When a police force becomes corrupt, brutal, and unresponsive to civilian complaints, no one seriously suggests granting vouchers to private citizens to purchase private protection. Instead, political leaders recommend police department reforms and invest resources to make communities safer. So it should be with public schools. We should fix them, but not with a system known to have failed elsewhere. Furthermore, voucher money subsidizes private schools that are often supported by families who do not want their children to mix with those who differ from them.
Vouchers only add another means to segregate our citizens.
Those who offer vouchers as the solution to the low academic achievement of poor students ignore the complexity of what contributes to student achievement, and they turn their backs on the goal of building a more democratic society. Instead of subsidizing private schools and further fragmenting society, the world's richest nation might consider ways to improve low-income communities. Improving the quality in urban schools means improving the quality of life in urban neighborhoods. That's a job that vouchers can't do, and one that would make vouchers unnecessary. The president can help our nation more by worrying about poor neighborhoods than by trying to impose a voucher system likely to fracture our society even more.