Are education ‘vouchers’ for Iowa students a good idea?
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Top Iowa officials of the Catholic Church are pressing state lawmakers to consider offering a state-funded “education grant” that parents could use to send their children to the public or private schools of their choice.
Tom Chapman, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, said the proposal is for up to $4,000 in per-pupil state funding for K-12 education to be designated to parents to help finance their children’s education in a public school district, a religious-affiliated school or at their homes. The proposal was offered as an amendment to an education reform bill in the Iowa House but was withdrawn without debate before representatives passed that measure Wednesday morning.
Read the story linked above for more details. What do you think of the idea?
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This is a terrible idea. Public schools are publicly funded. Private schools should have no piece of that pie. Monies dedicated to education through tax dollars should ONLY go to public schools.
Terrible idea. It’s bad enough that our tax dollars subsidize religious institutions, but to have yet more of our tax dollars go to “education” that is not evidence-based, that doesn’t equip our youth to thrive in the real world, and that promotes discrimination is irresponsible at best.
Tax dollars should go to public schools. Religious institutions should see funding from their own flocks, or their god.
Stutler,
While your point is valid, you undercut it by tarring all religious schools with the same brush. Religious schools run the gamut. Some are very very good and others are very very bad.
But the quality of the education provided by this or that religious school does not determine whether or not the school receives public funding. These are private schools and their purpose is to not only provide an education, but also to promote the religion that established the school. Therefore they do not get public funding. As per First Amendment, separation of Church and State, upheld by lots and lots of court decisions over a period of more than two hundred years
I think the officials of the Iowa Catholic Church had a lot of gall to expect the rest of us to pay for their schools after all the wailing and gnashing of teeth they did over the Affordable Heathcare Act’s requirement that they provide reproductive health care coverage for their employees (many of whom are not Catholic) working in affiliated institutions the primary function of which is secular.
The Church cannot demand that the government never ever no never tell them what to do under any circumstances and then go grubbing for government money. The Church cannot have it both ways
End of discussion
Roberta,
If they’re using tax dollars to promote any religion, then at least one of my concerns is valid. I’m sure one could find a religious school that doesn’t teach discrimination, perhaps even find some that do teach such concepts as critical thinking (equipping them to thrive in society), but the evidence-based aspect will still be missing (that’s the nature of faith).
My concerns are not all-or-nothing, but more of an ‘or’ condition. Any one of them should preclude my paying their way.
Seems we agree on substance, even if we differ in semantics. Separation of church and state trumps the desires of catholic bishops to further suckle from the public teat, even if their teachings weren’t harmful.
Give ‘em hell, Ms. Bell!
Stutler,
It’s not semantics. Religious schools are not precluded from receiving public funding because they are terrible schools or teach things with which you do not agree but because they are religious schools.
I think you’d have a hard time arguing that either Regina or Scattergood are terrible schools or that enrolling children in them constitutes abuse or neglect on the part of the parents.
With regard to the argument that people who send their kids to religious (or private or homeschool) schools shouldn’t be required to pay for the public schools they think they do not use, that has been ruled specious. Public schools are considered a public good that benefit all of us because they produce graduates who can function in our society. If they fail to do so, it should be a concern to all of us even if the failures occur in another state. If we think we can solve problems with our public schools by walking away from them, we are mistaken.
And those who go into hysterics because they think our local public schools are failing need to have their collective head examined.
Roberta, it *is* a question of semantics. I agree with your assertion that religious schools should not receive funding because they are indeed religious schools….even if I happen to agree with the tenets of a particular faith running the school.
I would grant you that Regina and Scattergood are probably “good” schools (no first-hand knowledge). What I said, though, was that my list was not an [AND] condition but an [OR] condition. [AND] requires all items to be true, whereas [OR] requires at least one of the items to be true. Religion is not evidence-based, therefore religious schools meet the condition even if they were really effing awesome otherwise.
Learn to shoot outside the circle.
Stutler,
It’s not semantics, it’s substance that we disagree on. And your post stopped making sense three quarters of the way through the second sentence of your second paragraph.
As for religion not being evidence based, so what. Lots of things aren’t evidence based. Like literature, music, art. philosophy, math, much of what is creative, self contained, self reflexive. God does not exist nor does God not exist. It’s a paradox we’ve been mulling over for at least the last one hundred thousand years and it’s what makes us as creatures more interesting than your average ant
Bert, there’s only so much rude I am willing to suck up, even from some libtard I’d ostensibly on my side of the isle. ABW is your persona, have fun with that. No wonder sane and serious ideas no longer get noticed. Thanks….not.
If you were unable understand my post, perhaps you should go back to wherever you wallowed from and complain to those who gave their all to school you…Not their fault you didn’t achieve. It’s English. I would have been happy to ‘splain it to you, but hostile doesn’t work in finding common ground.
I had hoped that The Gazette would start actually verifying names to accounts, but I guess you slipped through the same crack that the ‘tea party patriots” managed to find.
Best to you and yours…..
The state spends far more than $4000 per student-year on education. If the Holy Grail of education is reduced class size, the public school system should welcome this measure as a route to help achieve that goal whether it’s through parochial schooling or home schooling. Why is allowing parents to exercise freedom of choice about how and where their kids are educated such a bad idea? If paying a poll tax to vote constitutes discrimination, then surely forcing parents to pay twice, once through taxes and once through tuition, for exercising their freedom of choice about their kids’ education is unfair. And, if providing parents a voucher to be used for their kids’ education is a violates the principle of separation of church and state, then surely allowing veterans to use the GI bill at Notre Dame or seminary school does too.
Dogmatic insistence that public education be performed solely by the state only reinforces the validity of the H. L. Mencken’s opinion when he wrote: “The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
That is much more true today than it ever was in Mencken’s day.
No one is “forcing” parents to pay twice. They are *choosing* to forego the public education. Fine..their choice…but don’t ask me to subsidize their religion.
As for GI Bill, that’s an *earned benefit* from a specific job…deferred compensation, as it were. That benefit can be used at accredited academic institutions. Whether religious institutions should be accredited is another issue.
Since the state spends far more than $4000 per student-year on public education, parents getting a $4000 voucher for removing their child from public school would still be ‘supporting’ the public schools while exercising their freedom of choice, especially if they are taxpayers.
To say nobody is forcing parents to pay twice for their child’s education if they choose to remove their kids from the public schools is like saying that nobody was forcing anybody to pay a pool tax; after all, they could just choose not to vote.
As for separation of church and state, the courts have already approved using public funds for busing students to parochial schools. Such schools may teach religion, but they also teach the three R’s; I don’t see why busing is okay, but a voucher is not.
Fred, no on is forcing parents to remove their children from public schools. Parents are choosing to do so. I don’t have any desire to pay for some other parent’s decision to forego what is already being provided to them. It’s not at all the same as a poll tax…not anywhere close to a valid argument. Please do try to keep up.
Hubler,
The problem with selective quotes is that they are so very selective.
Mencken had no more respect for extending any kind of choice to ordinary people than he had for public education. If you are going to use him as an authority on public education, then you also have to accept him as an authority on democracy:
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule–and both commonly succeed, and are right… The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds”
And just in case what underlies your posts in favor of “choice” is actually support for the public funding of religious schools, we have this:
“A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill. Worse, he is incurable”
H.L. Mencken was an intelligent man—his work in linguistics is brilliant—but his experience with public education is limited to his own attendence at the Baltimore Manual Training School (now Baltimore Polytechnic Institute). He never attended college He was a very bright kid who was sent to a vocational high school by a father who apparently had no understanding of his own son, and we can theorize that Mencken’s jaundiced opinion of the rest of us was formed and cemented by what must have been an horrific secondary school experience.
Small wonder the amendment was pulled. This was an attempt to transfer public education money to private/religious-affiliated schools in an amount that is far disproportionate to the taxes paid in, on the whole. For parochial parents or homeschoolers with school-aged children, this would have been a massive windfall which at the same time would have further undermined the finances of the pub-ed system.
I think that tax rebates to parents of children who are enrolled in a non-public school are perfectly reasonable but they should not exceed the average amount of taxes paid in by every citizen who feeds the public education system. Make it a “wash” financially, in other words- don’t incentivize the collapse of the public education system.
Lorenz,
Sorry, but tax rebates incentivize. Financially it may be a “wash” but the wash means that their children don’t have to go to school with those people nor do they need to concern themselves with the public schools at all.
In Iowa City we had what might be a case study. There used to be a lab school (formerly located in what is now North Hall) pre-school through high school. The quality of education was perceived to be much better than what kids got in the local public schools and parents really wanted to get their kids in. What I was told was that enrollment was high percentage professor’s kids, affluent local business people’s kids, professional people’s kids and a low percentage of the kind of kids that lived in blue collar neighborhoods on the SE side. One of the effects of this social and cultural and economic segregation was that the community’s movers and shakers weren’t all that interested in the public schools. The lab school was phased out starting with Uni High in the mid 60s (the last graduating class was 1968, the pre-school was closed in 1980). The effect on our public schools, I’m told, was noticeable. The movers and shakers suddenly got very interested in the public schools because that’s where their kids were going
I’ve also been told that version of what happened was not exactly true. Except the class and race based subtext of the argument for vouchers is unmistakeable. So I’m inclined to believe that if parents are given a financial incentive—-vouchers or tax rebates, whatever—what we will see is white/affluent/influential flight. Because that’s what has happened before.
Bottom line is what we use collectively we must pay for collectively. The affluent business people who can send their kids to private schools still pull their employees from the public schools. And they should never be allowed to forget that
Great idea! Give parents the “Choice.”
Parents already have the “choice”. No one is stopping them from choosing to send their kids to private schools or even home-school.
However, don’t ask me to subsidize their religious indoctrination. Don’t ask me to subsidize organizations over which I have no say or control. Or are you asking that, along with that subsidy, I also get to say what can and cannot be taught?
That’s the point Joe, I don’t want to send my child where you have “control.” For many parents, it’s a hardship to send their children to a private school in addition to the taxes they pay for your Joey indoctrination. Maybe they would prefer having their child taught a higher moral standard than how to put a condome on a banana. Maybe they would like the choice to send their child in khaki pants than pants around their ankles. Maybe they don’t like “god” taken out of the pledge only to be replaced by singing the praises of your chosen messiah.
What a hypocrite, “choice” comes in many forms. Isn’t it you that always reminds us that we all have to pay for some things we don’t like?
If parents want to send their children to a private school, that’s their prerogative. It is not my job to pay for their choices. They may prefer to send their kids to learn to hate others, believe in magic sky fairies, dance naked in circles, worship pasta or cosmic teapots or invisible pink unicorns. That’s entirely up to them.
If they’re using tax dollars, they should be accountable to the tax payers. Private schools are not accountable to anyone but themselves.
I don’t recall ever learning how to put a condom on a banana, nor has my child ever had that lesson taught in school. No god was ever part of the original Pledge of Allegiance…indeed, that didn’t happen until many many years after a Baptist minister wrote the pledge to help sell flags (do your own homework on this issue).
No hypocrisy here…unless you’re looking in a mirror.
BTW, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is “Joey indoctrination”? Does it have something to do with teaching young kangaroos?
There was no mention of a God in the original pledge. The original pledge was to the United States and the Republic for which it stands. The “under God” was added in 1954 via a joint resolution of Congress. Even with the addition it does not pledge to any God or messiah whoever/whatever (or none) the individual citizen considers that to be. Your “singing the praises” comment is nonsensical.
The parents already have the choice. If you are in favor “educational grants” for alternative (alternative to public schools) then parents who choose a non- Judeo – Christian religion (Islam, Buddhism, . . . ) are equally entitled to use them. Agree ?
Joe the customers of private schools do get to choose what is taught. Thats why they stay.
Unlike the public schools were more than a 1/4 of the 8the graders cant read at grade level.
““education” that is not evidence-based, that doesn’t equip our youth to thrive in the real world, and that promotes discrimination is irresponsible at best.”
Joe, do a study and quantify the perpetrators of hate crimes, you’ll find those that are public school educated are a much higher percentage than the percentages of public school attendees.
You’re bigoted against those of faith. Who is the hater?
” . . . bigoted against those of faith . . . ” How is objecting to tax monies being used to aid in promoting a religious faith bigoted against faith ? If a school happened to teach that Communism was superior to Democracy would you be in favor of an “education grant” to citizens who chose to send their children to that school and accuse anyone who objected “bigoted against Communism” ? ( There are no laws against teaching a religious faith nor particular form of government to my knowledge.) What about a school that taught a faith in snake handling — would you classified objection to that as “bigoted against snake handling” ? And, the mirror image, if one favors education grants for faith-based education versus more fact-based education are they “bigoted against facts” ?
Yes, the customers of private schools get to choose what is taught. Very good, Bill. Seems you’re lucid today. What you left out is the part about who pays for those customers. It sure as little green apples exist doesn’t mean that I have to pay for their choice.
“Do a study…” Nope. Not my job. You made the assertion, you provide the evidence. Until then, I call shenanigans.
Who’s the hater? Certainly not me. Unless you’re willing to pay for the cost of my faith, you don’t get a valid opportunity to call me a hater for not wanting to pay for your hooey.
I can’t help but wonder what kind of schooling you and Sue and Fred had, that none of you are able to form cogent arguments. Did they fail to teach you such concepts as rhetoric, fallacy, critical thinking, and the like, or did you simply fail to learn?
Everyone contributes to our public education system, through taxes, whether you use it or not. It is not right to take this money and give it to a select few. Regardless of their reasons for wanting to send their children to private schools.
In reality, vouchers are just another tool those who oppose public education to defund and ultimately close our public schools. Education is too important to our nation to provide it only to those who can afford to send their children to private schools.
Ellickson,
I think what is getting lost in the “choice is good” rumble is that we as a nation decided long ago that education was a public good and, as such, benefited everyone and therefore needed to be supported by everyone
If anyone even suggested that we grant people a “choice” when it came to fire or police protection or public sanitation–chickadee checkoff fashion—we would rightly assume that person to be a lunatic.
We have lots and lots and lots of verifiable information going back centuries on the value of education and the value of making it as widely accessible as possible. Just look at the history of public education—which was widely supported in the North and widely ignored in the South right on up through the Second World War—in our own country.
It wasn’t that long ago that much of the Old South was economically, culturally, socially backward with many Southerners living in virtual Third World conditions. And much of this was both the cause and the result of widespread illiteracy and a segregated school system which granted academies and homeschooling to the privileged and either no schools or criminally substandard schools for everyone else.
Conservatives like to talk about “skin in the game”. When everyone invests in public schools, whether they want to or not, then everyone has a stake in the outcome, like it or not.
In effect, there are no lifeboats on this ship
Substitute “Buddhist Monk”, or “Muslim Imam”, or “Pastafarian Minister”, or “Wiccan High Priestess”, or “Rastafarian Prophet”, or “Satanic Priest”, or “Entheogenic Shaman” for “Catholic Bishop”..
Still want your tax dollars going there?
At $4000 per voucher nobody would be paying for the parents choices! The parents would be doing the taxpayers and public schools a favor by reducing the cost of educating their children. As for the GI bill, it may be an earned benefit, but using that benefit at Notre Dame or a seminary would still be government support of a religious institution according to all of the objections raised here.
Insistence that no government money go to religious institutions, even though busing has set a precedent approved by the courts, demonstrates either religious intolerance or that H. L. Mencken was right.
And Cedric, many government schools have for years taught that communism is superior to democracy (and capitalism for that matter). When I was a high school senior in PUBLIC school my ‘Problems of Democracy’ teacher claimed that communism was the best form or world government and the best form of government in the world.
In regard to your first paragraph, I’ll agree you have somewhat of a point regarding using GI benefits ( taxes are the source ) at a religious affiliated institution or for religious studies.
In regard to your last paragraph I note that you are using the label “government” schools rather “public” schools, a term frequently used by those opposed to public education. Your claim that “many” (a nebulous term) public schools have taught that Communism to superior to Democracy is questionable. ( You should have just used the term Capitalism because there could be a democratic government of an essentially communistic system. ) Your claim about what your teacher claimed is hearsay and I suspect such a statement would have raised a considerable ruckus during the period that gave us the likes of Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Nope. While the source of the funds may have indeed been tax dollars. the funds themselves were never intended to be directed to religious institutions. They are a form of deferred compensation to an employee, with very few restrictions where the funds can be spent. To argue that GI Bill monies cannot be spent on education that has religious components is to argue that no government employee may spend their paycheck on donations to Salvation Army, tithing to whatever mythology one subscribes to, crucifixes and other religious bling, and the like.
Don’t encourage Fred when he gets it wrong, Cedric. He has a hard enough time keeping up as it is without being encouraged to continue down the TeaDerp path.
To argue that spending GI bill money on education at an institution with a religious affiliation is somehow different than spending educational vouchers at an institution with a religious affiliation is a distinction without a difference.
Do you also oppose providing vouchers to those who home school?
I’ll have to take a little issue with you. Government employees are receiving payment originating from taxes as a salary to do wish as they please whereas GI Bill moneys are intended for education. A distinction could be claimed. My intent was not to encourage Fred
(trust me !) — he has historically proved to be a fountainhead of misinformation and distortion (climate change denial is his forte).
The teachers unions would be so proud of there little foot soldiers today.
I asked this question earlier when Mr Dorman wrote of a similar concern the districts are having with open enrollment. “If a parent decides to live in a district with lower taxes but choses to send her child to a better performing school in a district with higher taxes, who picks up the tab?”
One must educate their child. There must be public schools. There must be taxes to support those public schools. A good school is one where parents are involved, and where there is adequate money to support education. With vouchers, anyone sending their child to a private school will be stealing from other children.
ABSOLUTELY no one is required to attend a private school. This is an individual choice. Just like gambling at a casino, if you want to pay an extra tax, then please go right ahead. But don’t expect me to support those choices you make which are detrimental to our society.
““Do a study…” Nope. Not my job. You made the assertion, you provide the evidence. Until then, I call shenanigans.”
Joe you made the claim that private schools promote discrimination. Thats not true. I call shananigans. The true knuckle draggers are a product of public schools. The same with you unsubstantiated claims that students out of private schools are not equipped to thrive in the world. Prove it.
What you have is a blind bias, and a stereotype of private schools, Painting all with the same brush. Sounds like old fashioned bigotry.
The truth is govt has failed our children. Giving parents the power to take their own money and seek out competitive educational venues. is the essence of the American culture. This is not govt money….the govt doesnt have any, only what the people hand over under the threat of loss of freedom.
Of course the public schools could become the school of choice…….if they listen to the customer.
Williamson,
90% of students attending K-12 in the United States are attending publlic schools. So yeah, if you throw a rock at any randomly selected group of knuckledraggers, failures, criminals, jerks, whatever, your chances of hitting one that attended a public school is going to be pretty high.
Oh and the essence of American culture with regard to education has been public schools right from the very beginning. And students are not customers. They are students. They are in school to learn, not have things their way.
Ms Bell survey 1000 kids from private and public schools. The bigots racists and mysognists well be a much higher incidence from the public schools. Mr Stutler is a prime example of the hate propagated by the public schools.
yes the kids are the students, the parents are the customers. The parents should get their way, At least thats how a representative govt works.
I have yet to be shown a religious school that does not teach their faith, and as we’re talking about Iowa we’re talking predominately about Christian schools…which is biased against women, homosexuals, atheists, and more. But, I’m open to learning, so show me.
The truth is government does at times do less than stellar with regard to our children. We don’t have universal health care, we have poverty, we have folks trying to push creationism as science and who seek to cut arts, sciences, humanities in our schools. Parents already have the power to take *their* money and seek out whatever education they want for their children. What they don’t have the power to do is take *my* money to do that.
It would be helpful if folks like you would sop saying “government is broken” and then work to break the government.
Everyone in this country benefits from a public school system that is required by law to accept all students regardless of race, creed or color. I am happy to pay taxes to support a public school system that provides education for citizenship to all. Private schools by their nature are not required to accept every student. They are free to apply their particular criteria to applicants because they do not have the legal requirement to accept all applicants. Therefore, although I do not want my tax money to be applied to the teaching of any specific religion, I fervently desire my tax money to be applied to provide education for active citizenship in this country to all without regard to race, creed (i. e., religion) or color.
Giving every parent of a school age child $4000 and requiring them to use it at an accredited school would not only save the taxpayers money, but would probably result in better education outcomes. New Orleans was forced to do this after hurricane Katrina because of government inertia and is reaping benefits because of it.
Hubler,
Your claim doesn’t sound right so I did a fast google and found this:
“The Answer Sheet
TO: Sec Duncan Re: What you said about New Orleans . . . ”
Valarie Strauss Washington Post 8/28/12
“For all the claims of success in the Recovery School District, it “remains at or near the bottom in Louisiana,” according to a 2012 report, having received a letter grade of “D” from the state last year. That’s not exactly great success.
Another problem involves the comparisons that people make between New Orleans schools before and after Katrina. A true comparison would be between an apple and an apple, but that’s not what we’re dealing with here. The population of New Orleans — and therefore the student population — changed after Katrina.
A report by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center showed that from 2000-2011, “the metro area lost 22 percent of children under 18 compared to only 7 percent of all adults.” Another report said that the families who were slowest to return were low-income minority families, whose children are more likely to score lower on standardized tests than white students.”
New Orleans is often used to promote charter over public schools. Problem is that charter schools are not a cure. Some charter schools are very good. Others are very bad. Just like public schools.
Roberta, the poorest kids never left New Orleans. And even though New Orleans schools may not be stellar, they are better now than they were prior to Katrina.