Tuesday, May 22, 2007

SLCSpin, Vouchers, and a two-tier educational system

Apparently, Kim Birmingham told channel 2 that vouchers would create a two-tier educational system.

Ethan at SLCSpin says that we already have a two-tier educational system:

There is already a two tiered system.

There are schools poor people CAN attend

and

schools poor people CANNOT attend.


There are two problems with this reasoning in supporting school vouchers.

#1. There will still be schools poor kids can attend, and schools poor kids can't attend. The difference will be that the poor kids will be paying for both classifications of schools.

#2. Much like HB174, point #2 ammends point #1. There will actually be three teirs of schools. The first tier will be schools that poor kids can attend. Rich kids will still attend these schools. These schools will be regulated by the government. The second tier will be schools in which some poor kids and rich kids can attend, but many poor kids cannot attend. These schools will also be regulated by the government, because they are accepting government money. The last tier is the group that will only be attended by rich kids. They wil remain free of government regulation, because they refuse money from the government.

-Bob

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what? This doesn't address Ethan's main point which is the status quo public school system is segregated so anti-voucherites need to find another reason to oppose vouchers.

JM Bell said...

How come the pro-voucher types always post as Anon?

I agree with you, Bob. I think that using public money to partially fund the attendance fees to a private school is wrongheaded.

Aside from the fact that private schools account for around 3% of Utah students, and, most private schools show little movement toward campus expansion, I wonder where these "lucky little poor kids" are actually going to attend.

So, add to this the simple fact that private schools cost more than 3k a year to attend, where do the poor parent find the extra thousands a year to pay for tuition when wages are remaining stagnant. Should two income families add a couple more jobs to make it work, taking them away from the family even further? Where's the family values in that?

I believe that ultimately, these pro-voucher groups will become private school contractors and owners whose tuitions generally match the voucher caps.

Anyone who thinks that I'm being a paranoid pessimist, just look at the way certain Republican legislators have molested the charter school system for massive financial gain.

Anonymous said...

Ummm.. if poor people don't pay taxes (income tax provides for education) then how can they pay for the rich kids school?