I have a sincere problem with Warren's (former I think) position on vouchers

[dsc]

In Warren's 2003 book she strongly supported a complete voucher system for education. Parents would get a grant for x where x is what the government spent per child and with that grant they could go to any school. This is problematic for many, many reasons.

Voucher schemes lead to increased segregation of schools by economics and race. Those schools are not required to, and often don't, provide busing, lunches or even special education services.

Voucher schemes lead to discrimination against LGBT students, LGBT employees, non Christian students, non Christian employees, unmarried parents and employees, and others.

Voucher schemes divert funds from public schools into private schools that often have little to no financial oversight. When those schools fail it is public schools that often pick up the pieces but without the money.

Voucher schemes will leave public schools worse off and only help a subset of students if it even manages that.

Warren was all in for this in 2003. What changed her mind, if indeed, it has changed?

[BeyondGeography]

1. She never supported private school vouchers

https://facts.elizabethwarren.com/elizabeth-warren-never-supported-private-school-vouchers/

[dsc]

2. that eliminates some of the problem

but not all of it Charters still aren't required to provide lunch, busing or special ed services for example and still aren't transparent with their finances. It does help with the religious discrimination though.

[BeyondGeography]

4. You said, "complete voucher system," and that was wrong

[dsc]

8. I admit to having been wrong

I took Brooks at his word. But again, this doesn't solve all the problems. Is she still in favor of charters or not?

[Hortensis]

7. You're describing REPUBLICAN voucher schemes.

And you're pointing to conservative-driven laws furthering them. If Warren were somehow to go ahead with her voucher plan, those old laws would be repealed or rewritten, wouldn't they? She's a big scrub-and-replace-with-new planner, not a patcher.

Most of the passion behind vouchers and the purposes of those RW laws has been to enable and further segregation, discrimination, religious teaching, lowering taxes that serve others, and weakening and even eventually destroying public school systems.

Anyone who knows anything about Warren understands that she would by definition be completely opposed to ALL of those far-RW purposes. Warren would open up all schools to compete for students to make them better, to provide better opportunities for all students, the complete opposite.

That said, congress legislates. State legislatures legislate. County boards legislate. She'd need both houses for any of her big plans, and then those that were actually passed at the federal level would be in altered forms and many of those only partially implemented. We do not have one central government.

[dsc]

9. One would hope

I still would have come problems with there being schools which can pick and choose students vs those which can't. (even being able to expel after the fact for lack of student an/or parent participation is problematic). But yes, getting rid of the ability to not bus and not serve meals would help.

[Hortensis]

10. It's mostly the parents who'd become freer to pick and choose,

and it'd take time, as it always has, for previously underfunded, and inadequately staffed schools to improve themselves.

There are huge limits to what the federal government can dictate, though. Most of the time they resort to buying cooperation by putting requirements on federal money.

Federal laws would be designed to reward and help state and local governments do better by all their students should they choose. And of course many would not choose, but a Democratic-controlled congress would pass federal laws prohibiting many of the federal, state, and local abuses that have been legalized under Republican domination.

That'll happen under any Democratic president and Democratic congress, of course.

[Thekaspervote]

3. I have a problem with her foreign policy- no first strike she says is absolutely wrong.

OM gosh... no please!!

This country has had a no first strike policy since Seward encouraged Lincoln to strike, and Lincoln replied he would not be the first to draw blood.

No this isn’t about the school vouchers..but it is a problem

[crazytown]

6. The U.S. kept a first strike open for theater nuclear weapons in Europe.

It never proposed a first strike to win WWIII with the Soviet Union, or to take out Communist China.

A first strike against North Korea is at best a theoretical option. Israel would first strike Iran

So if we say the US should keep the option of the first use of a nuclear weapon since 1945 - who exactly are we talking about?

EDIT: a first strike, as the name suggests, is a strike against a nuclear power. Use against non-nuclear nations would be outrageous - the US has overwhelming conventional forces and weaponry.

[George II]

5. I'll have to look into that, never hear it before. Vouchers are the RW way to give the rich....

....yet another hidden tax break or giveaway to the rich. Give them vouchers that they can use to send their kids to exclusive private schools, which they would have done anyway without the voucher.

And the poor get stuck in substandard public schools and probably never have a chance to use those vouchers.