Blog Stage 5: Original Editorial or Commentary #1

Background research:
http://kxan.com/2017/03/21/public-to-testify-about-school-choice-tuesday-morning/

Texas lawmakers are planning to vote on Senate Bill 3, which is a plan that creates a savings account from tax dollars for families to use for their child's education. It also gives businesses tax credit if they donate towards a scholarship account.

I actually think this might be a bad idea. One main argument against this bill is that private schools and religious schools will benefit from this, while public schools may suffer. Others also say that these private institutions should not receive public taxpayer money. I think these arguments are completely valid. While I believe people should send their children to whatever institution they want, what this bill will do if passed is that it will create competition between public and private schools. This is good, but the problem is private schools generally already have higher funding due to higher tuition, grants, etc. People want to send their children to prestigious or challenging schools, so in order to attract these people, schools will have to improve their level of education. Since private schools already have an advantage in terms of resources, the quality of education may already be higher, so if this bill is passed, then it is definitely possible we see more people going the private school route. Some may argue that this will motivate schools to be better at what they do. The problem is, they can't.  The money from this bill comes from the taxpayer,  which means if the people spend it on private schools, there will be even fewer funds given to public schools, so their level of education could and most likely will deteriorate. Without extra funding, there is absolutely no way for any public school to actually be able to compete with private schools, because they wouldn't be able to even sustain themselves.

Ultimately, I think this is a bad idea because while giving people money for education is good, it could potentially reduce the quality of public schools which could set back the education for a lot of people. It's not like everyone will just all of a sudden attend private school because of this bill. According to the article "Public to testify about school choice Tuesday morning" from KXAN, the bill gives back "$5,000 to $8,000", depending on the income of the family. Even with the money from this bill, some people may still be unable to afford private school tuition, so they have to go to public schools. What I think should happen is that we can simply have this money go to public schools. The quality and level of education will hopefully rise, which will close the gap between private and public schools. This way, people can have a fair choice on what type of school they wish to go to without really having to worry too much about pricing.