School voucher systems create an unbalance in the education system.

"I have little idea what you mean by 'balance'. I'm assuming you simply mean that school voucher systems, on the whole, have a negative impact on the educational system. If you mean otherwise, please elaborate concretely what you mean by 'balance'. " I guess I should have explained "balance". I'll do that later. "First, I agree the government pays more to send a student to a private than public school. " Thank you for conceding the obvious, rather than foolishly arguing against it. "However, it equalizes the schooling costs for a normal taxpayer. Taxpayers that send their children to private schools usually have to pay taxes to fund public schools while paying the fees for their private school. This amounts to double payment. School vouchers ensure that taxpayers can spend their education money willingly and equitably. " I'm going to have to disagree with you, here. If all of the students who couldn't afford private school went to public school instead, it would result in only having to pay taxes to support public schools. The only ones who would actually have to make this "double payment" would be the people who could initially afford to send their students off to private school. If the government only supported private schools, it would result in the rich paying for their children to get in, and the nation paying for everybody else's children to get in. If the government only ran its own public schools and closed down all private schools, it would result in everybody paying for public school. If the government allowed everyone into public school, but allowed the rich to go to private school, the rich would send their own children to a fancy school on their own money, while everyone else would go to an adequate school on the government's budget. Basically, public school exists for those who cannot pay for private school. Private school exists for the people who can afford to get a higher education than public school. "Second, I concede that the school voucher system is unable to help many of the 'equal peers'. It can't solve all of the problems in education, I concede! " Thus, the unbalance. Because the government is taking away half of the public school children and dumping them into private school, the unlucky kids left at public school end up with a lesser education than the other kids. I will clarify all of this at the end of my statement. "Finally, I agree that many un-paying families can now send their children to the exact same school, which I see as good, egalitarian thing. School vouchers are encouraging economic diversity at private schools, giving low-income students a change to attend higher-quality schools. " Yes, it sounds morally good, but at the cost of all of the taxpayer's money. It gives some poorer students a chance to move up, but many stay behind. Clarification is at the end. To argue against your case: "(1) Competition: School vouchers encourage competition in the education sector. Students can attend private schools if the students find them better than public schools. Competition leads to: (a) Efficient distribution of funding: If less students enroll in public schools, their funding will be cut. Thus, funding is allocated according to school quality. (b) Improved quality: To retain their students, public school must improve themselves. " Naturally, students will always find private schools better than public schools, because public schools are run by the taxpayer-run government, while private schools are part of the private sector. Public schools will never be able to be equal to private schools, because private schools charge more. It's like asking a kid, "Do you want the simple, cheap ice cream that we have at home, or do you want Daddy to buy you a fancy $20 ice cream cone? " The kids would want the ice cream cone, because they don't need to factor in the cost, which is what is supposed to be what drives kids towards public school. Then, you say that the public schools will have their funding cut. Then, you say that they will try to improve themselves. This leads to a vicious cycle. With less funding, the school can't improve itself, and instead gets worse. This leads to more students leaving and less funding being received. It goes on and on until public schools are dead, and replaced by private schools. . http://www.adl.org... "(2) Economic equality: As I said earlier, low-income students can attend high quality, formerly costly schools. " At the cost of the taxpayers. Now, to clarify my big point. Okay, why do we have public schools in the first place? Because private schools were too costly for many people, and the government decided to put taxpayer dollars to good use and set up adequate schools to educate the public. School vouchers change all that. With school vouchers, the cost of sending a kid to public school and the cost of sending a kid to private school is the same. Naturally, they'd all pick the private schools, because the private schools normally charge more, and thus are fancier. The only thing that really determines which public-school kids get into private schools is luck. That means that equal kids are presented with unequal opportunities, all based on luck. This is the unbalance. For the GOVERNMENT, it costs more to send a kid to private school than to public school. This is a conceded point. This means that private schools are always receiving more money per child than public schools, because they are fancier. And so, the government could save taxpayer dollars by funding an equal amount in every kid's education. Why should the government send one kid to a private school and keep another kid in public school, when the money being used to bump up the kid from public to private could be used to improve the public school in the first place? It would all average out to the same amount of money being spent on education, but it would be evenly distributed to everybody, with everybody having equal opportunity, unless a kid's parents are willing to pay extra money to send their kid to private school. Basically, the PRIVATE schools should be paid for by the PRIVATE sector, and only those in the private sector who can afford it. The PUBLIC schools are open to the general PUBLIC, being paid for by the PUBLIC government. If everyone went to public schools unless they could afford private school, then all kids who aren't paying for their education would have equal, BALANCED education; a paying kid's education would be dependant upon how much money he paid, but would always end up being better than public school, or else he'd just pay nothing and go to public school. If I didn't clarify something enough, please tell me, and I will clarify next round. Thank you for reading.