Administrators Perceptions of School Vouchers

PUBLIC SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS' PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL VOUCHERS:

The controversy over whether the federal government should provide parents with vouchers allowing them to choose the school to which they will send their children is, according to Hilliard (1996) showing no signs of waning. In this regard, Hilliard reports that those opposing vouchers feel that it will rob the poorest schools of the monies they are most in need of, making it impossible to adequately serve the students whose parents decide to keep them in the public school.

Moreover, it is felt by opponents of school vouchers that the students most likely to remain in public schools will be the poorest and the least academically able because private schools will mostly refuse to take them. There are also some concerns that parents will not be able to adequately decide which schools best serve their children (Hilliard, 1996), and the constitutionality of these programs (Kemerer, 1995).

On the other side of the debate, Hilliard (1996) reports, are the arguments that the public schools are not only failing children academically, they are actually physically unsafe for students. Vouchers are said to provide students with an immediate way out of the circumstances of crumbling buildings, incompetent teaching staff, and unsafe hallways.

It is also noted by those in favor of school vouchers that private schools have shown good track records in working with poor

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inistrators have been working in an administrative capacity. Null Hypothesis 6 - Degree of administrative support for school vouchers will not significantly differ depending upon differences in the number of years administrators have been working at their particular schools. Assumptions The central assumption of this study is that public school vouchers is an important issue which is going to continue to be debated as the millennium winds to a close. It is also assumed that parents' choices are likely to be influenced by educators in general and administrators in particular and it is important for parents to know the extent to which administrators opinions on the matter are shaped by personal factors in order for them to determine how much confidence to place in administrative opinions on this issue. Research Design and Procedures Sample A sample of approximately 140 high school administrators working in California schools (70 female and 70 male) will serve as subjects in the study. The sample is restricted to high school administrators in order to control for any response variance in opinions of school vouchers that might be due to differences in the grade levels of schools for which administrators are working. The sample

Category: Psychology - A