<p>let me tell you a horrifying ancedote about vouchers. I was talking with a parent who son graduated from UChicago and signed up with Teach for America for three years as a way to get some of his loans waived by teaching with a high risk population.
He taught 5th and 6th graders in DC, virtually all very low income, virtually all minority.
Very tough crowd these kids. School didn’t have a lot of resources. DC apparently has vouchers as a good chunk of kids begin the year at private schools using vouchers. Unfortunately, by October those kids have been “exited” from the private schools, are back in the public school, the catch is that their money for the year has stayed with the private school, leaving the public school even farther in the hole than they were in the first place!
To make matters even worse for this young man who was determined to stick with teaching at this school for three years, after he finished and was hoping to get some of his school loans forgiven, he was told that “oh sorry we cut that program”. So zero money for him. To his credit he is determined to continue his education anyway, and is now at the UW in their masters of ED program.</p>