Quote:
Originally Posted by bcb
I don't want to be the one to stir up a huge education argument again, but I just don't see how implementing a voucher system improves education. Looking stateside, all the voucher system has really accomplished is to promote some good private schools, while severely undermining the public system.
If the government is offering public education, what kind of message are they sending, by encouraging kids to attend private schools?
Finally, I am surprised 'school choice' is even a conservative position. Since when does gov. meddling in private business represent the ideals of small government? If the gov. wanted to be really conservative, they'd do away with the public system entirely. Of course, we know the majority of parents won't shell out 14 grand a year for tuition, so that's not an option.
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It improves education by forcing competition. Right now if a person is unhappy with the Public school they are assigned they don't really have much choice. They can go to the publically funded catholic system if they are baptized or shell out big dollars and go to a private school.
If the public system is the best choice then the private schools will all fail and no one will choose to go to a private one. If their are deficiencies in the Public system these will be exposed and forced to improve.
I really think that the adversarial nature between the teachers union and the province and the province and the school boards essentially prevents any real change from occurring. There just isn't the impetus for change. If schools are loosing funding and boards are loosing jobs there will be demand to change the system.
In Calgary the CBE seems to perform quite well in all of the metrics used to evaluate schools but if some schools under perform providing competition to force them to improve or be closed is a good thing.