The reform sweeping red America is slightly different from a voucher — it’s called an education savings account, or an ESA. In a voucher system, public funds go directly to schools. With ESAs, parents who opt out of the public school system get several thousand dollars in an account that they can use for private school tuition, homeschooling, or other education-related expenses.
But the biggest change is in who can use them: everyone. “It’s really hard to overstate how different from any kind of previous legislation these programs are.” said Liz Cohen, policy director for Georgetown University’s FutureEd think tank. “It’s not income-tested; it’s not about getting the lowest-income kids in the worst schools. Prior to three years ago, I would have bet a lot of money you would have never seen this happen.”
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Critics of these changes argue they amount to a wealth transfer to families with kids in private schools, and they fear it will result in the weakening or even the eventual privatization of public school systems. They also voice concern over the separation of church and state, since many ESA funds will go toward sending children to religious education.
For many supporters, those are features, not bugs. They characterize the new ESA laws as letting parents take “their money” — the dollars that would have been used to educate their kids — out of public schools they have no interest in using. They call this “funding students instead of systems.” Their critics say it’s the destruction of the common good.
I legitimately do not understand the logic behind this.
What about people without kids? Why don’t they get money off their student loans or vouchers for college or vocational classes?
I don’t have a car, so can I get back my portion of the money that went to widening and resurfacing the streets? Or maybe a voucher I can use at the bike shop?
Just because I don’t directly utilize a tax funded service doesn’t mean I don’t indirectly benefit from that service, let alone that I should be reimbursed for it in some fashion. And this shit is somehow even worse. It’s taking money that could be going to a public school and giving it to psycho home schoolers or people who are already rich enough to afford private schools. It’s actively making things worse.
Because the point of this program is not to actually help anyone, but rather to further dismantle the public school system. Republicans don’t like paying taxes.
Or an educated populace
“Educated in the right way,” literally and figuratively.
So you wanted everyone’s tax dollars to support you having your college debt paid off, but you are against your tax dollars going to someone else’s education if you aren’t directly benefiting?
I get you, you fucking hypocrite.