. That’s because elite private schools with strong academics and large endowments often decline to participate in voucher plans. Instead the typical voucher school is a financially distressed, sub-prime private provider often jumping at the chance for a tax bailout to stay open a few extra years.

In Wisconsin, 41% of voucher schools have closed since the program’s inception in 1990. And that includes the large number of pop-up schools opening just to cash in on the new voucher pay-out. For those pop-up schools, average survival time is just 4 years before their doors close for good.

Here’s another problem: for most students, using a voucher is a temporary choice to begin with. In states that have reported data on the question–Indiana, Louisiana, and Wisconsin—roughly 20% of students leave voucher programs each year, either because they give up the payment or because schools push them out. In Florida, where vouchers just expanded, that number is even higher: around 30% per year in pre-expansion data.

Vouchers are largely tax subsidies for existing private school families, and a tax bailout for struggling private schools. They have harmful test score impacts that persist for years, and they’re a revolving door of school enrollment. They’re public funds that support a financially desperate group of private schools, including some with active discriminatory admissions in place.

 

Damn data vs talking points

 

I'd like to think that evidence of failing schools might change some minds, but by that time the damage will have been done. State Depts of Education will be forced to pick up the pieces and rebuild public schools. Those who believe in vouchers/privatization either a) have political or financial stake in the game or b) have been duped by those with political/financial stakes.