Arizona School Vouchers

— benway @ 19:57

Yesterday, the Arizona Senate passed Senate Bill 1506 by a vote of 16-12. The bill allows yearly vouchers in the amount of $3500 for K-8 students and $4500 for 9-12 students to be paid out of state funds for parents electing to send their children to private school.

I despise public education. It creates an environment of mediocrity, lowering the bar to cater to the least motivated, least intelligent, worst kids. It removes control of a child’s education from the parents and places it squarely in the hands of the state. At its worst (as in all-day kindergarten), it amounts to taxpayer funded day care.

Still, I have mixed feelings on vouchers.

Arizona has been rather progressive on education. Its charter school program allows private corporations to operate schools at a profit, although still regulated and controlled by the state. For instance, a charter school must still impose the AIMS test upon its students, and it cannot discriminate (in factors like a student’s intellect or potential, as well as skin color or gender) with regard to its admissions practices. Charter schools are akin to public utility companies – they’re free to make money so long as they cater to the whims of the state. In many cases, this creates a profit motive centered around pleasing the state over and above providing an excellent education.

Private schools, funded by vouchers, would ostensibly only have to answer to the state on matters of safety and health. They would be free to admit who they choose, teach what the parents of their students deem proper, and enforce standards of achievement to match their curriculum. They would be free to charge tuition at whatever rate they choose. If it exceeds the voucher amount, then parents or scholarships would need to make up the difference. They could even choose to hire non-union teachers.

If this bill is signed by Governor Janet “I am Governor, hear me roar” Napolitano, the lefties will engage in their usual tactic, litigation. Tax money would potentially go to parochial schools via vouchers, and in the diseased mind of a leftist, this amounts to a conglomeration of church and state. I don’t buy the argument, but there’s even odds that a judge will. The ensuing legal battle will be costly to the taxpayer benefactors of a lot of attorneys.

Opponents of vouchers argue that they will cost the state money. Ideally, since public schools are funded based on enrollment, I’m not sure that this argument is very strong. However, in reality, I expect the state will bow to liberal pressure groups and teachers unions and not decrease the public school budgets as students leave for private schools in order to foolishly compete with the private schools.

This is really the biggest problem with the voucher system – it’s a mixed educational economy. Tax dollars are still used to fund education. The real solution is to completely privatize education and pass the savings on to tax payers in the form of lower taxes. The money saved on taxes would go toward private education as the taxpayer parents see fit.

With that being said, I am tentatively in favor of school vouchers. I’m concerned over the expense to tax payers, and I hate the idea of tax money being used for education. I’m concerned that the state will use vouchers to begin to control private schools. I’m concerned that the state will continue to liberally fund public schools while making vouchers their bastard child. But in the end, I can’t help but view this as a positive first step even with its problems.

The real question is, will Napolitano reply with a roaring veto? Arizona is shifting toward a conservative mind set, and next year is a gubernatorial election. A veto would be a politically dangerous move, and given our governor’s lack of any history of political temerity, I suspect she’ll attempt to extort compromises from the Republican legislature before begrudgingly signing the bill (followed by claiming responsibility for the innovation during her re-election campaign).