For Patrick Wolf, associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University, school vouchers are controversial because they deal with government money and a shift from public schools to private schools, but he said there are more positive sides to vouchers than negative.

School vouchers, a process in which parents use government funding to send their children to the school of their choice instead of traditional public schooling, was the topic of conversation Wednesday in a debate sponsored by the Loyola Society of Civic Engagement. The debate was co-sponsored by 13 other school organizations.

Wolf; Kelly Brown and Virginia King, communications juniors; Steve Monaghan, president of Louisiana Federation of Teachers; The Rev. William Maestri, superintendent of Catholic Schools; Jimmy Farenholtz, Orleans Parish School board member, District 3; and Jane Chauvin, professor of Education and Counseling at Loyola, were guest panelists at the debate, which focused on school vouchers’ effects on students and the community.

According to Wolf, school vouchers have positive effects on participants, public school systems and the communities.

“Parents feel better and student achievement is higher,” he said. “In eight of 11 studies, student scores rose by three percentage points per year.”

Wolf said school vouchers improve public schools because the “threat of children leaving spurs reforms.”

He also pointed out that school vouchers improve communities by “decoupling residence location from school assignment, which results in more integrated neighborhoods.”

Wolf said people should support the voucher system because of the gap between low and high-income families.

“The economically advantaged already can choose [schools] either by buying a residence in the good school’s area or self-financing – paying out-of-pocket for private schools,” he said. “If well-to-do families can have options, then it’s only right that low-income families have that right.”

Brown took the floor next as a representative of the College Democrats.

According to Brown, school vouchers are an ethical decision, in which the children left behind without vouchers are basically told their school “isn’t good enough.”

“To say that vouchers are necessary is to say that public schools are sinking ships, sucking the children down with them,” she said.

She also said that school vouchers do not relieve the financial burdens on schools.

Schools still have financial burdens because maintenance of the buildings, teacher salaries and other miscellaneous costs do not decrease with the implementation of school vouchers.

Thus, schools are receiving less money but their costs remain the same, if not higher.

Instead of using vouchers, Brown proposed that poor schools should be given the same amount of funding as the wealthier schools.

“And don’t tell me that we don’t have the money,” she said. “If we can spend a billion dollars in Iraq, we can do this.”

King, the College Libertarians representative, spoke to the audience next about the United States’ academic monopoly.

“People with food stamps aren’t told which grocery store to go to; people with Medicare aren’t told which hospital to go to; and people with Social Security aren’t told how to spend their money,” she said. “So why can the government tell us which school to go to?”

King contended that school vouchers might aid public schools by creating a free market of schools, in which smaller schools could be broken down to fit the individual needs and wants of a child.

Monaghan focused on whether there is any accountability of voucher schools.

According to Monaghan, school vouchers not only divert money away from schools but also are unaccountable for the schools’ teachings and effects.

“There is no fair way to tell if voucher schools are any better than failing schools,” he said.

Monaghan questioned whether private, religious schools should have to prove their superiority to public schools before receiving government funding.

Wolf, however, claimed private schools already have an accountability system, which he called market accountability.

“It’s deliver a good program or go out of business,” Wolf said.

Wolf also addressed Monaghan’s statement that voucher programs are diverting funds.

He said that public schools are not losing money because they have the same amount of funding but a lower number of students.

Maestri emphasized the moral issues of school vouchers.

According to Maestri, school vouchers are not just a political and ethical issue but also a moral issue that “cuts to the heart of what it means to be a just society.”

He pointed to the people in power, such as legislators, who have postponed the institution of school vouchers in other states. “They’re the ones saying, ‘Wait, wait, wait,’ yet where are their children? Why do people in power not have their kids in failing schools?”

“It’s time for the last to be first,” Maestri continued, touching upon Wolf’s earlier point that low-income families should have the same education options as high-income families.

“I’ll tell you where politicians send their kids,” said Farenholtz, the next panelist to discuss vouchers. “They’re in Ben Franklin and Lusher – the top schools in Louisiana.”

First, Farenholtz discussed what he calls the “fear factor,” which is the attitude that public schools would reform because they “fear” losing students to voucher schools.

“There is absolutely no link behind it [fear factor] that public schools would reform because of competition,” he said.

Next, he addressed Wolf’s statement that communities would become integrated because of school vouchers, saying that schools became single-race schools when people fled in the 1960s and 1970s because “they didn’t want their child going to school with your child.”

“They’ll come back to the community, but they still aren’t going to want the same schools,” Farenholtz said.

Farenholtz also voiced his concerns on voucher school methods, questioning if schools have to accept anyone with a voucher and whether voucher schools would be under the same restraints as public schools.

According to Wolf, the main proponent in Wednesday night’s voucher debate, the goal isn’t to make private and public schools identical, which in his opinion would be “self-defeating.”

However, Wolf did concede that voucher schools should have regulations as public schools do and that voucher schools would not be required to accept everyone.

A private school would, of course, test to make sure the student would do well in the school’s environment, he said.

For Chauvin the voucher controversy is a difficult decision to make.

“It’s an academic question for me, as an educator,” she said. “School vouchers are not the only choice.”

Chauvin likened school vouchers to Noah’s ark. “A few will get it, and the rest will perish,” she said.

She also expressed concern for special-needs children, whose education is much more costly than the education of children who have not been diagnosed with special needs.

Vouchers, however, do not mirror the needs of the child receiving it. A special-needs child would receive the same amount as a non-special-needs child.

According to Dan Lamparter, political science freshman, school vouchers are still controversial.

“Yes and no, I agree with school vouchers,” he said. “It all depends on where you live. Like in New York City, you might need a voucher because otherwise you’d have to completely overhaul the school.”

Sarah Castagnetta can be reached at [email protected].