Attend Public or Private Schools?

¶ … attend public or private schools? (yes/No)

If you have children, do they attend public or private school? (yes/no)

Do you support the use of vouchers for parents who send their children to private schools? (strongly opposed/neutral/strongly in favor)

Should the state be required to support the education of special needs students in private schools, if their needs cannot be met within the public school system? (strongly opposed/neutral/strongly in favor)

Would your position on these issues change if the private schools in question were parochial (religious schools)? (yes/no)

Do you think charter schools (overall) are a good or a bad thing for the educational system in America? (yes/no)

Commentary

While interviewing my subjects, I was struck by the degree to which feelings about the subject of vouchers depended largely upon the respondent's own experience. Two of the respondents with children in the private school system, who had both attended private school as children, stated that private schools provided enhanced education and services for their children, They believed that allowing vouchers would encourage the public schools to improve and give students needed choices when the public schools in the area were unsuitable.

In contrast, two of the parents who were graduates of the public school system and had children in public schools said it was not right that average or high-income parents would not have to pay into the public school system and would receive financial support from the government to sent their children to private schools. They believed that parents with children in private school still benefited from an educated populace but were not willing to 'pay back' into the educational system as a whole. The other two respondents were mixed: one had attended private school and sent his children to public school and opposed public funding; the other had a similar experience and said she was neutral on the subject.

Only one respondent had strong views regarding the difference between private and parochial school funding, stating that it was dangerous to fund schools with religious affiliations, because of the potential favoritism this could generate, and citing the need for a separation from church and state. Most of the respondents said that it did not matter whether parochial or secular private schools received funding, and they were more concerned about the justice of the funding than any religious issues at stake. Regarding support for special needs children whose needs were not being met by the conventional school system, almost all of the respondents agreed that this was a necessary instance of public funding for private education except for one, who stated that too many students were being diagnosed with learning disabilities and he was not sure the money would be spent wisely.