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Vouchers Should Not Be Allowed In Schools Essay

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The idea of vouchers being given to families to pay the cost of a private education has generated much debate within the United States for years. The Swedish experience with vouchers might offer invaluable insights into the efficacy of school vouchers. In the early 1990s, Sweden introduced vouchers into their educational system. According to a slate.com article titled Sweden’s School Choice Disaster written by Ray Fisman, the system was “put in place by a center-right (by Swedish standards) government, inspired by the ideas of the godfather of free market economics, Milton Friedman.” In 1955, Friedman wrote an article titled The Role of the Government in Education, in which he “advocated for a system in which governments would issue vouchers to parents that would be redeemable toward tuition payments at a private school of their choice” (Fisman). To be …show more content…

According to the U.S. Department of Education, most of the religious schools found throughout the country “seek to indoctrinate as well as educate. They integrate religion throughout their curriculum and often require all students to receive religious instruction and attend religious services. Thus, there is no way to prevent publicly funded vouchers from paying for these institutions’ religious activities and education” (AUSCS). In other words, a voucher program would force all Americans to pay taxes to support religion, even if it is not their own religion. This “runs counter to the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty” because in the United States, there should be a separation between involuntary religious activities and schooling (AUSCS). Therefore, under the United States’ Constitution, “all religious activities should be supported with voluntary contributions,” thus, voucher systems should not be allowed in the United States

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