Better Education: The Controversy Over School Vouchers.
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 the school of their preference. "School vouchers, also known as scholarships, would redirect the flow of education funding channeling it directly to individual families rather than to school districts" (Coulson). Idealists hope that school vouchers will extend the concept of choice in education, improved education standards, and give equal education opportunity. Though the program advocates reform of the traditional American school system to help improve school standards and conditions, the controversy over school vouchers as a solution remains unanswered and a topic of heated debate. .
Because failing education systems remain at the forefront of America's concern, innovative attempts at improving the system has introduced the necessity of considering the pros and cons of the school voucher program.