What Would Your State's Vouchers Be?

into the voucher debate is this:

In todays society, we frequently hear how it is a shame that movie stars, athletes, etc make so much money, but the poor teacher make next to nothing.

My response to that is: "You should be all for vouchers then!" You see, if we have a voucher system, the better teachers will make more money. See, in a Free Market, those with the most desirable goods and services are able to charge a premium for those goods and services. If a teacher is one of the better ones, that teacher will be sought out by the schools that want to increase their enrollment-I can see a day when teachers are spotlighted in the business section (you know, where they have the
"faces in the news" section, showing that Ted the Lawyer has just come over to the firm of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe?).

It's an arguement that the non-voucher folks just can't win.

My mother was a public school teacher, and I still remember days when our pantry at home had food from the welfare system in it. Its a shame we don't allow teacher to earn what they are truly worth. No other profession would stand for it, but teachers willingly embrace it.

how much we hear about how little teachers make. I make 35K a year with a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry, which is hard to live on in Northern California, but is more than my parents (a mill worker and a transcriptionist, both high school graduates) made combined so I hate to whine about money woes....

To the point of your post, my only concern with vouchers (I teach at a private Christian school) is that "government" money seems to give them a voice in how it is spent... (ie. forcing certain types of curriculum or programs to be offered). But then again, in California, the UC system is trying to say that any class taught from a Christian textbook is not rigorous enough and so kids who take these classes can be denied entry into UC schools. If they get away with it, it may mean the end of viable religious schools

Ok. Here you hit on another point of contention I have. I find it easier to visualize using home-schooling. If the Government just gives vouchers, then why couldn't a family just keep having kids, claim to home school them, and collect money? Doesn't work. I have two main issues with this:

1 - In order to qualify for the vouchers, the "school" would have to have a certain percentage of students pass competency tests, or be accepted into college or something the PREVIOUS year, as an accreditation process. This will prevent abuse in those who claim to home school but don't. For those who truly want to, they would have to forgo the income one year to prove they can meet the requirements. Accreditation could also be done by private organizations instead of government to make sure their mandates actually mean something, much the same way accreditation works now.
Of course, the best check on that would be that on the whole, parents would seek out the best schools. That would be a better winnowing process than the Government could ever makes. In regards to your example of religious schools, they would flourish under vouchers IF they educated kids. Such results would not be determined by a group claiming courses aren't rigorous enough, but by each schools college admissions rate, lack of student problems, etc. Again, let the parents choose.

The second issue is that proposed by Voice of Reason, I have his blog link on my roll... He proposes vouchers as a STEP to a further solution of having the Government completely out of education. First, let parents have their choice, then simply reduce the voucher's amounts yearly until parents have the responsibility of educating their own kids, providing for their education themselves.
The libertarian in me loves this argument, but like most libertarian solutions it isn't pragmatic. We've spend nearly 100 years setting up a socialist state, we can't expect to turn it around without another 100 years of undoing the problems...
I do like it as the ultimate ideal, though. It keeps things in perspective. I invite you to read his proposals.