LIES, DAMNED LIES (BUT NO STATISTICS) IN THE VOUCHERS DEBATE

Anti-Voucher Lies
1) All Failing Public Schools Need is More Money
It's amazing that public school advocates keep falling back on this obvious untrue position. Any one who has ever spent any time analyzing the problems of American public school education realizes that the problems are far more systemic than simply insufficient funds. First, there is the insidious impact of the Teacher’s Union - which provides job security for ineffective teachers and creates a massive disjunct between teacher salary and performance. Second, there is the major problem of bureaucratic waste in large school districts - with money that should be spent on faculty and supplies wasted on excessive layers of administration. Finally, there is the problem of de-centralized standards, which makes it extremely hard to measure schools performance, let alone hold administers and teachers accountable for such performance.

2) Vouchers Take Money Away From Public Schools
This claim is based on the fallacious notion that the amount of money government can spend on education in this country is currently limited by economic resources. In this view, the amount of educational spending is fixed and vouchers and public schools compete in a zero sum game. In reality, the limiting factor is not economic, but political. In the long term, this may be addressed by better mobilizing the supporters of public education, but in the interim, public education funding is going to be capped by strong support among voters for the idea that increasing educational funds is simply throwing money away. Vouchers, in a paradoxical way, therefore may be a way to increase the amount of funds to public schools. Rather than taking a hard-line position, supporters of public education should be willing to accept pilot voucher programs in return for increased federal funds to existing public schools.

Pro-Voucher Lies
1) Vouchers Will Save the Children of Dysfunctional Public School Systems
Proponents of vouchers consistently overstate the potential benefits. Voucher programs merely play at the edges of the problem, allowing a small percentage of parents to benefit from increased educational choice. Vouchers will never address the needs of the vast majority of children who will remain in what are currently dysfunctional public school systems.

2) Vouchers Will Help Public School Reform More Than Increased Funding
This is another wild overstatement by the pro-voucher crowd. To begin with, market incentives are not going to work with regard to public education. The linkage of job security to patronage may make large numbers of students exiting the school system advantageous, rather than threatening. Second, try telling suburban districts that outspend their urban neighbors two to one in per-pupil spending that money doesn’t matter. Of course it does - the greater spending buys these districts higher teacher salaries (attracting better teachers), better facilities and better supplies. All of these things matter. In fact, the disparities are worse than the figures indicate. Urban schools on the average spend a higher percentage of their budget on maintaining older, out-dated facilities. In addition, urban school districts, due to the social ills of many cities, are faced with a much higher percentage of special needs children. What needs to be equalized, therefore, isn’t merely spending-per-pupil, but the amount of actual classroom expenditures-per-non-special needs pupil. This would inevitably lead to urban schools having larger budgets.

Some Voucher Truths
The Voucher debate as it currently stands is strident and unproductive. Voucher proponents offer them up as panaceas. Voucher opponents try to desperately to prevent any children from escap-ing the wreckage of failing public school systems. The misguided "leave no child behind" philosophy of public educators is taken to its logical conclusion - "permit no child ahead." Its time for a common sense compromise. Let’s admit that public education needs a lot more than vouchers for successful reform. And let’s also admit that such reform is years away, and in the interim, vouchers provide a way to give at least some children the decent education this country owes every child.