The following is excerpted from testimony delivered by Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-III.) before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families.

The question of what to do to increase the access of all American children to a quality education is one of the most important issues facing Congress and the nation today.

Some of my colleagues believe that one part of the solution is to use public funds to help defray the cost of sending children to private schools. I could not disagree more strongly. A voucher proposal presumes that a market-based solution will solve the problems that exist within our public education system, But by definition, markets have winners and losers, and our country cannot afford any losers in a game of educational roulette.

Education is about more than individuals. It is a public good as well. Quality public schools have shaped our democracy, created our strong middle class, and propelled us to the top of the world's economic pyramid. Public schools are the glue that has held our society together.

Vouchers are about putting individuals over communities. The reason we have compulsory education in this country is not so that every child can access the best education his or her parents can find, but so that all our children can receive a quality education. If our public schools are not all meeting that challenge, then it is our responsibility to fix them. A federally funded voucher program would not fix a single public school.

Vouchers necessarily benefit only a small percentage of students. Consider that there are roughly 46 million public school students and six million private school students, Any large-scale voucher'program would overwhelm the private schools. Advocates claim entrepreneurs would start up high-quality schools to meet the demand. But look at what happened in higher education: using federal scholarships as operating funds, fly-by-night operators started fraudulent private schools, and Congress has since had to step in and closely regulate private higher education institutions in order to protect the public's dollar. There is no reason to think the same thing would not happen with elementary and secondary schools.