History
The oldest continuing school voucher programs existing today in the United States are the Town Tuitioning programs in Vermont and Maine, beginning in 1869 and 1873 respectively. Because some towns in these states operate neither local high schools nor elementary schools, students in these towns "are eligible for a voucher to attend public schools in other towns or non-religious private schools. In these cases, the 'sending' towns pay tuition directly to the 'receiving' schools."
A system of educational vouchers was introduced in the Netherlands in 1917. Today, more than 70% of pupils attend privately run but publicly funded schools, mostly split along denominational lines.
Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman argued for the modern concept of vouchers in the 1950s, stating that competition would improve schools and cost efficiency. The view further gained popularity with the 1980 TV broadcast of Friedman's series Free to Choose for which volume 6 was devoted entirely to promoting "educational freedom" through programs like school vouchers.
In some Southern states during the 1960s, school vouchers were used as a method of perpetuating segregation. In a few instances, public schools were closed outright and vouchers were issued to parents. The vouchers, in many cases, were only good at privately segregated schools, known as segregation academies. Today, all modern voucher programs prohibit racial discrimination.
Read more about this topic: School Voucher
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“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
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That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)