Eng.Kelvin

Thesis: Parents of children in poor-performing public schools should know that school vouchers will create a competitive market for the education of children by providing an incentive for failing schools to improve their performance, by giving parents a choice in the type of education that their children receive, and by ensuring diversity without violating state laws.

1. A school voucher system will force the public schools to improve the educational services they provide in order to compete with private and parochial schools for students.

0. “The education system is consistently condemned for its failures, which include lack of academic standards manifest in decreasing test scores, school dropout, and lack of job preparation” (Gibelman and Lens 209).

0. “Private schools generally have more success than public schools. A voucher system makes these schools more accessible to families of all income levels and encourages public schools to improve” (Foster 29).

0. “If schools must compete for students, then they will take steps to ensure that the educational experiences they offer are valued by parents and students” (Barrow and Rouse 2).

0. “The threat of losing students to private schools may give public schools greater incentive to cultivate parental satisfaction by operating more efficiently and improving the outcomes valued by students and parents” (Figlio and Hart 76).

0. “School choice programs have improved overall student academic achievement in public schools. Evidently, competition is good for learning” (Rees 16).

1. Vouchers will promote the development of more appropriate curricula in public schools, showing an improvement in their performance.

1. “When public schools are faced with the possibility of large student transfers, and a corresponding loss of funding, they have shown a willingness to make improvements both in how and what they teach” (Rees 16).

1. Economics professor Carolyn Hoxby found that ” in areas where public and private schools compete for students there was an eight percentile point improvement in test scores from the students who remained in public schools” (Rees 18).

1. Both expanded access to private schools and greater variety of private school options are positively associated with public school students’ test score gains” (Figlio and Hart 80).

1. “Many empirical studies find that students in private schools have higher educational achievement levels than those in public schools” (Barrow and Rouse 3)

1. “Poor parents who are given vouchers receive the freedom to become consumers of educational services” (Mullen 16)

1. Parents will be able to use vouchers to choose what and how their children learn in order to most benefit them.

2. Educational choice “returns control of education to parents” (Foster 27).

2. “Educational choice allows the parents to match their parenting style with the school atmosphere of the choose (Foster 29).

2. “With vouchers, a parent could use the money from the school the child is presently attending to a perceived more favorable educational system” (Ediger 569).

2. “Educational choice supports the right of all parents to pass their values on to their children” (Foster 29)

2. “There is recent literature on private voucher programs that shows how achievement growth among economically disadvantaged African-American children in cities rises if they are able to attend private schools instead of public schools” (Neal 29).

1. The target groups for school vouchers are low-income and minority groups, ensuring the diversity of the voucher schools.

3. “School vouchers are also directed at low-income and ethnic minority populations” (Gibelman and Lens 208).

3. “Three-quarters of participating students (Florida) are black or Hispanic; 60 percent are from single parent homes” (Figlio and Hart 77).

3. “A voucher system makes these (successful private schools) options more accessible to families of all income levels” (Foster 29).

3. Parents “see school choice offering new possibilities for dealing with cultural diversity” (Foster 27).

3. “All voucher programs in the United States have been designed to focus resources on families within a limited geographical are and who are in greatest need of assistance” (Metcalf and Legan 26).

1. Vouchers used in religious schools do not violate any separation of church and state laws.

4. Voucher programs “provide parents with an individual scholarship or ‘voucher’, which they can use to defray the cost of a child’s tuition at any school-public or private, religious or secular-so long as that voucher is awarded on the basis of neutral secular criteria” (Lewin 5).

4. “Regarding the constitutionality of voucher programs, how not what public aid is directed to religious institutions has become the decisive issue” (Lewin 6)

4. “The Courts emphasize that a ‘private individual’, not the government, made the decision to use public funds at a religious school” therefore, “well-crafted school-voucher programs can pass constitutional muster” (Lewin 6).

4. “Over the years the Court has permitted programs that reimbursed parents of religious school children for public transportation expenses” (Lewin 5)

Works Cited

Barrow, Lisa and Cecilia Elena Rouse. "School Vouchers: Recent Findings and Unanswered

Questions." Economic Perspectives 32.3 (2008): 2-16. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27

Sept. 2012.

Ediger, Marlow. "Vouchers And The Public Schools." College Student Journal 37.4 (2003): 569-573. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Figlio, David and Cassandra M. D. Hart. "Does Competition Improve Public Schools?" Education Next 11.1 (2011): 74-80. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Foster, James D. and Frank C. Nelson. "Parental Choice: Will Vouchers Solve The School Crisis?." Christianity Today 35.(1991): 26-29. Readers' Guide Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Gibelman, Margaret and Vicki Lens. "Entering The Debate About School Vouchers: A Social Work Perspective." Children & Schools 24.4 (2002): 207-221. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Lewin, Nathan. "Are Vouchers Constitutional?." Policy Review 93 (1999): 5-8. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Metcalf, Kim K. and Natalie A. Legan. “Educational Vouchers: A Primer.” The Clearing House

76.1 (2002): 25-29. Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Mullen, J. “School vouchers: An intractable dilemma?” Human Rights 26.3 (1999): 16-18. Print.

Neal, Derek. “How Vouchers Could Change the Market for Education." Journal of Economic Perspectives. 16.3 (2002): 25-44. Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Rees, Nina Shokraii. "Public School Benefits Of Private School Vouchers." Policy Review 93 (1999): 16-19. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 18 Oct. 2012.