A school voucher represents a means by which a parent can choose a school for his child and, upon turning in the document, a portion of the school tuition will be paid by either public or private entity. In the case of publicly funded school vouchers, parents who receive them can choose to have their children attend approved private schools or charter schools instead of sending their kids to government-funded public schools. The voucher represents an "in lieu of" payment that the government would have otherwise paid a public school, but the parent has the benefit of choosing a different school instead of the local district school for his child's education.
According to the Friedman Foundation, the earliest voucher programs still functioning today began during the 1870s in Maine and Vermont. Because school resources were limited, parents received vouchers so they could send their children to schools in a nearby town to receive education. The voucher reduced the out-of-pocket charge to the parent so that the benefit would be the same as if the school was in the same town that the child lived. Vouchers, however, also became a tool of segregation during the mid-1960s when a few southern state governments issued vouchers to keep white kids separated from black children. The implementation was the same; the voucher paid for a school education outside the normal school available to all, but it also helped white segregationists use schools that banned black pupils.
The federal vouchers today target low-income families and neighborhoods, less-than-stellar public school districts or areas where special education programs are needed due to a lack of such services within the existing programs of public schools. Similar to the old models, under the modern voucher system parents receive the annual voucher document and submit it to the school of their choice on the program's approved school system list provided by the federal plan. The funding is paid for through federal budget legislation passed regularly by Congress.
Depending on the jurisdiction, some voucher programs allow parents to participate in lotteries to get their children into specific schools. Such schools tend to be affected by high attendance demand and cannot serve everyone with an eligible voucher. As a result, a lottery is performed that picks who gets in and who doesn't each year for new entries. If selected, the parent can then use the voucher from the government to pay for the tuition. In other jurisdictions, the lottery is performed by the government as to who is allowed to get a voucher in the first place before even being able to choose a school. Many such programs are administered by the respective state educational system using federal funds and state funds.