School Voucher Proposals Seem to Be a Bit of a Scam

I think you'll be hearing a l lot about school vouchers so I decided to check it out.

Here's the interesting thing, when I decided I wanted to write about this topic, I was FOR school vouchers. Now, not so much.

The concept of school vouchers is pretty simple; "X" amount of dollars is allowed for that kid's education, with the hopes that schools will compete for that money and that that kid can go to a school that best suits them.  It seems pretty straight up but there are problems.

The biggest problem is accountability. I kind of don't have a problem with this. It seems to me that if you send your kid to a school that teaches them alt facts and/or doesn't teach them at all, that's on you.  Sorry, don't mean to be cruel, but you could certainly take a few minutes and research a school online.

The reverse of the first problem is that in a lot of cases, you're just underwriting a rich kids private school. You would see a lot of "voucher + cash" schools show up.

One of the strongest reasons people want vouchers is to send their kids to religious schools. This would pretty much be a separation of church and state problem. There's something hinky about state funds being funneled into a church that makes me wary.

One of the biggest reasons push for voucher systems is understandable, but not realistic. It's thought that if you push for vouchers, your kid could go to a school that specializes in science, or robots, or plumbing or whatever. The problem is, that does not happen except in the largest of areas.  Think about it simply, if Tahoka went voucher, how many schools do you think they'd get to chose from? Not many would be the answer. It's really doubtful that a pre-med school would open in every tiny town.

When you send money out of public schools, they lose valuable funds that can be used to benefit all kids.  Just like everything else, schools are often judged by their worst examples. People love to complain about how bad their kid's school is, that is until they have to help their kid with his/her homework, then all of a sudden it's "tough".

So, my initial position was that if you wanted to send your kid to a school that doesn't prepare your kid for life, then that's on you. Upon further research, vouchers seem to be a bit of a scam to benefit the wealthy and/or religious.  If they want their kids in a snotty private school or religious school, they can pay for it, not me.