Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, published this overview of voucher research.
The results are in, and they show that vouchers don’t help children learn more. The most recent studies find that students are actually set back academically by vouchers. Indiana has the nation’s largest voucher program. The latest study said that students lose ground in the first two years or so. After three or four years in a voucher school, they catch up with their peers in public school. But that finding, which seemed to show that vouchers are not so harmful after all, was not what it appeared. In fact, after two years, the weakest students had dropped out and returned to public schools. So only the strongest students remained after four years.
Almost every private school that participates in Indiana’s program is religiously affiliated. As a rule, Americans don’t want tax money to subsidize religious schools.
Voucher advocates have generally dropped the claim that vouchers “save” children or that nonpublic schools are superior to public schools. Instead, they have retreated to advocating for choice. Consumerism is their fallback position. Choice for the sake of choice.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All funds must be for Public Schools only!
AMEN, Mirian.
For sure!
If you wish for all funds to go to public education only, then how do you feel about college students getting BEOG’s to attend Notre Dame of the Catholic university of America?
Public funds can even go to a student at a seminary to be trained as a minister. Your tax money can be spent on a ministerial education, and then the recipient can spend his career, preaching the gospel, or advocating an Islamic takeover of the government.
The Supreme Court ruled that this is constitutional, and the ruling was 9-0!
see
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1070
Charles,
You say the same things over and over.
I agree. Some people just do not get it. Federal/state/municipal governments put their money into religiously-operated enterprises, all over this land. No one objects to a church running a shelter for abused women, and getting tax money to do so.
But when a church operates a school, and people enroll their children and pay tuition with vouchers provided by the public purse, some people get all “ballistic”.
I just forwarded this blog to my Indiana state Senator Niemeyer and Representative Slager. I included the message, “I DO NOT WANT MY TAX MONEY TO GO TO RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS!!! People who want to send their kids to religious schools can pay for it out of their own pockets!! That is wasted money that could be helping public schools.”
These people hear from me regularly. Doesn’t make any difference because their minds are made up. No amount of reality ever gets through.
@Carolmalaysia: Please see Zelman v. simmons-harris (2002), you have no choice about your tas money supporting students in religiously-operated schools.
You live in Indiana, how do you feel about your federal tax money supporting students in Notre Dame? Students there get BEOG’s and other forms of federal aid.
Charles,
Federal aid to higher education and the GI Bill are in no way the same as directing public money to religious schools in K-12. K-12 is mandatory; higher education is not.
Charles,
HUH? I don’t get your logic. You’re comparing apples and strawberries. Both are plants whose fruits we eat, but that’s it.
Have you read this?
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-cash-101/2010/04/06/5-big-financial-aid-lies
If our Republican Congressmen were smart they would stop passing bills putting money into the ever expanding voucher system. I am aware of the Supreme Court ruling that says giving money to students and letting parents ‘choose’ a religious school is not the same as giving tax money to religious schools. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court often makes rulings that are politically biased.
This is still a way to lower the funding for public schools. It is destructive to the educational system in this country and does not help students. Statistics about vouchers do not matter.
Q Federal aid to higher education and the GI Bill are in no way the same as directing public money to religious schools in K-12. K-12 is mandatory; higher education is not. END Q
How are they not the same? Spending is spending, and education is education. The government collects money from the public, and disburses the money at a learning institution. What does “mandatory” have to do with it?
Funding of K-12 is a constitutional duty in every state. Funding of higher ed is not
Q Funding of K-12 is a constitutional duty in every state. Funding of higher ed is not END Q
I disagree. Many states have state-run universities and colleges. I went to one. Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY. The state (of Kentucky) is required by law, to provide financial support to the college.
See this Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_universities_in_the_United_States
Why do you think that the states are not required to fund these institutions, which are set up and run by the states?
In Arizona (and other states), the state government is required (constitutionally) to support institutions of learning, including universities.
According to the Arizona Constitution, “the legislature shall make such appropriations, to be met
by taxation, as shall insure the proper maintenance of all state educational institutions, and shall
make such special appropriations as shall provide for their development and improvement.”
see
Click to access Education_Funding_in_Arizona_Constitutional_Requirement_and_the_Empirical_Record.pdf
Charles,
States may support all accredited universities. But that doesn’t make them a public service. Police, fire, parks, air, water, schools: all public.
Why not vouchers for police protection? Am taxpayers supposed to pay for your private security?
Q Charles,
States may support all accredited universities. But that doesn’t make them a public service. Police, fire, parks, air, water, schools: all public.
Why not vouchers for police protection? Am taxpayers supposed to pay for your private security?
END Q
Why are not state-supported universities (and vocational/technical schools) a “public service”? The public pays the bills, and the public goes to the university. I paid tuition at the state college where I attended. The tuition paid only a small portion of what the university spent on my education. The balance was picked up by the taxpayers/public.
Sometimes the state will give individuals direct payments, to obtain services. Food stamps (SNAP) are a form of “food voucher”. Chapter 8 housing, is a form of “rent voucher”. States are required to provide legal representation to indigent people (See Gideon v. Wainwright). Some states have public defenders, some states go to the private sector, to obtain legal representation for the indigent “legal vouchers”.
Most states have penitentiaries. Some states contract their prisons to private operators.
The point that I am making, is that sometimes the government gives payment directly to the recipient, to obtain the service. Sometimes the government goes to the private sector, to provide services to the public.
In 1962, I was in the third grade. There was a girl in my class, with a speech impediment. The school did not have adequate speech therapists, so the school sent her to a private speech therapist, which was paid for by the county school budget. This is a form of “voucher”, so that the student can obtain instruction, that the county school could not provide.
Holding up the bogus example, of vouchers for police protection, is a false and ridiculous argument. Do not confuse the issue.
Mother Jones reported last year that of more than 300 Indiana schools getting voucher money, only four of them were not “overtly religious.” More vouchers mean more public money flowing into religious schools
Is this tax subsidized religious indoctrination? Certainly sounds that way. I guess that the voucher system makes this perfectly legal, per one of the first Supreme Court cases in Cleveland. I wonder if anyone is tracking which religious faiths are being supported.
.
Good QUESTION, Laura! I would like to know the answer to this question, too.
Parents choosing to direct their education spending at an institution run by a religious institution, does not support any particular religious faith. Example, in New Orleans, the majority of the students enrolled in school operated by the Roman Catholic church, are not Roman Catholics.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held, that religiously-operated institutions can receive public funds, to operated non-religious enterprises.
Examples: A religious denomination can operate a shelter for abused women. A religion can operate a drug-rehabilitation clinic. A church can operate a homeless shelter. All of these enterprises can receive public money to operate in the public interest.
An indigent person can receive money through Medicaid, and get treatment at a hospital run by a religious organization.
The constitutional issue of providing funds to religious organizations to operate enterprises, not involved with religion, has been settled for many years.
And the recent case of Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017), hammered it home.
see
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-577
Common sense is becoming less and less common. Don’t bother me with facts. My mind is made up – especially when it makes money for “me”.
Good one, Gordon.
I heard a funny thing yesterday.
“Consumer” is Libertarian for “person” 🙂
“As a rule, Americans don’t want tax money to subsidize religious schools.” Except here on Long Island when the Public Schools are not segregated enough.