g is terminated. Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, told the press, “The voucher program is costing millions of dollars that would be better spent on improving education for the majority of Milwaukee’s schoolchildren” (Whitmire 1). The voucher system implements a great amount of tax dollars to aid a relatively small number of students. While seeming to neutralize problems in American education, it simply creates more by denying failing schools the chance to improve. There is another major loophole in the voucher system: there is no way to calculate if any improvement has been made in the academic performance of students using vouchers. A comparison between public and private school students’ achievements is prevented because each uses different tests. In Cleveland, where an inner-city voucher system, is in place, researchers have reached no clear conclusions about the program’s effectiveness (Whitmire 1). Without this information, there is no way to determine if giving children a voucher brings scholastic improvement. There are definite problems with the American education system; problems the nation has battled for more than a century. Reform is needed, but the school voucher system is not the answer. If the plan would go nation-wide, 50 million children would be dropped at the doorsteps of private schools. Currently, only 10 percent of families send their children to private schools (Tyack 2). This small number of elite schools could not possibly accommodate the boom in enrollment caused by student with vouchers. What then? It is very likely that private schools would spring up overnight in response to the sudden number of children seeking to use government money at private schools. Who can guarantee that these schools will be of a better quality than the public schools which came before them (Roberts, Glenn 22)? If the voucher system were implemented, public school, as t...
