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Most people will agree that public schools are in desperate need of help and students are paying the price. However, supporters and opponents of school vouchers disagree about how to solve the problems hurting the schools and stifling the education of children. Supporters of a voucher system claim that it will empower parents by enabling them to choose what schools their children attend. This choice to parents would come in the form of a voucher for a predetermined sum. The voucher amount represents tax dollars already being collected from citizens and used for education. Parents would receive the voucher and present it to the school of their choice. From there, since the State determines and pays a specific dollar amount per student to each school, it would give these tax dollars to the school of the parent’s choice. Although school vouchers seem like a fast acting plan, they are not a constitutional way to assist parochial and other private schools; they would publicize private schools, and segregate students by financial class. However, opposing school vouchers does not mean that the need for school choice should be ignored. Parents ought to be allowed to choose a school within their district, excluding private schools, best suited for their children’s personal requirements. It is easy to be a school voucher supporter and believe that they will help our nation’s schools. During a 1992 presidential debate on October 6, President Clinton stated that he supported school choice. "If a local school district in Cleveland,” he stated, “or any place else, wants to have a private school choice plan, like Milwaukee did, let them have at it." School voucher supporters claim that voucher programs would solve many problems in the public school system these days. They claim that if public education dollars went to private and parochial schools, public education would improve due to the introduction of competition and innovation to the schools. However supporters fail to face one important, yet simple fact of the law: the Constitution. The first 16 words of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the beginning of the Bill of Rights, reads that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Kurt L.
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