Voucherology

I've continued to defend my position that the best argument against vouchers is private schools are intentionally off the hook from really going deeply into civics out of loyalty to Uncle Sam, grooming students to be president someday.

For example, you might be doing this "grin and bear it" stint in Oregon, a Japanese national, staring down the barrel of some ETS equivalent, have no time to waste on what passes for "curriculum" at Joe Sixpack public high school.

So you attend a private school, funded by Japanese companies, and no, you can't take public tax funded vouchers to fund your attendance here, nor did you ask to do that, ever.

The USA is very accepting of the many cultures and isn't hell bent on stifling freedoms, so we have lots of Yeshivas, Ashrams, Gulags, Gazeebos you name it.

Many kids go through life mostly oblivious to the USA's inner workings and dynamics, don't need to know, don't care to know, read the voters' pamphlets, take cues from community leaders.

However, those public systems which work openly in service of the public trust in having a USA sustained charter, need to focus on training and recruiting future elected officials and their support staffs, providing them with the skills necessary to work in a rough and tumble democracy with many diverse ethnicities endeavoring to self-govern as USA citizens.

Filling openings in local, state and federal government from the ranks of public schools is not a conflict of interest, it's what these schools are especially good at, by design.

Now one could imagine an "eager beaver" private school turning itself into a 100% flag waving pro USA elite academy, taking that tack, and then lining up to take vouchers, could happen.

But that's a kind of back handed loophole approach, versus simply forming a new charter and accepting public monies openly and directly, i.e. if you want to quack like a public school, why not just be one?

There's a wrinkle here, in that some private academies might actually have a more effective way of promoting its grads into government positions i.e. it is indeed possible for privately run schools to outshine public ones, even where training "virtual presidents" is concerned. Something in the meatloaf? Some secret sauce?

However this is not inherently a contradiction, nor need these schools take a position any different from mine on the voucher issue, i.e. they're proud of not taking government handouts, even as they help staff the ranks of government. Takes all kinds.