The Effectiveness of School Vouchers: An Argumentative Report

This report provides an argumentative discussion on the justification of school vouchers. It begins by defining school vouchers and their function in allocating funds for children's education. The report explores the benefits, such as parental choice and potential improvements in school performance, particularly for lower-income families. However, it also highlights disadvantages, including potential violations of the separation of church and state, concerns about educational effectiveness compared to non-voucher programs, and the potential for undermining public education. The report considers the arguments for and against vouchers, referencing various research studies and academic sources to support its claims. It concludes that school vouchers are highly ineffective due to a lack of consistency in maintaining educational standards and a failure to adequately address the educational needs of all students. The report aims to provide a balanced perspective on the complex issue of school vouchers, considering their impact on students, schools, and the broader educational landscape.

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Student Name
Subject
Date
School Vouchers
Introduction
School vouchers allow parents with the freedom to select a suitable school for their children by
making effective use of all or a certain percentage of fund allocated for children education. The
entire funding process is governed by specific school districts, who go ahead with allocating it to
the family looking
to seeking admission of their children (Wolf 250). The fund is obtained in the form of voucher
to the parents for the purpose of fulfilling partial or full tuition fees of children in private schools.
However, there are certain issues identified with the use of school vouchers in the form of
governmental, social, political and even legal, which finally results in impacting the very
objective of seeking school funds for children education. The following report has provided an
argumentative discussion relating to whether the use of school vouchers is justified or not. Based
on the information obtained, the report has concluded the primary points that highlights the
primary reasons pointing out to ineffective usage of school vouchers.
Benefits
School vouchers are identified to providing parents with the right to select suitable educational
institution for their children. The freedom of school selection in this case look towards help
people in enjoying their fundamental rights. Furthermore, parents are in a suitable position to
offer the best education for their children which in the long run goes further with rewarding
higher performing schools. The effectiveness of reward is also identified to forcing even the
under-performing schools to enhance their operations so as to enjoy the state fund (Epple,
Richard and Urquiola 450)
The lower income group of the society with the use of school vouchers can successfully
accomplish their right relating to better educational facilities. Private schools in general seeks to
provide educational services to students belonging from rich families. They tend to offer students

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with quality and better education, which finally results in the increased number of graduates.
Therefore, a significant leap in the number of students opting for pursuing higher education
beyond school level is identified. Furthermore, private schools are found to exhibit efficient
spending and utilisation of the funds allocated by government when compared to other suitable
private alternatives. With the use of school vouchers, the lower-income group of the society
comes in direct access to effectively utilise the resources which enable them to seek best
educational services followed by a bright and prospective career options.
The effectiveness of school vouchers is found to lie in offering students with better schooling
opportunities (Cowen 150). The quality of education provided is found to experiencing increased
operational effectiveness in terms of offering students with education services more with the
state declaration of funds. With the successful increase in the educational facilities, the schools
are in an effective position to secure more marks and thus make themselves eligible for future
higher education. The total number of students opting for graduation programs is found to
increase in a rapid manner.
Disadvantages
School vouchers are considered to violate the separation of the state from the church. It is looked
forward to as a dishonest way of funding provided by government to practice religious
education. However, in this case majority of the private schools for which funds are being
provided to the parents are found to offer religious education to the students (Chingos and
Peterson 6). The use of public funds for religious education in private schools have been
identified to be completely inappropriate. In doing so, the process is found to separate the state
and church, as the state is being forced to funding religious educational service facilities to the
students.
There are many scenarios in which the school voucher programs are found to be incompetent in
terms of offering the students to accomplish higher educational goals. It is found to be quite
evident from the final grades obtained by the students associated with non-voucher programs.
The comparison of final results of voucher category and non-voucher category students are
looked to signify the issue relating to educational ineffectiveness in terms of accomplishing high
performance goals (Chingos and Peterson).

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The school vouchers are considered as a short-term solution to dealing with problems relating to
accessing educational rights by everyone (Carnoy). It is due to the fact that public schools will
never have the necessary resources required for the purpose of providing education to every
child. Furthermore, making effective of school vouchers for the purpose of offering educational
facilities to a selected set of individuals to cause immense harm to the entire public education
system in the near future for a prolonged timer period. It comprises of snatching away public
funds from schools that are found to fail in delivering adequate level of education service
(Stewart and Patrick 209). The perceived effectiveness of school vouchers tends to focus on
meaningful conversations relating to allocating funds for increasing the operational effectiveness
of public educational facilities. School vouchers are found to result in the development of a
situation whose final outcome is perceived as shortage in presence of adequate number of
teachers, alarming increase in number of students, widening of racial gap achievement. Based on
each of these factors, it is quite evident about the degree of impact caused by the school vouchers
(Fleming, Mitchell and McNally 218).
Justification
The school vouchers are found to highly ineffective in terms of offering the desired education to
the students due to the lack of consistency in maintaining the educational standard. The
difference in standard of education in between public and private schools differs significantly. It
also goes undermines the ability and quality possessed by a child to become eligible for
education in a school. Instead vouchers tend to highlight a terrible way of determining the
educational rights of students. Furthermore, the vouchers failed to help the educational rights and
quality standards with people from low income group. It is due to the fact that the vouchers have
failed significantly in attaching regulations interfering the freedom of acceptance by a private
enterprise. Most importantly, school vouchers results in circumventing the state prohibitions
relating to subsiding religious educational instruction and practices.

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Work Cited
Carnoy, Martin. "School Vouchers Are Not a Proven Strategy for Improving Student
Achievement: Studies of US and International Voucher Programs Show That the Risks to
School Systems Outweigh Insignificant Gains in Test Scores and Limited Gains in
Graduation Rates." Economic Policy Institute (2017).
Chingos, Matthew M., and Paul E. Peterson. "Experimentally estimated impacts of school
vouchers on college enrollment and degree attainment." Journal of Public Economics 122
(2015): 1-12.
Chingos, Matthew M., and Paul E. Peterson. "The effects of school vouchers on college
enrollment." Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings and Harvard Kennedy
School (2012).
Cowen, Joshua M., et al. "School vouchers and student attainment: Evidence from a state‐
mandated study of Milwaukee's parental choice program." Policy Studies Journal 41.1
(2013): 147-168.
Epple, Dennis, Richard E. Romano, and Miguel Urquiola. "School vouchers: A survey of the
economics literature." Journal of Economic Literature 55.2 (2017): 441-92.
Fleming, David J., William Mitchell, and Michael McNally. "Can markets make citizens? School
vouchers, political tolerance, and civic engagement." Journal of School Choice 8.2
(2014): 213-236.
Stewart, Thomas, and Patrick Wolf. The school choice journey: School vouchers and the
empowerment of urban families. Springer, 2016.
Wolf, Patrick J., et al. "School Vouchers and Student Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from W
ashington, DC." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 32.2 (2013): 246-270.