The latest edition of the New York Times' "Ethicist" column features a parent facing a perceived dilemma about school vouchers.
The key word is "perceived."
An unnamed parent writes about a child who attends a private Montessori preschool. The parent is concerned about what will come next.
My son is thriving in his current environment, and the approach of traditional public schools is significantly different from Montessori’s. If money were no object, I would strongly consider keeping him at his current school.
Our state has a school-voucher program, which uses public money to help low-income families pay for private-school tuition. My family would probably qualify. But I believe that taxpayer dollars would be better spent to fortify public-school systems and should not be funneled to private schools. Given my beliefs, may I apply for a school voucher?
The ethicist answers yes, on the grounds that parents' obligation to their children trump societal concerns.True as that may be, it's also not clear that a voucher program actually harms the public-school system in the ways the parent imagines. Florida's statewide teachers union failed to bring a lawsuit against the nation's largest private school choice program, in part because it could not convince courts that tax credit scholarships harmed public schools.
Vouchers tend to have small positive effects on nearby public-schools' test scores. Depending on the specifics in the parent's state, there's a good chance the vouchers receive less funding per pupil that the state's public-school system — meaning vouchers save the state money. Therefore, they could free up resources for higher per-pupil public-school funding.
Here's the kicker. It's unclear whether the parent writes from Florida. If that's the case, the parent maybe using a Voluntary Pre-K voucher to pay for the Montessori preschool. Public schools can also participate in the Pre-K program, and many do. Nobody seems to have ethical qualms about that.
