Blog 14: School Vouchers

Nicholas Matuszewski

Blog 14

Educ. 361

11/2/2011

School Vouchers

            School vouchers are basically scholarships given to families instead of the students to allow families to choose which school their kid(s) will attend and have all or part of the tuition paid. The idea behind this is that it will improve the education students will receive. The money can come from the government, private organizations, or a combination of both. This is a very controversial topic and is debated today.

            I am not really sure on what I think about them but because I don’t know much about them. Right now I would say that while I do think that in some ways school vouchers are good they are probably for the most part bad. I like the idea of giving families the power and opportunities to choose where their kids go to school but I am not sure I like where the money is coming from and the schools it goes to. I fear there may be a great rise in private schools being built, meaning more money going to private schools, leaving public schools in the dust and with little funding.

            Many schools are struggling and surviving on limited funding making me worry that if school vouchers increase the schools might end up being ran like businesses instead of a school. Schools are already getting sponsorship money from companies like Pepsi or Coke, what’s keeping schools from expanding on this and becoming filled with advertisements and look like a real life YouTube website. Our country’s economy problems are forcing people to look for ways of making or getting money any way they can. Everyone seems to think that the government is the answer. Our government should be more of a helper instead of an answer. The more money the government spends and hands out the more the people will suffer to resupply the funds. Private organizations to me will give money to help others but want something in return for their services. This could lead to exploiting schools for their benefit. Is this how it is, maybe not but the way things are looking now it wouldn’t surprise me if we see more of this in the future.

            I am new to the school voucher system and hope to get a better understanding about it in the future. Right now I can’t see any overall good coming from implementing them and hope I am wrong. When it comes to helping out families and giving the opportunity for children to get a good education I am all for it. But to what extent will vouchers affect all schools in the long run? Time will tell and I hope they make the school voucher system better and not so one sided. It seems that public schools have the upper hand and only hope that school vouchers will not be a problem to both private and public schools in the future. Throwing money at a problem is not the answer, but taking the money given and using it wisely can be the answer. Schools have more hands than cookies in the cookie jar. We need to find a more efficient system to make sure there are enough cookies for all.