Do you oppose school vouchers under ALL circumstances?

[7,052,770]

There's no way a single person is qualified to teach all those subjects.  Even if they bring in all sorts of different teachers, it still prevents people from getting social education and learning to live in the world.

Plenty of ways to learn social skills: church, youth sports, scouting, interacting with other home schooled kids, even going outside to play with other neighborhood kids after they come home from school.  Nah, strike that last one.  I don't think kids just go outside to have unstructured fun anymore.

They can do all of those things, but they won't get nearly the amount of time they will in public school.  Also, in all of your ways, they will only interact with kids their parents want them to interact with, while at public school they'll have a chance to interact with kids their parents may be bigoted against.

[Gabu]

What's ridiculous about it? Defining the liberal position on an issue is important in determining whether someone is liberal based on the positions they hold.

And caring about whether or not someone is liberal is just as ridiculous.  As I already said, your ideology is determined by your positions, not your other way around.  I imagine that no two people have exactly identical sets of positions that they hold on every single issue under the sun.

[Gustaf]

I would also note that contrary to what BRTD claimed and bearing in mind that Gabu is 100% correct on what he says about ideology, etc it IS liberal to support shcool vouchers. Claiming otherwise is ridiculous. You would have to be far-out socialist to come up with ideological arguments against voucher schools.

Then the majority of voters in a number of states are "far-out socialists"?  There is a lot of queasiness in the U.S. about how to approach vouchers to avoid poaching public schools and subsidizing "white flight."  There have also been concerns over adverse selection.  Some people even suggest that vouchers would negatively impact the non-government schools, because the government would exercise more control over them, and they believe all government control to be toxic.  If that doesn't sound like a socialist argument to you, it's because it isn't.

But, why would that matter, since you've apparently already established that anyone who disagrees with you (about an education system I doubt you're all that familiar with, no less) is "far-out socialist"?

I didn't mean to get under your skin. I know voucher schools because I went to one; they're a common occurrence in Sweden and not, as far as I know, in the US.

I'm not sure I understand your arguments since most of them are scattered sentences, but private schools would not have to adopt vouchers if they don't want to. There are a couple of those left in Sweden. So it isn't actually an argument.

Also, contrary to your hyperbolic assertion that I've "established that anyone who disagrees with [me]is "far-out socialist"?" I said that to come up with IDEOLOGICAL (I'm using the capital letters so you won't miss it this time) arguments against voucher schools one has to be pretty far left and I stand by that. I think I sort of know what your arguments about white flight and poaching public schools and what-not are about but those are practical arguments rather than ideological ones and furthermore very weak since I find them quite illogical. There is, IMO, one strong, valid argument against public schools but so far no one has brought it up.

[Gabu]

How do vouchers work in Sweden, Gustaf?  I'm not familiar with how they do it there.

[Gustaf]

How do vouchers work in Sweden, Gustaf?  I'm not familiar with how they do it there.

It's quite simple. Each kid gets a voucher and you use the voucher to pay for your school. You can thus choose a public school or a privately run school. Choice may vary depending on deciisions by local authorities, etc. A privately run school using the voucher system cannot charge the students anything else - if they do they get no vouchers. The voucher schools also has to follow national standards set for the curriculum and so on.

EDIT: an important point is also that voucher schools have national admission whereas public schools generally admit students from the neighborhood first. So, before voucher schools, students from poor areas tended to be restricted to their own schools and the only way to get into a good inner city scool was buying your way in through getting an expensive apartment. Now some of the best schools in the country are accessible for everyone, which is a huge improvement, IMO.

[Greedo punched first]

No

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Yes, though I go to a private school.

[Antonio the Sixth]

No. Just impose strict regulations for which schools qualify for it.