An old blog about vouchers

Though I have not decided who to vote for yet, b/c in all actuality, I like neither major candidate, I did like this article. And perhaps mainly because its supports vouchers. More to come later when this thing decides to work.

In 2007 I was involved in a school voucher campaign in Utah. Despite the effort and hard work of many volunteers, Referendum 1 failed. They even had these awesome commercials but nothing worked. And perhaps im biased or informed, but I feel like the referendum failed because of bad judgment, misinformed people, and fear of change. Most importantly of those though is misinformed and uneducated people. So I would like to educated you a little on education, vouchers and why passing such a program would be a most amazing event.

Schools are always failing the kids. Whether it math or reading, the kids are always struggling in something. And dont even get me started on those teachers that teach just so they can coach sports. There is always a call for more and more money but it does not always help. You can have all the money in the world and have a bad school if the teachers are not good and if the schools are ran wrong.

In Utah they have a problem with special ed kids. It takes a lot of money to send kids with special needs to private school but the public schools don't always have the facilities or the training to deal with them. With vouchers, those same families would be able to get the money to help them send their kid to get the best eduction possible for them. If thats all that vouchers does, is it not enough? Should we not give kids with special needs the same chances at life as we have.

What about taking money from the school system for vouchers. Every year the school gets a certain amount of money for each kid that comes into the schoool. With the voucher system, most of the money would still stay in the school but the kid would be gone. That means the school would have about the same amount of money but less kids in the school. That extra money could then go to getting better computers or even better, more pay for the teachers. That solves two problems. Better pay for teachers and a choice for the parents in how their kids get educated.

Speaking of choice. This country is based on freedoms and choices. And those same principles should be in family dealings too. Parents should have the choice how their child gets taught, as long as he or she is getting an education. Surprisingly many people (especially liberals ironically) have a hard time seeing that vouchers would be less biased towards the poor and minority then no vouchers. Vouchers give all people a chance to go to better schools, whether they have the money or not. And the poorer you are, the more money you get. And I strongly believe that parents that are given a chance to send their kids to a better school would do all they could to make up the difference in funding and make it happened.



(to be continued...perhaps someday)