Why Not – Federal Educational Voucher System
I propose that the federal government provide vouchers for all P-12 school children that would replace a significant percentage of locally-provided funds for school. All unused portions of the vouchers could be used in future years through graduate school.
Schools funded by property taxes are grossly unfair due to substantial differences in property values between communities and due to the burden it places on home owners without children.
Benefits:1. Provides equal treatment for all children, regardless of geography or wealth. 2. Empowers parents to select schools of their choice.3. Provides incentive to think about how current spending will impact future spending.4. Allows local governments to dramatically reduce local taxation, primarily property taxes. Conversely, spending at the federal level would jump substantially. Theoretically, a single taxing entity should be more efficient than thousands of communities. 5. Vouchers would start at pre-K level, which should provide incentives to get kids into school earlier.
Disadvantages:1. Communities would have much less incentive to allow businesses to operate. However, communities may find that 100% of their revenue needs could be provided by sales tax. 2. Property values could be impacted. In lower-value areas, property values might increase due to the availability of choice in schools. In high-value areas where premiums are paid to live near good public schools, there is a potential for a value decline, if these public schools cannot maintain their competitive advantage. 3. While the overall number of teachers required by this system would probably not change, there would be a clear incentive to keep teacher compensation down. This may result in an inferior pool of teachers. On the other hand, competition among schools may force schools to reallocate resources away from overhead and into teaching. 4. Public schools will still need to exist. States and communities will probably continue to maintain and monitor public schools, since in many communities no other alternative exist. However, some communities may wish to privatize all their schools and provide additional vouchers to the students in their area. 5. Some parents and schools will attempt to use the vouchers for non-educational expenses. This would require significant penalties to both offending parties.6. This program would disproportionably favor families that currently send kids to private school. This is obviously true, but the current system is grossly unfair to these same families. Not only do these families pay the taxes to support the public system, but pay again (non-tax deductible) to send the kids to school. Furthermore, it is not just the rich that send kids to private schools. In fact, all segments of society send kids to private schools for a variety of reasons.
Funding:Theoretically, the overall tax burden would decline:1. One taxing entity should be more efficient. It is likely that many communities or states would completely eliminate property taxes and rely solely on sales tax and income tax. 2. The size of the voucher would be lower than the average per pupil spent nationwide. Even so, it is likely that the overall use of public schools would decline – moving the extra cost to the parents. 3. Additional savings could be derived by eliminating many of the separate programs currently run by the department of education.
Issues:1. Could vouchers be used at religious schools? – yes. Vouchers could be used for all types of schools and even for home schooling, as long as basic subjects are being taught and the program is accredited. 2. Do the vouchers ever expire? – Yes, vouchers expire at age 30 and the funds cannot be used for any other purpose. 3. Will a separate trust fund be created for the unused portion of the vouchers? Yes, it is expected that prior vouchers will be used more often in tough economic times, when budgets are already tight. Therefore, maintaining some trust fund makes sense. However, accumulated amounts exceeding 100% of the average program costs over the prior three years will be returned to the federal government. Since this is a new program, it would be a great place to experiment with investing the trust fund more like a private endowment would do. 4. Is it reasonable to give vouchers to rich parents? Well, rich parents currently have the option to send their kids to public schools, and these schools are often substantially better than poorer school districts. Wealthy people are more likely to be against this plan because it levels the playing field, and they don’t want that. 5. Could this be phased in gradually? Absolutely, there is no reason why the government couldn’t start with $3,000 per pupil and gradually raise it to $5,000 - $8,000. If the program started at too low of a level, there would be no observable change in people’s behavior.
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I'm not sure that replacing thousands of taxing entities with one massive Federal beauracracy is more efficient. I'd have to see evidence that ANY Federal Beaucracy is more efficient than any other kind. Revenues from local school districts doesn't usually wind up in the Federal general fund, and don't pay for things like interest on the massive Federal debt, which takes up about 25% of the Federal budget. Local revenues are usually spent within the local economy, and are usually spent on the intended purpose. Yes, there is a lot more money in the Federal kitty, but the Federal Government is monumentally wasteful and horribly inefficient, usually spending more on administration costs than on the intended purpose. A look at the Welfare system is a good example- it rewards those who "jump through the hoops," and understand how the paper trail works, and neglects the unfortunate, clueless ones who sincerely need help; it's a system that attracts con artists. Do you realy want to feed this monster more?