More on School Vouchers: the Religion Red Herring

As promised/threatened, there's a lot more to say about private school vouchers and whether or not state methods of implementing them work for students with special needs.

Just some quick background: school vouchers permit students to basically go to private schools on "scholarship", using public funds designated for each child's education.  The public school district pays the private school an allocation of funds per student enrolled via voucher, usually dependent on a formula concocted by dividing the number of enrolled public school students into the general education fund.

A lot of folks like the idea because it promotes competition between public and private schools, and provides choices and opportunities to kids who might not have very many options.  If you think about the problems of underperforming public schools in poor, urban areas, vouchers could allow kids in such areas (often, minorities) to access better education.  There's been quite a bit of research in this area, much of which supports the idea that competition breeds improvement, and better educational choices for underprivileged kids.  (See, for example, the wikipedia on school vouchers, which is actually very good and fairly balanced.)

Now, a lot of folks do not like school vouchers because they do muddle the line between public and private schools. And these folks have their own research arguing that vouchers lead to a lack of accountability, and not necessarily even improvement in test scores.  Furthermore, when the private schools are also religious schools, questions arise about whether public funds ought to be spent on religious education (the whole minor issue of separation of church and state, you know).