School Vouchers

One of President George W. Bush's pet projects, school vouchers, has come under scrutiny of late due to student complaints in Florida. The program, meant to provide students in poor or troubled school districts with a means of obtaining a quality education, uses taxpayer dollars to fund the private education of selected applicants. According to a Nov. 4 CNN.com article, nearly one in four students accepted into voucher programs in Florida have left the private schools they had been allowed to attend in favor of their previous failing schools. Some hail this news as a sign that the voucher program was doomed from the start; the truth, unfortunately, is not so simple.

This trend is troubling on several levels. Students should not be allowed to return to their original school after only two months of attending the private one; two months, relatively, is not enough time to begin benefiting from the new school. These students, and more importantly their parents, have to understand that it will take longer than a few weeks to get the best out of a program like this, or even know if it is working. Though sending a student to a private school far from home will certainly interfere with that student's social life and sense of belonging, they must understand that the chance to improve their education is priceless.

If a program like this is going to work, it needs to be analyzed and assessed properly, with appropriate attention given to the long-term academic effects of a voucher system. Checks must be in place to ensure the educational, social, and financial integrity of the voucher system remains intact; parents cannot always be relied upon to act as a check on their children's lack of foresight, so institutional ones must apply. As part of receiving a voucher, students must commit to at least one full academic year, and that commitment must be seen as a legally binding agreement.

It is no secret that the new kid in school sometimes has trouble adjusting to a new school environment. The voucher program does not have a monopoly on making students feel awkward or out of place in a different school. A student in the CNN.com story lamented that his new routine was foreign, but this is to be expected when transferring to a new school. This does not mean he should have the option of dropping out of a taxpayer-funded program prematurely, particularly when parents of other students attending the private institution have to pay out of their pocket.

And that, perhaps, is the most troubling aspect of this program. While the public should certainly fund educational programs, they should be limited to public schools, and in particular, the failing public schools that vouchers provide a band-aid for. Once again, those in power are treating the symptoms, rather than the illness. Simply paying for students to attend private schools does not solve the problems facing public schools themselves, and the voucher program detracts from the government's ability to provide aid to ailing public schools.

Vouchers are a temporary solution to an enormous problem - the deterioration of public schools in America. Funneling public money for inner-city students to partake in the privilege of suburban private school education has the appearance of governmental benevolence, but truly belies how ignored and neglected the troubled public schools are, particularly in heavily urban areas.

Should the government honestly want to reform education by giving the students and their families a choice, it should start with giving them the choice to stay at home and earn a top-flight education with friends in comfortable surroundings. To continue the present course of action is to sell out the future of public education.

A program like this will be somewhat of a success in the short run - provided the students participating make an effort to succeed - but if this program is to become a common practice, it needs to be accurately studied. The temporary solution is to keep students in their new schools for the entire academic year. The permanent one is to make the local school as viable an option as the private one.