As for #6, there seems to be no problem with giving vouchers to college students for use at religious-affiliated schools. A student can even use a Pell Grant to pay for seminary training to become a priest, minister, or rabbi.

Talk you for repeating the teachers unions talking points. Senator obama wants to close down charter schools that fail but leave open non-charter public schools that faile.

How do you explain the difference. If failure should result in closure, it should happen to all public schools. At least with charter schools, the parents can pull their children out but with non-charter public schools, the parents are stuck with failure.

1. Competition may help, but shifting public money to private schools diminishes the ability of public schools to compete. Higher end private schools are tapping into resources (foundations, alumni giving) that most public schools can’t match, and those private schools don’t need or deserve public subsidies.

2. Education funding for public schools shouldn’t be thought of in terms of each individual student’s share of the budget. (That’s a flaw in spending formulas created by the state, too). The costs of operating a school or school system do not diminish in fixed proportion to declines in enrollment. Per-pupil spending calculations are informative for some purposes, but consider: in a school district spending $7500 per student, if a student leaves, where’s the $7500 in savings? If ten students leave, it probably doesn’t reduce staffing needs at all, but you have to find $75,000 in cuts or savings? And if 100 students leave a medium to large sized district, you can cut 3-5 teachers and still have a loooong way to go to reach the $750,000 to be cut. It’s not the student’s money, as an individual, to be withdrawn by the student or family. It is a portion of our collective public investment in the education of all students.

3. Vouchers are mainly a benefit to the well-off. Most voucher amounts provide a nice discount to those already paying for private school, but not enough to get a high-quality alternative for families who can’t afford private school.

4. Private schools are under no obligation to take students they don’t want. They can pick the best students, those easiest to educate, leaving public schools with the mandate to educate a needier population (proportionally) and less money with which to do it.

5. Store-front private schools spring up to take advantage of voucher money, but teacher quality, facilities and materials are often sub-standard, with fewer if any safeguards. Even if such schools don’t last long, their short existence may have lasting effects for the students who pass through.

6. Church/state breach – tax dollars to parochial schools. Legal opinions on this are divided, though.