Do school vouchers improve the quality of education - Research Paper Example

Running head: Do school vouchers improve the quality of education? Do school vouchers improve the quality of education? Insert Insert Title Insert Instructor’s Name 15 February 2012 Do School Vouchers Improve The Quality Of Education? Part I The school voucher issue regarding improvement of the quality of education has presented a wide range of relevant arguments, both in support of and against its application. The school voucher is basically a certificate that is issued by government to parents and guardians of students as tuition in private schools. The school voucher was introduced in a bid to reimburse expenses of private schooling, rather than assigned state schooling. The school voucher is more or less an education tax credit, where citizens donate money towards education for children in private schools. Non-voucher education systems compel guardians who take their children to private schools to double taxation, since they still contribute to public schools funding. Generally, school vouchers are put in place to offset the cost incurred by families who choose to enroll their children to private schools that best fit their needs in a bid to improve their performance and quality of education (Altidor, 2005, p.15). School vouchers were first introduced with the aim of improving the quality of both the elementary and secondary school education with regards to Milton Friedman’s proposition in the 1950s. Parents and guardians seeking to provide high quality education for their children have contributed greatly to renewed interests in school vouchers. School voucher proposals seek to support households that choose to enroll their children in private schools through vouchers from the government to cover private school tuition costs either partly or fully. Arguments in support of the school voucher programs claim that through this program, households with are able to encourage educational systems competition that would go a long way in enhancing the quality of education that is being offered among the competing schools. Arguments in support of the school voucher place emphasis of aspects that suggests that students from low-income households who are enrolled in private schools have a higher probability of achieving higher performance levels on standardized tests unlike those in public schools. Public schools tend to have lower quality education resulting in lower performance levels among the general cadre of students irrespective of the income levels of the households they are from. This has been tied to the fact that public schools are reluctant to providing quality education and only focus on operating within rules and regulations unlike private schools, which are under pressure to provide quality education to maintain their competitive edge. However, opponents to the school voucher system elude claims to higher performance in private schools as having been the result of biasness regarding sample selection. Biased sample selection refers to a situation where most students enrolled in private schools are from wealthy families and thus their high performance is tied to their wealthy status and not quality education (Brux, 2010, p.93). Unlike public schools, it is evident that private schools tend to make maximum and efficient use of resources, and thus promoting the quality of education that they offer to students, irrespective of the income levels of the families. This is unlike public schools, which are often subject to misappropriation of funds, and resource inefficiencies, which compel them to provide poor quality of education irrespective of sufficient funds provided. Although arguments against the school voucher claim that students enrolled in private schools mostly come wealthy households, there are claims that parents and guardians place much emphasis on educational achievement have higher tendencies of taking their children to private schools. Such tendencies imply that parents are encouraged to uphold such views and emphasis on educational achievement through school vouchers, which consequently promotes quality education. Part II The School voucher has been linked to income levels, wealth, and family background among other class aspects that draws a line between public and private schools. Class asserts to the fact that private schools are more or less schools for students from wealthy households while public schools are for the lower class citizens. This is in consideration of the fact that private schools are costly and therefore only affordable to the higher class of citizens. More so, private and public schools are an indication of the societal economic inequality that prevails under a distinctive system of education. More so, the situation is heightened where the rich are further relieved of their income burdens through the school voucher thus compelling them to higher income levels unlike low-income earners. More arguments assert the school voucher to being an aspect that promotes a free market education system where competition exists between public and private schools. Free markets compel schools to increase their accountability to use of resources and improve their performance to the best of their ability. With regards to accountability and maximization of potential, the school vouchers go a long way in promoting the quality of education among both private and public schools. School vouchers spurs up competition, which consequently improves the quality of education as schools strive to excel to maintain enrollment of students. More so, the competing schools seek to make the best use of resources and funds available to maximize their potential. Competing private schools tend to have higher performance levels among its students with reasonably lower costs as compared to public schools. Arguments against the school voucher are rendered irrelevant on the basis of lower costs of operations among private schools due to efficiencies and potential maximization. However, free market competition compels both public and private schools better performance (Weil, 2002, pp.111-114). It is evident that schools are forced to up their operations to higher efficiencies when they are faced with stiff student enrollments and acknowledgement competition. The forces of supply and demand for students among schools come into play to improve school efficiencies and student performance levels. The supply of students from public schools depends on efficiencies and promising performance prospects in privates schools although the demand may be influenced by their capacity to maintain high performance and efficiencies at a particular student capacity. Parents who transfer their children from public schools to private schools seek to access high quality education whose supply depends on private school capacity. The supply of high quality education relies on government’s issue of school vouchers to encourage parents to transfer their children to their schools of choice. Since the introduction of schools vouchers, the supply of quality educations can be asserted to having recorded an increase. The graph below shows the reasons and the degree with which students transfer from their assigned public schools. Special academic programs are evidently a significant contributing factor to high transfer of students from public schools. Demand of quality education relies on the need for parents to search for better education that satisfy the educational needs of their children. However, higher costs are incurred by private schools in providing quality education and thus necessitate funding and support from governments through the school voucher in a bid to promote quality of education. It is therefore necessary that costs incurred in private schools translate to higher performance with regards to marginal costs verses marginal benefits. Costs incurred in general education by governments have from time to time been coupled with inefficiencies and poor quality education. The school voucher has been termed as a means with which funds are shifted from public schools to private schools thus promoting inequality with regards to class difference in private and public schools. Claims allude to public schools as those of low income household while private schools are for students from wealthy families and thus school vouchers for private schools widens the inequality gap between these two classes. However, non-voucher systems on the other hand are said to promote inefficiencies in the education system. The school voucher microeconomics dictates that parents are given credit on the taxes they pay bases on the amount they are willing to invest in education. The graph below shows how the school voucher system seeks to promote public good as its shifts budgets lines and indifference curves with regards to efficiencies in the education system. Source: theunlikelyeconomist.com The school voucher education system purports to promote consumer choice theory that is goal oriented with regards to promoting quality education through efficiencies and better choices of schools among parents. On the other hand, parents are keen on ensuring the benefit they get from private schools with regards to quality education is reasonable according to the costs they incur. Consumer benefits must be in conformity with costs incurred in the education system. This refers to the marginal social benefit (MSB) and marginal social costs (MSC) being equal in the long where efficiency is achieved when schools are subjected to competition. The school voucher education system is producing quality education where the marginal social benefit just equals the marginal social costs with regards to the resources utilized (McTaggart, Findlay, & Parkin, 2007, p.38). The graph below shows education efficiency where the marginal social benefit curve and the marginal social cost curve meet. Where the MSB equals the MSC is the optimal point of view of the society where the opportunity cost of the school voucher resource is used as efficiently as possible. Source: harpercollege.edu Part III School vouchers have generally contributed significantly to high quality education, which has seen the performance of students who receive the vouchers having higher academic outcomes as compared to other students. Random selection of students who receive school vouchers has seen similar high performance outcomes irrespective of student’s background and income levels of the families they come from. These rules out arguments against the school voucher, which claims high performance outcomes, are a result of wealthy family backgrounds at the expense of the poor in an education system dictated by income inequality. Not only did the school vouchers improve academic outcomes in private schools but also in public schools where better services could be delivered to students with special education needs. However, vast opponent claims remain a concern with regards to public schools being weakened by the voucher system thus consequently weakening lower class citizens (Government Printing Office, 1998, pp.3745-3748). The school voucher system has also been argued to promoting lack of accountability in the use of the taxpayer’s money since the decision is placed at the discretion of parents rather than education boards. More so, the school voucher system also seeks to negate and do away with the inefficiencies reported in public schools although opposing claims have that inefficiencies result from the wide range of services and responsibilities that public schools are coupled with. Public schools educate a diverse mix of students, which consequently render inefficient as opposed to private schools whose functionality is limited to quality of education. More so, arguments against the voucher system refer to the system as that which transfers resources form the public schools that provide education to lower class citizens who are the needy members of the society. All in all, education system efficiencies are paramount in all societies irrespective of the costs incurred. The school voucher system has so for proved an effective strategy of promoting efficiency in the education system with through the competitive market bought about by private schools. Competition forces schools to maintain high education standards which are essential for producing student from the grade level who are ready for higher level education and consequently in the college level ,and the workforce. An education system that produces graduates with high level of education will go a long way in enhancing a workforce that will stimulate economic growth and sustainability among other societal benefits. Parents and educators can effectively contribute to a successful education system through the school voucher system, which actually improves the quality of education. References Altidor, J.N. (2005). School Vouchers and in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles. Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc. Brux, J.M. (2010). Do school vouchers improve the quality of education? Economic Issues and Policy. OH: Cengage Learning. Government Printing Office. (1998). Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 105th Congress, Second Session. McTaggart D., Findlay C. & Parkin M. (2007). Economics: Externalities. Pearson Education Australia. Retrieved from http://athene.csu.edu.au/~hskoko/subjects/eco110/lect10ho.pdf Weil, D.K. (2002). School Vouchers and Privatization: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO. Read More