I was thinking more of the shining example of for-profit prisons. Those are pretty awesome.

No mind not blown at all. My argument would already apply there. Why pay for it with property taxes when you're doing it that way

For profit prisons actually ARE awesome... if you ask the actual customers (i.e. governments).

At least with schools/vouchers, the "inmates" will have a choice of which facility to be warehoused in.

There isn't really enough research about vouchers to be super authoritative, but I think what we have tends to show that A. test scores do improve slightly, B. under most structures, a lot of the end result of vouchers tends to be the subsidization of wealthy families' private schooling, and C. overall public expenditures will generally increase.

The following chart, courtesy of gov't spending guru Jonathan Gruber, demonstrates the theoretical budget constraint shifts:

Except that they are at best cost neutral and achieve it by doing what private schools would: screening who gets in.

They also have higher rates if assaults on guards and prisoners and higher chances of breakouts.

seem to me your taliking about, how the banks use my money i deposit in....

pardon me again, didnt all the "great banks" that were suppose to be efficient got save by the government ?

they are (banks) still in business now , destroying more and more the world for profit...

private business is there to make money on peoples labors, more efficient means more profits for business and less employement for the people.

if u think this is the way to go to make the world a better place, stop making children s at the very least..

i just love how people says governement steal money when private business steal even more ( banks,enron,worldcom,etc.) doing a lot more damages than giving 25 cent per dollard u win to the governements.

These private schools will not be utilizing standardized testing for the most part. Standardized testing is probably the worst way to teach a person anything, and is one of the reasons our public schools are such abysmal failures, unless of course all you want is a society of burger flippers then they are great.

For parents who want a little more for their kid growing up in the 21st century - why not give them their money back to let them invest it in the school best fit for their child?

because a lot of parents will use that money and spend it otherwise ?
imo, lot of failure in school is due to the lack of parents to care for their kids, invest time with them for studying...

lot of parents simply dont have enough time imo.

and im pretty sure lot sacrifice been made for the sake of the familly to hold the kids for education, or leaving the house to study for rural city because ther are needed on farm,etc.

lot of people arent really adapt to manage their money, if they were not so much bankupcy would happened .

i mean, if american did elect bush twice for spending billions of $ in war,tax cut,etc.
i dont want even start to imagine what would they do with the money they would get to send their kids to school

I agree that standardized testing is problematic in many ways, but there's no way that private schools won't have some form of standardized testing...

1) In a truly competitive market, parents will be looking for guidance to help them decide what school is best, so it would not be surprise me if some some private group like US News and World report wants to publish a guide ranking different schools, and any such ranking would almost have to incorporate some standardized test in order to have an objective metric to evaluate "quality."

2) Schools that want to be viewed as the best are going to talk about how their students get into great colleges? Guess what makes up a significant portion of college admissions decisions? That's right, SAT's, a standardized test. So any school that doesn't turn out kids capable of scoring well on the SAT's and AP exams is simply not going to be viewed as a great school in the minds of many parents.

Vouchers are such an obvious improvement over the current system that I have a hard time believing anyone opposing them isn't either trolling or perfectly happy to sacrifice the children for their own gain (teacher's unions).

Or thinks there's better uses for that sorta money or something, an opinion that is clearly ~ pissing in your child's face.

What makes you say that it would be an"obvious improvement"? Have you read any research that definitevely shows that overall education achievement improves in communities that have voucher programs? Do you have any anecdotal experience with voucher systems? Any responses to the arguments earlier itt that demonstrate that education might not be a market that is amenable to typical supply and demand curves? If so, please share your evidence, because people who oppose vouchers have certainly done so.

Lolz...yeah, that's why Stuyvesant and Bronx Science are such **** holes.

If our public schools are such an abysmal failure...are our private schools any better?

Children with competent parents who spend alot of time thinking about their best interests are going to be fine regardless of vouchers.