This essay is an original work by Liberaltears. Please comment only on the talk page.
Liberals and progressives constantly attack the notion of school choice and vouchers, typically presenting the same few arguments to "argue" their point. They say that school choice unfairly takes money away from public schools, that it's ineffective because it funds under-performing charter schools, and disrupts teachers' unions. However, the very tenants of these arguments can easily be constructed to backfire their points, as shown below.
The typical left-wing argument goes that school choice programs shouldn't be implemented because it "robs money from public schools" and thus "hurts public education". However, all public funding comes from taxpayer money, so funding voucher programs only siphons off what would normally go to public schools. Thus, it almost always causes a reduction of public education funding, but it's not the same as "robbing". In addition, this argument runs on the premise that public schools will work as long as it receives what's perceived to be "sufficient" money, which is untrue in vast numbers of cases. Many public schools are granted with large sums for their budgets, but they wind up lagging behind or failing, not because the sums are never enough, but because money alone doesn't address corruption that often lies in teachers' unions, rather the added money only adds fuel to the fire that perpetuates major problems. Often times those who manage the received funds may engage in cronyism, resulting in waste, fraud, and abuse. Thus, the idea that school choice programs hurt public education because it leads to cuts in public school funding is largely misled and deceptive, as the large sums of funding that public schools already receive are shown to be quite useless in numerous cases in regards to addressing and fixing problems.
Another common liberal attack is to use the example of certain publicly funded, under-performing charter schools. They say that since those schools fail, it demonstrates the failures of school choice programs and thus the natural superiority of public education. However, this shows an obvious double standard. If a public school fails, the liberal response goes that "certain problems that need to be addressed in addition to more funding and caution, but THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU DISMANTLE THE SCHOOL". If a charter or private school fails, the response is "NO MORE FUNDING, THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS A FAILURE!" In addition, the fact that liberals and progressives hold such a stance on failing charter schools only justifies the argument for school choice. If kids don't deserve to be sent to a failing charter school, then why should they be sent to a failing public school? After all, they deserve better! Hence, there should be an individual choice by the parents not interfered upon by an external unilateral authority! Ergo, school choice!
Then there's also the argument that school choice is bad because it disrupts teachers unions' power and hurts public school teachers. However, it's the very teacher unions that strongly oppose school choice and voucher programs because it hurts their bloated authoritarianism, corruption, and ineffectiveness over students and parents! Teachers unions tend to very self-centered, focusing on methods to extract more money for themselves rather than acting selflessly to fix problems. So yes, in a sense, school choice does hurt teachers unions because it reduces their coercive powers over individual students and parents.
It's also important to note that the left-wing attack faction has absurdly smeared people like current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. They say that she shouldn't be in that position because "she doesn't understand public education, she's an elitist and wealthy 1%er!" However, many of the progressive legislators that make these arguments apparently have had the sufficient education to be elevated to their political office positions, and some hypocritically send their kids to private schools. In addition, the fact that DeVos has had much personal success, in a sense, only highlights the effectiveness of the non-public schools she attended; thus, there is a logical basis for school vouchers. Furthermore, the fact that the very limousine liberals who send their children to fancy schools while attacking DeVos for advocating school choice only greater shows their hypocrisy, as they believe that it's only their children who deserve the best choice of schools, but that the standard just doesn't apply for ordinary Americans.
In conclusion, the underlying point is that liberal and progressive attacks against the notion of school choice and school vouchers are fundamentally flawed and bloated with hypocrisy and double standards. Their arguments run on dogmatic assumptions that on a factual basis are outdated and invalid in the modern day, and it doesn't do good on a practical level.