Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Parents Gaming Voucher System, Picking Taxpayer Pockets!

The move to privatize schools through a growing voucher movement is now unstoppable. Many have bought into the argument, without any proof or testing. 

But gaming the system is another part of the growing voucher movement.  
The Journal Gazette's Niki Kelly reported last week of another of those unintended legislative consequences. This time, it's the parents of a parochial school student transferring their child (or children) to a public school for a year to qualify for voucher support the next year.

State education officials are no longer collecting information, so there will be no way to determine how many private and parochial school students sat out a year in public school just to qualify.

For lawmakers who supported the new entitlement program as a cost-savings measure, the transfer news should be troubling. One argument for the voucher program was that it would actually save the state money. What lawmakers overlooked … tremendous financial incentive they offered to parents willing to pull their kids out of private or parochial school for a year just to qualify for vouchers.

Those are families who always intended to send their children to private or parochial school.

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