Bob Murphy scrie pe blogul său despre consecințele adoptării sistemului voucherelor în educație. Chiar dacă aparent sunt o soluție față de sistemul actual mai reglementat, efectul lor va fi scăderea rezistenței populare față de controlul etatist al educației, după care ar urma creșterea sferei de influență a agendei etatice și creșterea nivelului taxelor pentru educația socializată:
It’s true, the government currently intervenes in numerous ways with what private schools can do. But the government would have far more leverage if it could make its requirements tied to cash disbursements, as opposed to imposing blanket regulations. For example, if the government simply declared, “It is illegal to mention ‘Intelligent Design’ in the classroom,” there would be an outcry in certain areas of the country. But if the government said, “We will not give taxpayer assistance to any schools mentioning Intelligent Design,” then the opposition would not be as strong.
However, as more and more private schools succumbed to the temptation to accept voucher-funded students, the government’s stranglehold on curriculum would expand. In the beginning, there might be temporary improvements in standardized test scores and other criteria, for all the reasons that voucher proponents cite.
But another immediate impact would be a huge increase in the demand for education tax dollars. Parents who currently send their kids to private schools (or homeschool) would apply for the vouchers. Thus the government would be paying for kids in “public” schools, but also in private. Property taxes would have to go up.
In the end, when everything had settled down, the government would extract a lot more out of taxpayers than it does now. And the difference between government and private schools would have been eroded even further. The government would have effectively taken over all formal schooling.
It is understandable that parents in many areas of the country are disgusted with their government-run schools, and look to vouchers as a “free-market” solution. But this is a grave mistake. The only way to truly fix schooling is to get government out of it altogether.
