School vouchers are a transitional funding vehicle for elementary and secondary school students, just as G.I. Bill is for college students who served in the military. The direct way to purchase educational services would be for parents simply to pay tuition for their children at the school of their choice. This direct handling of education might even be preferable to couches. However, because of the current institutions and government involvement, this not possible for most poor parents. A taxpayer, after paying his or her taxes, has little input into how the funds are expended or the education is provided.
Parents are at the mercy of educational professionals who design the educational system.
The poor have no flexibility for choice among teachers in a school or among public schools. School vouchers short-circuit the existing taxing, bureaucratic, and public educational system in place, perhaps to be dismantled alter. And, perhaps most importantly, vouchers improve competition in the quest for truth, an important underpinning of a free society. Douglas Adie is a proffessor of economincs at Ohio University. He also has published on the topic in The Review of Social Economy.