Jeb Bush Loves Sweden's "Voucherized" Education System

Former Gov. Jeb Bush sat down with the Wall Street Journal for a lil chitchat, and after getting it out of the way that he would never, ever want to be honored on President's Day, he starts getting hyper-excited about the Swedish education system.

"The idea that somehow Sweden would be the land of innovation, where private involvement in what was considered a government activity, is quite shocking to us Americans," Mr. Bush says. "But they're way ahead of us. They have a totally voucherized system."

Yes, clearly we need a better education system than the current one, especially when former governors are using made-up words such as "voucherized," but is Sweden really the way to go?
The country's population is more than 88 percent indigenous, only 23 percent believe in God (a majority believes in a "spirit force"), and even there some complain the education system's reliance on for-profit schools has led to an increase in fundamentalist religious schools and segregation. Wonder what would happen in the States, where there's more diversity and the number of religious fundamentalists is higher?

There are some good points to the Swedish education system, such as the fact that after the age of 16, students can choose either vocational school or a college-prep type of institution, but Jeb has clearly locked on to this system because of vouchers, vouchers, vouchers!

Sweden also funds preschool and college, but since Jeb is remembered for not wanting to raise taxes to support education, one wonders how he'd fund this plan.