Education remains America's most influential avenue of opportunity. Most Americans recognize the necessity of an elementary and secondary level of education to succeed within the highly competitive world beyond adolescence. Without a basic foundation of fundamental knowledge, an opportunity to compete against a world of advancing proficiency would leave those lacking such aptitude behind. Like the millions of Americans who recognize education as the one of the nation's priority concerns, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, led his 2000 presidential campaign with education at the top of his agenda. Bush's principles of interest for education reform include seven specific points: achieving equality, promoting excellence, to stop funding failure, to restore local control, to provide parents with information and options, to ensure every child can read, and to improve school safety (George W. Bush). Of these proposed programs, the most controversial idea supported by the Bush campaign includes an unprecedented wide-scale school voucher system. This program suggests that tax dollars will be provided as vouchers for parents to send their children to the s

Furthermore, school voucher systems implement one of the most significant aspects of education reform by presenting the factor of competition among public, private, and parochial schools. By fostering such competition, schools are thereby forced to increase academic standards in order to compete with neighboring schools for vouchers that would enable them to remain in business (Murdock). Advocates believe that by keeping schools in constant opposition to one another, the quality of education would increase because schools would then be held accountable for the performance of their students. "To attract students, competing public and private [schools] must provide quality instruction..." not to mention, quality facilities, and a quality environment (Murdock). Such factors only further improve the conditions of failing school systems, whether public or private. Parents who feel that their children's education is unsatisfactory then have the power to "take back" their tax dollars from schools that are failing to meet their expectations. "Vouchers would encourage public and private schools to shape up and meet the standards of excellence their clients (parents and their children) are demanding" (Giraitis). One researcher, Caroline Hoxby, found that "greater private school competitiveness significantly raises the quality of public schools... [and] competition among private and public schools only serves to improve the overall education offered America's youth" (Giraitis). Not only would vouchers serve the cause of equity, it would also create the kind of competition that would spur public education to improve.

Instead of allowing the voucher system to possibly foster a widening gap of good and bad schools, I think the energy and time spent on planning for a new system should be spent on reorganizing and reevaluating our current system. Though one must admit, the conditions of our schools are far from improving, we must also recognize that little is being done to help further the progress of our education system, and our education system is far from impossible to save. Take for example what we have learned from private schools: smaller classes, personal attention to students, innovative learning methods, and quality instructors help students meet their full potential. If focus were be placed on more specific measures of public education rather than being placed on the origin of funds, perhaps public education could be improved much in the way private school education standards are maintained. We cannot give up on a system that has worked for us thus far. The American public education system might be in decline, but it is far from uncontrollably failing us, therefore, we must salvage what we can of a system that has proven to work well enough to foster one of the mot thriving nations in the world. There remains the looming fear that any implementation of a wide scale voucher system will destroy what we have worked so hard to build in public school systems, therefore, I advocate that we attempt to reform our education system by examining the root of our problems, not by creating new ones.

chool of their preference. "School vouchers, also known as scholarships, would redirect the flow of education funding channeling it directly to individual families rather than to school districts" (Coulson). Idealists hope that school vouchers will extend the concept of choice in education, improved education standards, and give equal education opportunity. Though the program advocates reform of the traditional American school system to help improve school standards and conditions, the controversy over school vouchers as a solution remains unanswered and a topic of heated debate.

If it were possible to propose a plan that would better the lives and futures of every child in America, I would be one of the biggest advocates, however, that would require a restructuring of a system that has become apart of the American way.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2864
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)