Educational voucher nyc

School choice: effectiveness of educational vouchers in New York State, how much we know about it?
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational vouchers in New York State, it is necessary to identify what the educational vouchers represent and the objectives of its implementation. In 1997, the School Choice Scholarship Foundation (SCSF) provided 1,300 scholarships so that childrenof low-income families in grades K–4 in the New York City public schools could transfer to private schools, or other public school of their choice. Each scholarship, or “voucher,” was worth up to $1,400 annually and could be used for up to four years at a religious or a secular school. The SCSF received applications from more than 20,000 students and the pool of applicants, scholarship recipientswere selected in a lottery[1]. There are some criteria for selecting applicants: Universal Voucher Programs: All children are eligible.
Disadvantaged Student Voucher Programs: Children who are poor, assigned to failing schools, in foster care, or otherwise disadvantaged are eligible.
Special-Education Voucher Programs: Children identified as having special educational needs are eligible.
TownTuitioning Programs: Children who live in towns that do not operate public schools at their grade levels are eligible. In a few cases the town picks the schools to which its students will be tuitioned, but usually the choice of the school is left to parents—open to not only private, but out of state schools as well [2].

Furthermore, there is a controversy when tax payer’s money is used to financeprivate institutions. In contrast, there are times when these vouchers are not necessarily tax money but money from private institution’s donation. In other words, there are two types of educational Vouchers[3]: 1-Publicly founded: vouchers that are finance by taxed money. Parents can decide wether they want their child go to public or private institution, 2- voucher financed with money thatprivate institutions of corporations donate to a specific groups. These groups can constitute a minority group, students with disabilities, families from low SES, etc. Additionally, to analyze the level of accomplishments of the voucher system, it’s necessary to cite and understand the two main goals behind the creation of these vouchers: 1- reduce the “achievement gap” among children from low socialeconomical status[4] (SES), 2- greater school choice, that should endin two main results again[5]: highert academic level resulted from competency among schools to gain students and the abolishment of th government public-shool monopoly , 3- reduce education cost[6].
To start with, the goal of reducing the achievement gap among students from low SES and the ones that come from homes with higherSES was by giving parents money in a form of certificate to put their child in private school of their choice. Only this concept, shows the “idea” that private schools are better than public school. There are many reasons for this, to be short we can mention just some: students from private institution score better in state test and they are more likely to graduate and go to college, parents aremore satisfied and more cooperative with their child school, the cost per pulpit is much lower than the amount the government pay per pulpit at public schools[7]. Additionally, I personally conclude that private schools serve a very particular groups, from specific social and economical status. To support this, I’ll use a very simple example: a coordinator of a given program earns no too much moneybut enough to send his kid to a private school and pay for a private tutor. At the same office, there is a college assistant who earns considerable less and can only send his kid to public schools and after school program. In this case, and all cases only the people from certain economical status can be served by the private sector. If the access to private institution or the quality of public...