Private School Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Private School Education - Essay Example That would enable the government to support education without necessarily maintaining public institutions. The champions of this voucher system also say that the one-size-fits-all public school system is inappropriate as the model does not cater to the different needs of the students. Opponents of the voucher system, on the other hand, say that it is unfair to take public money meant for public schools and channel the same into the private school where the public has no oversight over how the funds would be used. There is also fear that the private school system may only help to further segment the population alongside religious, social class and other lines. It is entirely possible that the introduction of the voucher system in private schools would provide a magnet for students in public schools. Faced with a larger applicant's pool, private schools would then find it easier to reject applicants deemed undesirable. Unlike public schools, private schools are not obliged to take in one and all. Why the private school vouchers system issue so polarizing Part of the answer lies in the way it has been promoted. California was among the first states to flirt with private schools voucher way back in 1993. A proposal was brought into the legislature of the state that would have taken away as much as 10 per cent of public school funding, with a possibility of further increases on the card if more students moved from public to private schools (Rushefsky, 2002, p. 396). The issue is a political hot potato so much that George W. Bush stopped talking about it in the 2000 election primaries. Two powerful arguments already advanced are essential for a balanced view on the issue. And this article will chronicle the vouchers debate and will attempt to close the difference between the two sides through critically analyzing the pros and cons of the voucher system in private schools. Recurring discussions on the topics are decidedly one-sided. And once a path has been identified, for many an author on the topic, there is no turning back. Two critically acclaimed works on the topic include Rhetoric Versus Reality done by four RAND researchers; Gill, Tiampane, Brewer, Ross and Booker (2007). This book does a fairly good job examining the theoretical underpinnings of vouchers and charter schools and tables the empirical data on their efficacy. The book also looks at how several policy formulations such as the funding, eligibility criteria, academic standards and accountability, may affect the success of the program. Some issues which have yet to be addressed are raised, and although the book is not conclusive on those issues, it leaves room for a more robust consideration of the issues in the future. The other important work on the topic is The Education Gap by Howell and Peterson (2002). Compelling evidence is tabled that African Americans have greatly benefited from the voucher system. Overall, The Education Gap is illustrative on the practicability of the voucher program in private schools and emphatically so in poor urban environments. The point of convergence for both books is that the authors favour random field trials. The sheer volume of applications that are usually received reduces the voucher program into some form of the wager so that those who received the vouchers were merely lucky than needful. There are other studies/articles on the subject. Breaking These Chains is a book by Daniel McGrory, a former Whitehouse speechwriter that in an evangelical fashion roundly criticizes the public school system (1996).