Sad to say Public Schools could never live up to the standards expected in private/sectarian schools. The reason being, public schools answer to everything, is more money. As a Catholic School graduate, our schools focused on character as well as curriculum. We had more than 48 children in our class,(because of costs) yet not one was left behind, or failed to graduate. Our teachers had no tenure, they had ethics,instead. Whats so sad is, because of our separation of church and state, some children will lose the opportunity for a better education.Many of these voucher schools, inspire children, not by separating them according to their ability,but instead, by teaching them that they all have the same ability to learn. Something every American I believe see’s as valuable.

One thing that I am always perplexed by is the idea that, when confronted with non-performing public schools, the best course of action is to let a handful of folks simply flee. It seems to me that we still have children stuck at some of these inner-city schools without a plan to correct the deficiency. This seems akin to rescuing your children from a burning building and then simply walking away to leave others to the flames.
I think an important issue is that proposing vouchers is one way to let the government off the hook. If schools are unsafe and under-performing, the government has the responsibility to step in and do whatever is necessary to insure safety and academic progress. If we need policemen in every hall, so be it. If we need extra teachers, so be it. Given the issues of inner city areas, it will cost more to provide quality education in comparison to the suburbs. Shipping some kids off to religious schools does not address the needs of those who can’t afford to go elsewhere.

Ellie Dee,
What world do you live in? Catholic schools are very much about money, charging up to over $10,000 a year and cutting financial aid whenever they get the chance. Teachers at Catholic schools also have substantially smaller paychecks than their public school counterparts. In addition to that, I know plenty of Catholic school students who have underdeveloped social skills because of the shelter those schools provide from life. it doesn’t serve them in the end because many end up alcoholics, drug addicts, and young parents just like many of their public school counterparts. I fail to see how that translates as better than public schools.

“As a Catholic School graduate, our schools focused on character as well as curriculum.”
Yep…and any student who was a “problem” was invited to leave. Happens all the time in our local parochial schools. Johnny has a discipline problem…out the door. Jane is caught with cigarettes…out she goes. Mark has a special ed problem…ship him to the public schools.
When you weed out all the defective people, Ellie, you should be able to produce a superior product. Let the public schools do the same and we’ll see how well they can do.

Rev. Lynn: As Dr. Jay stated previously, parents are not the only people who have expressed their satisfaction of the program, but there was also a statistically significant, scientific research study undertaken to prove the success of the program. These facts should not be left out or distorted. You mention five studies, which is notable, against voucher program, but these still are representative of only three locations within the United States. Therefore, these studies cannot represent ALL voucher programs in America.
People should have the right to select which school they want to attend with government aid if a neutral stance is taken on religion. Furthermore, there has been no research study to validate public schools will improve with more money. Other strategies and targeted areas of improvement need to be utilized. If a private school is better than a public school, can you blame people for wanting to send their children there? Why should public schools that are not up to par be rewarded with more funding?

Barry is continuing to repeat the same nonsense. Even if private schools weren’t better than public schools, they cost about half as much per kid, making them twice as efficient, implying that if we spent the same $12000 per kid for a voucher to a private school, the education would be twice as good!
Hiding the true costs in a socialist system is what the USSR did for 70 years until the whole thing blew up on them Finally they learned to privatize most of those socialist programs.

I’ve never heard such nonsense. In every instance voucher schools were given a pass in everything from facilities safety to teachers’ credentials — and still they didn’t perform as expected. There is absolutely no reason why my tax dollars should go to support two substandard school systems.

That’s funny, Rev. Lynn. It’s obvious you care little about what parents think about raising their own children! My testimony is that when my firstborn son, Joshua went into public school, his teacher called me and asked to see our SAT test scores. He could not understand why my son was several grades ahead of his whole class in Reading and Vocabulary in the 5th grade!
Evidently Home Schooling is superior to public schooling! Not only that: my kids are better behaved than public school kids. They are friendlier, more polite, more kind and caring citizens, they don’t use profanity, and they have very high moral standards. Besides, during “Little House on the Prairie” days there were lots of home school families. It’s a parent’s God-given and Constitutional choice whether their children will go to drug and gun infested morally depraved public schools, or whether they will go to joyful, positive, outstanding schools of excellence at home!

They are friendlier, more polite, more kind and caring citizens, they don’t use profanity, and they have very high moral standards and they believe the sun orbits the earth because the Bible says so.