Education remains America’s most influential avenue of opportunity. Most Americans recognize the necessity of an elementary and secondary level of education to succeed within the highly competitive world beyond adolescence. Without a basic foundation of fundamental knowledge, an opportunity to compete against a world of advancing proficiency would leave those lacking such aptitude behind. Like the millions of Americans who recognize education as the one of the nation’s priority concerns, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, led his 2000 presidential campaign with education at the top of his agenda. Bush’s principles of interest for education reform include seven specific points: achieving equality, promoting excellence, to stop funding failure, to restore local control, to provide parents with information and options, to ensure every child can read, and to improve school safety (George W. Bush). Of these proposed programs, the most controversial idea supported by the Bush campaign includes an unprecedented wide-scale school voucher system. This program suggests that tax dollars will be provided as vouchers for parents to send their children to

Supporters argue that school voucher systems are the only reasonable answer to aiding children who are trapped within the system of failing inner-city schools by introducing the possibility of choice in education. Through choice school systems, "families are no longer captives of their neighborhood schools" (Giraitis). Instead, individuals may choose other public or private schools enabling families at all income levels to become consumers of education (Giraitis). Rather than settle for the school offered by the public education system within the district of one’s residence, vouchers would allow parents to send their children to better schools district-wide, statewide, or to the private school of their choosing (Education Week). One of the school voucher’s most compelling arguments is that individuals can use public tax dollars in the form of Pell Grants or subsidized loans to choose any public, private, and parochial higher education institution (Giraitis). This enables those in the lower income bracket to apply for schools with higher academic standing than many of the schools made available to them. “An overwhelming majority of school voucher systems were targeted for low income families so that they could exercise the same power of choice that middle and upper income families have always had” (Giraitis). Through voucher programs, access to a good school, whether public or private, is “no longer determined by one’s ability to purchase a home… low income families gain the necessary purchasing power to attend the public or private school of their choice” (Giraitis). Because it has proven an effective way to foster competition among universities as well as allowing students to have their choice in higher education establishments, school voucher advocates argue the same idea for elementary and secondary levels of school education.

Instead of allowing the voucher system to possibly foster a widening gap of good and bad schools, I think the energy and time spent on planning for a new system should be spent on reorganizing and reevaluating our current system. Though one must admit, the conditions of our schools are far from improving, we must also recognize that little is being done to help further the progress of our education system, and our education system is far from impossible to save. Take for example what we have learned from private schools: smaller classes, personal attention to students, innovative learning methods, and quality instructors help students meet their full potential. If focus were be placed on more specific measures of public education rather than being placed on the origin of funds, perhaps public education could be improved much in the way private school education standards are maintained. We cannot give up on a system that has worked for us thus far. The American public education system might be in decline, but it is far from uncontrollably failing us, therefore, we must salvage what we can of a system that has proven to work well enough to foster one of the mot thriving nations in the world. There remains the looming fear that any implementation of a wide scale voucher system will destroy what we have worked so hard to build in public school systems, therefore, I advocate that we attempt to reform our education system by examining the root of our problems, not by creating new ones.

Tension mounts as it has become increasingly apparent to the American public that our current public school systems are not meeting the standards to which many Americans would like it to achieve. Over the years, standardized test scores have decreased while many students continue to take remedial classes and excessive high school drop out rates increase. Though Americans realize the need to reform the current systems, school vouchers has emerged as the only plausible solution Americans have recently taken into consideration. Those in support of, as well as those in opposition to, th

Some topics in this essay:
Jones Vouchers, Holland CNN, Supreme Court, Pell Grants, Coulson Idealists, Caroline Hoxby, George Bush, Murdock Advocates, Education Week, Gale Researchers, school voucher, voucher system, private schools, public private, education system, school voucher system, school vouchers, public schools, school systems, private school, voucher systems, school voucher systems, public private schools, public school systems, parents send children,