Vouchers- a narrow answer for a big problem

Vouchers are great for the tiny percent of people who use them. The problem is while vouchers give opportunity to certain children, they take opportunity away from others. Vouchers keep money intended for a public education out of the public schools. The answer is not to fund private schools in order to improve public schools, since most schools will argue that they only fail because they aren't given enough resources to succeed.

The other obvious issue with vouchers is that it gives more government control over private schools. The idea behind private schools is freedom to be different from the public schools in hopes of filling some niche not offered, or simply being a superior school. Government control over private schools with come with any money spent there, and for good reason. Taxpayers who have their money spent on someone else's education is going to want there to be standards set to make sure that their money isn't going to waste.

It is too bad that the Milwaukee schools are performing as well as they should be. The voucher program instituted solves nothing. Taxpayers were taxed more to pay for vouchers to get out of the system (compared to just having public schools). That money would have been much better utilized being distributed amongst the Milwaukee public schools and spent on programs designed to fix the schools. Whether they implement a specific program, or simply hire more teachers, or more experienced teachers, there are a lot of ways to start fixing a program that will ensure that all students will have a spot for them at a high quality public school.