Vouching for Vouchers

On Saturday May 3, 2003 The Washington Post published an editorial titled: “Vouching for Vouchers”. The main idea of the article was that federally funded voucher programs will help students, and will not take away funding from other schools whether they are public or charter schools. The program seems to be supported by the mayor of the District of Columbia, the school system the vouchers are supposed to go to. He considers the vouchers as a genuine effort to support the city’s educational system. It will help children wherever they go to school. It is still not known how the vouchers are going to be provided to the families of the children. They are intended to provide better opportunities to students in private or parochial schools. There are already funds that help students from the district find better schooling opportunities, like the Washington Scholarship Fund or the Black Student fund, but they are overwhelmed by solicitants. The Vouchers will help to fill the gap. Vouchers are not imposed, and will not substitute public funding for the Public School System, but as the Mayor requests, they will not be enough to help improve the education of the district students if they do not come together with a bigger plan to support Public Education.

I have one prominent question after reading this article. How will this voucher program help the all the students of the District? Who will have access to that help? And most importantly, who is going to benefit the most from it? The Voucher program will benefit those families that will hear about it and are able to apply for them. It might not help those families that maybe need them the most. The Public School System is failing in providing the services and education the students deserve, and the vouchers will not help much in reference to these failing schools. It is the Public School System that needs funds directed for its improvement, because public schools are for everyone, not only for the ones that know about the Voucher Program. The only people that will benefit from the vouchers will be those Private or Parochial Schools that will receive the public money and make profit at the expense of the Federal Government, while the poor Public Schools will not receive help. Those schools will compete unfairly with a helpless Public School System. Perhaps if the vouchers came along with solid support for public schools (as the Mayor seems to hope will happen) the measure will have a more positive outcome.

Submitted by: Juan Lemos, American University Source:Washington Post, May 3, 2003