54

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.”

[...]

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.

top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Holy shit, ruining your country speed run.

Public education is the great equalizer which is why the people in power and the wealthy love these programs. Education should be uniform or else you erode any meritocracy imagined or real.

[-] MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

Also why they love lower and middle classes having debt from higher education. They want the system to benefit them and bind everyone else.

[-] dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

That's exactly what they want. Why do you think they're rolling back child labor laws? And people cheer it on.

[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago

"School Choice" = segregation

[-] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 year ago

Also, religious indoctrination.

[-] lingh0e@lemmy.film 22 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] SCB@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] quicksand@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago
[-] SCB@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Educated in the right way," literally and figuratively.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de -4 points 1 year ago

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.

  • This proposal is total bs, though. There's so many reasons this is a shit idea.
[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Even in the reddest states, they fell short of their true Holy Grail: public money funding private school tuition, for all who want it, including middle-class and wealthy families.

This argument prevailed in Wisconsin in 1990, when Republicans joined with a few Democrats to create the nation’s first modern voucher program, for low-income kids in Milwaukee (an idea promoted by the Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation).

“Part of my job was to actively call reporters and try to get them to take the word ‘voucher’ out of their stories,” said Charles Siler, a former lobbyist for the Goldwater Institute who has since become a critic of his onetime allies.

But the drop in Republican support shifted the previous political status quo, especially in red states, making rank-and-file GOP voters less hostile about proposals to shake up the system.

So in 2022, his final year in office, Ducey took another shot at getting the nation’s first truly universal ESA program — in which even families already sending their kids to private school could get money — off the ground in Arizona.

States could create what was essentially a new benefit for families who weren’t previously utilizing government money to educate their children, while often increasing funding and teacher pay at public schools, in “have your cake and eat it too” fashion.


The original article contains 4,032 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 95%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago
[-] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 1 year ago

Read the article, I dont wanna argue with people who have a shitty summary at best

this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
54 points (93.5% liked)

politics

19104 readers
1138 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS