School Choice Programs: Examining Pros, Cons, and Impact on Federalism

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of school choice programs, a hotly debated topic in education. It begins with an introduction to the concept, highlighting the increasing parental desire for educational options and the programs available, such as neighborhood, magnet, virtual, private, and charter schools. The essay delves into the core argument: empowering parents to choose the best school for their children, contrasting it with the traditional state/district control. The essay then presents arguments for and against school choice programs, including the advantages of catering to individual student needs, reducing financial burdens, and fostering competition among schools, as well as the disadvantages of potentially undermining public schools, the challenges of religious schools accepting tax dollars, and the potential for unequal access and quality. The essay concludes by emphasizing the program's impact on federalism and the need to consider both the pros and cons to benefit the entire population.

Pro- Trump 1
Introduction:
There are some topics as ferociously debated in the field of education as today it is school choice
programs. This is seen majorly in the areas where public schools are not only making grades but
also in few districts are working quite well. Although parents want more choices and
opportunities for their children, they want to explore more choices and want their child to get the
best of all (Mueller, 2015). Now let’s take a closer look inside and discuss the pros and cons of
the topic which is one of the hot button subjects now a day.
Choice and Federalism:
The major reason, why it becomes the point of discussion related to many options available in
the education industry today. Districts offer many choices to parents, which they did not have a
decade before, like a neighborhood school, magnet schools, virtual schools, private schools,
charter schools. The whole behind the program is that parents should be given the rights to
choose the best school for their children rather than the state or the district does it for them
(Mueller, 2015). As per school voucher program, the tax dollars that normally were given to
public schools should now be given to parents so that they can themselves choose the school and
give the tuition fees, this way they can either opt for private or public school (Stewart, 2017).
There are few arguments which are made in favor of this program, some of which are:
 It allows parents to make choice according to the unique needs, learning style and
interest of their children.
 It reduces the extra burden on parents by reducing the double cost of tuition fees
and tax dollar.

Pro- Trump 2
 It caters child needs very effective as he is being educated in the place which suits
his capabilities.
 The government run education system is not working currently which is leading
to failure of schools as well as students (Elacqua et al., 2011).
 This program provokes competition among various other schools which leads to
improvement in the standard of education.
 It allows students who live in low income area to upgrade their standard by
switching to better performing schools (Elacqua et al., 2011).
Cons of the program
 It retrieves all the money from public schools leading to low quality education.
 As many of the private schools are religious so accepting the tax dollar allowance
will be against their norms (Ford, 2017).
 Vouchers are beneficial for every student as some of the private schools not still
having the right to choose the students for them.
 This process can lead to degradation of education quality in private schools due to
high demand ending up some parents to actually pay a higher amount for low quality
education.
 Private schools skim all the good students leaving nothing for public schools
which ends up low grades for them and meeting the set standards (Ford, 2017).
Conclusion:
Above all this, it is believed that this program of choosing the schools is dividing the nation,
although US government works on the idea of federalism, so if they launch this school voucher

Pro- Trump 3
program it will obviously work for the benefit of the entire population considering pros and cons
and minimizing the risk (Ford, 2017).

Pro- Trump 4
References
Elacqua, G., Contreras, D., Salazar, F. and Santos, H. (2011). The effectiveness of private
school franchises in Chile's national voucher program. School Effectiveness and School
Improvement, 22(3), pp.237-263.
Ford, V. (2017). School Choice is the Right Choice. [online] The Heritage Foundation.
Available at: http://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/school-choice-the-right-choice
[Accessed 12 Sep. 2017].
Mueller, D. (2015). Public choice, social choice, and political economy. Public Choice,
163(3-4), pp.379-387.
Stewart, K. (2017). Opinion | Betsy DeVos and God’s Plan for Schools. [online]
Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/opinion/betsy-devos-and-
gods-plan-for-schools.html [Accessed 12 Sep. 2017].