The idea behind school vouchers is to instigate competition among schools, especially public ones. Public schools in America are in fact a gigantic bureaucracy. Not only the teachers are free from competition but also free from firing for most of the tenure- and union-protected educators. The only pressure probably comes from PTA. But as a parent with some financial resources, why would you even want to try to change the teachers and the school if you could just move to a better district or enroll your kids in private schools? As well-off parents move out, inner city schools are stuck with protected teachers and helpless parents. No way they can get out of the vicious cycle.
The beauty of school vouchers is to let the parents get back their power. As tax payers, they have every right to demand a better education for their children. It is almost painful to see such a wonderful idea suffer smear campaigns all over the country. To fight interest groups is never an easy task. But I believe in the long run America will learn to appreciate school vouchers.
My alternative to school vouchers is actually not my own idea. It has been in place in most part of East Asia for quite a long time. In Taiwan, for example, the best high schools are not private ones. It is often the case that parents enroll their kids in private schools only when they fail to get in any public ones. The trick is that junior high graduates have to take an entrance exam to get in any public high schools. The school districts often coincide with administrative divisions. For instance, Taipei city and the adjacent county, with more than 5 million in population, have only one school district. The district holds entrance exams twice a year. Pupils with the highest scores get to pick the schools first until all the slots are filled.
The system creates enormous competition among schools. The principals and teachers do not fight for budgets but for reputations. As everyone knows, competition among suppliers will only benefit consumers. I believe most of East Asian countries, such as Japan, China, and Korea, have similar systems. It turns out that public high schools in that area are probably the best in the world in terms of academic achievements.
The system, however, is not a very realistic solution to inner city schools in the U.S. I don't see any politicians dare to put their careers on reform ideas like that. It might be even more controversial than school vouchers. But let's face the truth. The way American universities compete with each other is almost the same as the system I have just described. Guess what, American higher education is the best in the world!
(Picture: freedomforum.org)
