This must never be forgotten.
Ok, then what is the solution? I can see his point and agree with it, but what is a good alternative to this situation? Anyone have any suggestions?
The answer is to require very limited testing twice a year for any student's school to receive the payment (and allow an option of only testing once a year, if the school is willing to wait a whole year to get any payment). Testing should be limited to math, reading/spelling/vocabulary/grammar, facts-only physical science, and possibly some very basic facts-only material on how government works (like the existence of federal and state senates and houses of representatives, governors, a President, etc. -- since a huge number of public school grads haven't a clue about this stuff). No room for political or religious issues, keep the tests to between 1-2 hours depending on age/grade level, and keep the questions and grading to a strictly right-or-wrong answer format. Have the tests administered at many convenient locations, administered by people who have no vested interest in the economics of the system, and who have no information about which students are attending which schools.
Set the standards to approximately the current 50th percentile of public school students, and once kids pass the twelfth grade level (even if they do it when they're 10 years old, which wouldn't be uncommon for a lot homeschooled kids), let them get their vouchers until they're 18, without any further testing. This system would allow homeschoolers, and little neighborhood private schools run by a mom or grand-dad or whoever in somebody's kitchen, to get the money for getting a minimum of the same job done that the public schools currently get done. Most would obviously do a lot more, but this would at least eliminate the need to limit vouchers to large schools which get inspected and regulated by the government, and would eliminate flat-out fraud by "home schools" or "private schools" which are doing nothing at all but pocketing the money (as is the case with a lot of federally funded adult vocational schools now).
"every government dollar comes with strings attached"
This must never be forgotten.
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Yes, especially with the Bush 'faith based' ploy that will as Roy Black said, corrupt government and destory religion.
I agree Vouchers are flawed. Charter schools are teh answer, except that they should be considered for profit private schools and all private schools should be cosniderd charter schools:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/charterschoolsexplained.htm
How about NOT making it a government dollar by never taking it from the parent in the first place? Allow parents a tuition tax credit per child sent to school.
Most government dollars should never have left a private citizen's pocket in the first place. Sometimes you gotta take some risk to rectify a situation.