[Noachian]

Competition makes everything better.

Not necessarily.

A voucher system presupposes that the parents and students using those vouchers will be interested in education.

What if the students using vouchers for good schools have no interest in education, but only want to "hang out"?

Vouchers can get a child into a school, but what he does there is up to him.

It's very possible that a disruptive child transferred to a school using the voucher system will be just as disruptive in his new school.

I agree that the public school system is miserable, but to think that handing someone a voucher will solve the problem denies the fact that ultimately students must pay attention to their teachers and do their homework. Otherwise it's just another Utopian idea.

"Competition makes everything better" only if everyone plays by the same rules.

[dson7_ck1249]

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that "hard cases make bad laws."

Essentially...I agree that there will probably be students/parents who make BAD choices or who simply don't care about the choice at all. But to make the entire public education system based on that notion (not that it's that way now) is just bad policy. Because then the parents who actually DO care are trapped in a faulty system and forced to stay (as recent court decisions show).

Generally speaking (which is what I think Stossel is doing..and what I'm doing), competition and the free market is better than forced participation.

I agree with you...simply handing someone a voucher won't make them care about education, or what school they go to...but then again, that's not who I want to change the education system for.

[socialismisinsidious]

This is about letting the kid go to whatever school they want only on the surface...What voucher/competition is really about is having the schools compete for my money (and it is my money. I have the property tax bills to prove it). To argue that it won't make bad students good is disingenuous...nothing will do that.

What competition will do is make bad schools good OR they will go out of busniness--that I am for.

[polymuser]

What if the students using vouchers for good schools have no interest in education, but only want to "hang out"?

Then that school boots them, upholding its 'good' status. Schools that tolerate the lazy will have a lesser status, lower grade averages, unhappier teachers, and would naturally cater to that social segment. By their own choice.