Voucher System of Schooling (Myths)

The Voucher System was first invented by Milton Friedman. Under this system a parent would be able to get a voucher for x dollars from the child’s school and the parent could then use that voucher to pay for private school tution or homeschooling.

In this post I will discuss one of the biggest myths behind the Voucher System.

This myth is that the Voucher System would drain money from the public schools. This is a fallacy. The parent does not usually receive the full amount that the state get’s for the child so for example if the state gets $10,000 dollars they may make the voucher be $8,000 so the parent gets $8,000 to pay for a private school while the school keeps the $2,000. This actually benefits the public schools. Also with one less student the school has to pay for teaching one less student so the school benefits in that way too.

I hope that you can see that this myth is just that a myth and that it would be benificial to switch to a voucher system. I will write more on this subject later.

Thank you for your time,

-James Dalley

What Teacher’s say Public vs. Private

Most people will defend public schooling with their life because they believe in everyone getting an education, but there is another and better way. I will not go into detail about it here but it is called the Voucher System. Here I will just list some statistics from a survey, which can be found here.

First off though people seem to believe that private school teachers get more but in reality this is not true. Public school teachers get $45,000 a year, and private school teachers get $30,000 a year.

Secondly illegal drug use is much more common in public schools than in private schools. Only 52% of public school teachers said that illegal drug use never happened and 72% of private school teachers said that it never happens. Huh? Which is better?

Third, physical abuse of the teachers. Public 67% never happens, Private 95% never happens. Now I really don’t know which is best.

Fourth, verbal abuse of teachers. Public 18% never happens, Private 54% never happens. I still can’t tell which is better.

Finally, student pregnancy. Public 70% not a problem, Private 95% not a problem. I think I figured it out! Private School is better!

I hope you came to the same conclusion or at least that you have begun to consider different options.

-James Dalley

Please Take the Poll

Problems with Public Schooling (Morals)

In today’s society we expect most to all children to go to a government run public schooling system. There are many problems with this system though, most of which are not generally discussed. My biggest problem with the public school system is that it no longer just teaches readin’, ‘rittin’, and ‘rithmetic, but it now teaches morals too! Milton Friedman who was a famous 20th century economist, and a Nobel prize winner in economics, said this:

“Public schools teach religion, too–not a formal, theistic religion, but a set of values and beliefs that constitute a religion in all but name. The present arrangements abridge the religions freedom of the parents who do not accept the religion taught by the public schools yet are forced to pay to have their children indoctrinated with it, and to pay to still more to have their children escape indoctrination.”

A modern day example of this is the teaching of evolution. Our kids are being taught that we all evolved from monkeys and that God doesn’t exist. Teachers may not say right out that God doesn’t exist but the overall result is to teach our children to be atheists. This can be seen in the increasing number of atheists among the younger generation. Public schools have started to accept the ways of the world instead of sticking to strong, good, morals, upon which our country was founded.

So our tax dollars are being spent to teach our children morals that we do not always agree with and the parents have no control over what their children are being taught unless they homeschool them or take them to private school.

-James Dalley

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Preschool/Pre-Kindergarten

I am a firm believer in private/home schooling and do not believe that the government has any business teaching the youth of America. Constitutionally they do not have the right, so I think that they should not teach the youth of America. I have a problem with public schooling in the first place but pre-K or preschool is in my mind even worse. Why don’t we just start letting the government brainwash our kids right from the womb? The Washington Post had an article June 8th on the importance of preschool. This is what the Post said that we are paying for preschool education. (If you didn’t know preschool starts at four.)

“Nationally, state and local governments spend about $4,600 annually per student enrolled in state pre-K, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. (More than $8,000 is spent per student in Maryland and about $5,600 in Virginia; statistics were not available for the District.)”

I don’t know about you but I do not like to know that the government is taking money from me to “educate” four year-olds. I think that children that young should be raised by their parents, and if the parents have to work than they can go to day care but the government doesn’t need to start teaching the youth of America when they are still four. When children are four they are still learning about morals and what is right and wrong. Do you want the government to teach our youth morals? I don’t.

The Post’s defense of preschooling was that it helped prepare the kids for normal public schooling.

“Statewide, 75 percent of entering kindergartners who attended public pre-K were rated fully ready. (The rate was 86 percent for students who attended tuition-charging, nonpublic nursery schools.) Among students who had stayed home or been informally schooled, 63 percent were rated fully ready when they entered kindergarten.”

I am very curious as to how one would conduct a test to see if someone is ready for school after going through preschool. I mean how can you test something like that? I hope that you can see that we need to correct the way that the government is spending our tax dollars.

-James Dalley