I'm for people paying for their own education. If people had vouchers then public schools would have to compete for the students and the voucher money. Just like I'm against government health care - competition is good for every one save the NEA.

Quoted: If you want your kid to go to a private school that's fine but why should I be required to pay for it?

Because it's cheaper, at least around here. The public schools spend about twice what the Catholic ones cost.

First let me say that I am a high school teacher, so I have some inside insight on the issue. (and for my spelling and grammar mistakes, remember that I'm a physics and math teacher, but I'm working on getting better)

Secondly, this distinction between "religious" and "non-religious" schools needs to be shown for the lie that it is.  There is no such thing as a "non-religious" school.  Public schools have removed Christianity as their religious philosophical foundation only to have replaced it with ANOTHER RELIGION, that of atheism.  To say that there is no God is a statement of religious "truth", and carries with it all the baggage that the converse statement does.  This is a false distinction and it lies at the heart of the educational crisis this country is facing.

The current school system is purely socialist and monopolistic, i.e. no accountability.  This is due in large part to the stranglehold the idiot educational beaurocracy has on the system, and the protection offered to them by the government.  For years they have used american kids as the test subjects for all kinds of philosophical and methodological experiments on how to teach in a "new and better way"  when all they were doing was implementing Marxist philosophy- to produce a generation of unthinking, compliant, satisfied with their beer and TV, taxpaying, slaves of the state.  The results have been worse and worse (from the general public's and business perspective), but the system has the protection and endorsement of the government, so little could be done. Had the schools existed in a free market environment where folks could pull their kids out of a worthless school and put them in a competitor's school, there might have been some accountability, for as with any free market system, the poor performers either improve their product or go out of business.  But the failing system was propped up and artificially supported by the government, so it continued to decline DESPITE THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS GIVEN TO THOSE WHO CLAIMED TO NEED MONEY TO FIX IT.

The probelm isn't money, it's philosophy.

This prompted the homeschool/private school explosion of the 70's and 80's, and this system proved to be a direct threat to the existing system because it offered a superior product, often for much less money per student.  Any good monopoly, especially one that is despotic, cannot tolerate successful competition, and so the government school system and its proponents have hated the private and homeschool movement from the beginning and have done everything they can to elliminate this competition.

Now to the voucher issue.  Vouchers seek to restore competition to the education system, much like how colleges compete for students.  Students choose the best college they can afford, and the freedom to put your money where your values are is a strong defense against poor results.  The threat of loosing enough students to seriously hurt a school is strong motivation to do things right.  So in that sense the vouchers are good, for they restore some accountability.  The bad thing is that whoever controls the money, controls the school, and if government money goes to a private school, the government will, in time, control the school, and ruin it like it has all the others.  And if private school is "free" through the use of vouchers, then there is little motivation to be responsible and respect the value of that education, much like how the nicest housing projects quickly fall into squalor because it costs the residents nothing.  No investment = no respect or value.

So I support vouchers, but only for public schools.  

Let the public (government) schools compete amongst themselves, but do not spoil the private schools by infecting them with a failed philosophy and economic system, and students that do not value and respect the opportunity private education offers.  Any private school that accepts government vouchers is hastening its own death.  The money may be a strong temptation up front, but in turn what they will get are a bunch of students and thier families that bring their failed public school philosophy and culture with them and once government gets its foot in the door, it will soon be controlling the educational policy of the school, and soon the private school is no different from the failed public school down the street, for it has given up that which made it distinctly different for money.  Vouchers are like dope for private schools.  The money is good up front, and can seemingly solve a lot of financial issues, but once dependent upon the money, they will not be able to give it up once the government starts wanting to control how the money is spent, and they will give up the authority to run the school over to the government. They loose control and are ruined.

I determined that government education was completely and hopelessly bankrupt and I left the public school system years ago.  Here is the shining city on a hill that I found:  Classical, Christian Education



EDIT:  Here is MHA's  Foundational Documents, the core philosophical concepts about education that sold me on the school