Education Vouchers: The Right to Choose or to Own?

Education Vouchers: The Right to Choose or to Own? M. H. Hassani Shalmaani, Ph.D. Using education vouchers is one way of increasing parental access to schools and hence, creating rightful choices for them in regard to schools. Since such rights require governmental cooperation, it is necessary to delineate the boundaries of parental rights in order to clarify if the parents have simply the right to choose school of their choice or have a sort of property right by which they can participate in the curriculum planning of the school they have chosen. If so, the government is obliged to plan and supervise training programs aimed at helping parents to become self-regulating and responsible participants in dealing with the educational events. As such, the use of education vouchers is a sort of governmental investment by which it surrenders part of its capital to the parents, and hence, they become agents of educational justice. Key words: education voucher, ownership, parental choice, investment