School voucher systems create an unbalance in the education system.

Alright, thank you for responding. "You disagree with me that the school vouchers removes the 'double payment' from many taxpayers. .. " School vouchers do NOT correct this. Alright, I'm going to paint a picture for you now: If there were no school vouchers, here's what each group would pay: The "poor" would pay for some taxes to send their kids to public school. The "rich" would pay for most of the taxes to send other kids to public school, in addition to paying for their own kids to go to a better private school, by their own choice on their own budget. If there were some school vouchers, here's what each group would pay: Some "poor" would pay for some taxes to send their kids to public school, in addition to some taxes to send some other lucky "poor" kids to private school. The lucky "poor" would pay for some taxes to send their kids to private school, in addition to some taxes to send some other unlucky "poor" kids to private school. The "rich" would pay for most of the taxes to send the other kids to both public and private schools, in addition to paying their own kids to go to a private school, by their own choice on their own budget. In this case, the poor are all paying the same money, but only some kids are actually benefitting from the school vouchers. If everyone got a school voucher, here's what each group would pay: The "poor" would pay for some taxes to send their kids to private school. The "rich" would pay for most of the taxes to send other kids to private school, in addition to carrying the burden of single-handedly sending their own kid to private school. Unless, of course, they get school vouchers, too, in which case private schools are just public schools that need more money, which isn't right, because it burdens the rich even more for the education of the "poor". "You postpone discussion of the next 2 points, saying you'll elaborate later what 'balance' means. " I dedicated my last seven paragraphs in Round 2 to clarify "balance". "1) a) Are you saying that when parents send their children to school, they think: 'Oooh, that school has higher cost; it's fancy! That's why I will send my children to that school! '. .. " It is a general rule of thumb that the more something costs, the better it is. This means that if you don't have to pay anything, you go with the more expensive item. Let's say that the government offered to buy you an ice cream cone. They could buy you a small cone for $0.25, a medium cone for $1, a large cone for $5, or the entire ice cream shop for $10,000. Because the money is not directly yours, you would go with the entire ice cream shop, but your decision wouldn't be nearly so hasty if you were paying for it yourself. Price is a necessary factor. I'll make a more realistic example: a guy invites you to dinner, and offers to pay the bill beforehand, because he is a very rich CEO. Because you don't have to pay, and the CEO is gladly willing to pay money, you will instictly discard the prices off of the items, and end up picking the best dish, which usually costs more. Also, private schools are always better than public schools, which you didn't really refute. Why do you think the rich send their kids to expensive private school? Because it is better. Why is better? Because it costs more money. Why does it cost more money? Because it is better. Basically, they pay more for education materials and services, and charge more to utilize these materials and services. More money buys better education and services. However, only the "rich" people have enough money to spare on a more expensive education for their children. If we were to allow everybody to choose between public school or private school with the government picking up the tab, we'd have a stampede of kids into private schools. "b) You say having their funding cut will lead to a vicious cycle of continued worsening. .. " However, a public school can never become better than a private school, because private schools always charge more, and if a private school was ever worse than public school, everybody would move to the public schools, because why pay more for something that isn't as good? The only reason public schools are preferred by many to private schools is because it is FREE. I think I've stressed this point enough. It is much easier for good-quality public schools to pop up if they receive the money that the government has instead directed towards school vouchers. "My argument that competition will lead to better resource allocation and quality has been EMPIRICALLY PROVEN time and time again, whenever the USA government has privatized industries. I will give examples of these in my closing post. " This is harder when public schools are only paid through taxes, and private schools are out to make a profit. This is what separates school and industry. Examples later will be too late; I can't counter last-round points. "You also ignored my study that showed benefits like better public school performance and less racial segregation. " Fine, then. I concede that school vouchers have a beneficial effect. However, this isn't enough to make up for the misbalance that is the subject of debate. "1) This is not an unbalance, it's a good thing. Imagine if there were 10 million starving people in Africa. If we helped half of those, according to your logic this will be an unbalance, because equal starving people are being presented with unequal opportunities. " I have two counters to this: 1. Instead of giving two apples each to five million people, give one apple each to ten million people. This may not work perfectly for Africa, but with the school system, they already operate sufficiently, but every additional cent counts, making things more distributable. 2. It would be perfectly acceptable if the government could conjure up money for school vouchers out of thin air-wait, no, it wouldn't, because that would contribute to inflation. If they could conjure up gold out of thin air, and sell it for money for school vouchers, it would be more okay. However, instead, they get money for school vouchers from taxpayers. Some of these taxpayers don't benefit from school vouchers, and would much rather have the money used to improve the standard school systems. "2) There was never a balance. There havev always been many kids who can go to private schools because there parents are wealthy, while many equally competent and deserving kids languish in bad public schools. " Inheritance has always existed, and is unavoidable. School vouchers are perfectly avoidable, and yet we still have them. "So we see that there has always been an unbalance in the system, and schools vouchers contribute to correcting this unbalance. The mainstay of Pro's argument has been the 'cost' contention, but this cost increase is not so great as to place before our children's education. " There is a better alternative to school vouchers to help our children's education. UNDER OUR CURRENT VOUCHER SYSTEM: Let's say that you have two families in Washington, D. C. They are both economically equal. They each have one kid. One of them got into the voucher system. The other one failed to make it. They both are paying equal taxes to the school system. One family is benefitting much more than the other. IF WE SENT THIS MONEY TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Both kids go to public school. Both families pay equal taxes to fund public schools. This money not being sent to private schools is instead being sent to public schools. The public schools are better than they would be under the voucher system, because they have more students and more funding. Both families pay equally and benefit equally. Thus, balance and equality. Happy days.