Just 4 days afer the Bush Administration's own Education Department issued a report showing public schools largely performing better than private and conservative Christian schools, renewing "questions from foes of vouchers about why taxpayer money should go toward private schools instead of toward improving public schools," the right-wing, anti-public-school ideologues are back at it again:
The Bush administration and Republican legislators yesterday proposed a $100 million national plan to offer low-income students private-school vouchers to escape low-performing public schools. The plan was immediately assailed by Democrats, unions and liberal advocacy groups.
Gotta give these right-wingers a bit of credit. They never, EVER give up in pushing their extreme agenda. In this case, of course, what they're trying to do is to starve the public schools of money in order to push their favored alternative - private, preferably conservative Christian, education for all - or at least some - Americans. Of course, the Bush Administration is trying to claim that this is merely giving "the same opportunities" to poor families that wealthier ones now have. The definitive smackdown on that claim goes to Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, who says:
They are calling this a scholarship. A voucher is a voucher. Where I come from, it's called perfuming a pig. Anything that takes away from our ability to better our schools is wrong.
Not in BushAllen world, though. In that world, private is always better than public, religious is always better than secular, and protecting 5-day-old "blastocysts" (most of which would be discarded anyway) is more important than developing cures for Ronald Reagan's Alzheimers, Christophe Reeves' paralysis, Arlen Specter's cancer, and my own sister's Juvenile Diabetes. Thanks a lot, guys.
Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not necessarily represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.
My only concern when it comes to school choice is the ability of government to control private schools in some way. For example, X Catholic School does something the government does not like. Government then says you can use school vouchers for any school in America, except X Catholic School. As long as the law says that this is not possible, I am all for it. School choice should be school choice. While I may not agree with X School for Liberal Indoctrination, for example, if parents want their kids going there, I would support it, as long as everyone had their choice.
I just want to make sure school choice does not turn into school choice that the federal government or even some local city council somewhere approves of. This would create the ability of government to indirectly control school's behavior, and then we would be back where we started. Besides that concern, I am all for school choice.
Now let's say that the private schools in your neighborhood consist of a Catholic school, a new school of uncertain origin, and a Jewish day school. You opt for the new school of uncertain origin because it's close to your house, all the parents rave about the quality of education, they achieve great test scores, some of your kids friends go there, and you like the playground. Your voucher covers most costs, although there are a few incidentals that you pay out of pocket (driving them there, meals, and an activity fee). Not bad. Only problem is that you didn't do your homework very well, and discover that the new school is part of a cult that teaches kids weird stuff that you can't believe. In addition to this, the incidental costs have risen faster than your voucher subsidy. Meanwhile, the good school that you loved has to close- part of the county school system consolidation.
By the time you understand what's developed, the kids are moving up to middle school, and you opt to go back to the public school, but it's not there anymore! Now, your kids get to ride a bus across the county to another school where they swelter in a building designed for modern climate controls without windows, but because of budget restrictions, it takes four months to fix the thermostat. The computer lab that was the pride of the county is a little out of date, but that doesn't matter because when they failed to fix the roof (lack of funds), water dripped onto the computers and ruined them.
One good thing about this new public school is that your kids now get exposure to kids that they would never have met before, because you moved far away from the kinds of places where those kids are found. Some of these kids are the ones rejected from the private school- the one that gets to kick out bad apples. Many of them don't have parents at home, and are raised by a single grandmother or other relatives. The school turns into a holding area for these kids. Having been brainwashed by the cult in the old school, your kids seem to get into more than their share of fights with some of these new kids who are so different. Also, this school is full of special needs kids-the ones with all sorts of disabilities that the private schools can't handle very well, even with voucher payments, because they don't have trained personnel and facilities to deal with them. ADA requirements mandate that these kids get an equal education, but the public schools are the ones with a broad enough base of support to afford to provide the special things that they need to be able to function. Now, these schools have to figure out ways to make their smaller budget cover all of those things.
The classes your kids are in have an average of 46 students- a cost effective measure in the consolidated schools. It's a nightmare. So, you pull your kids out and send them to the Catholic school, leaving all the public school problems behind at the other end of the county.
The Catholic school is basically an ethnic school with two distinct classes of people- the Polish-American Catholic kids, and Latino kids. Your kids are ostrasized, sad and lonely there, but they learn more about the lives of the Saints than you ever knew. In the end, its a kind of mixed bag and no one is really better off, although your fine public school definately took a beating.
It might not work that way in Henrico County, though I suspect that even there schools face the same issues as anywhere else.
You forgot that last sentence on your rant. I understand questions and concerns about school choice, but your post was a bit ridiculous. I do think public schools would close due to school choice, but it will not be the good ones. It will be the ones who are doing so poorly right now that they can hardly be called educational schools. Those schools will either get better or close due to competition. The best public schools will remain open.
The school voucher system is based around determining the cost of educating one student in a given school system and allowing the money to follow the student, rather than staying with the school.
This way, working class and lower class parents can apply this credit to the tuition of a higher-caliber private school that their child could otherwise never afford.
This system would simultaneously force public schools to get their acts together because if they didn't, their funding would evaporate as more and more parents opted for voucher credits and sent their kids to private schools.
I can't believe that we as liberals-progressives have let the conservatives win on this issue. This should be OUR issue. WE should be the ones demanding accountability from our public schools by giving middle class parents the option to send their kids to better schools.
WE should be the ones who say "Yeah... it does make a heck of alot more sense to allow the money allocated to educating a single student to follow him/her wherever they can find the best education."
This is completely ridiculous. We should have owned this issue from the start. We let the right-ring steal it from our grasp. The voucher system is a progressive system. Anyone who is against it is against progress.
I don't think school choice is about that. We are only advocating for school choice. This is any school choice. Not religious school choice, as I hear all the time when I debate this issue. I am glad to see a progressive is for school choice. My only concern is a concern I voiced in a post earlier, but other than that, I am all for it.
Basically, Bush is for school choice, so a lot of progressives are instinctively against it. But it really is not a conservative/liberal issue, and I am surprised it turned out that way in the natinol debate.
Who has been in charge of Richmond City, Portsmouth, Petersburg or Norfolk schools? (Just a few school systems that quickly come to mind that are thoroughly in the toilet). Democrats. Liberal Democrats. A voucher system could go a long way in giving poorer families -- mostly minorities, by the way -- access to a better education for their children.
The one demographic group that will benefit the most is African-Americans in inner-city schools. Democrats should have embraced this a long time ago. But since it would be Republicans who provided that access, and the NEA would lose some of its dwindling political power, it's a non-starter for them.
By the way, it's very refreshing to see an honest, rational voice from the left on this. It really is silly that this has become such a religion-bashing issue for most liberals. Maybe there's hope yet.
the intent of voucher programs are to delegitimize public schooling.
This is a bout the 4th voucher program floated by Republicans since Bush began running for president. In the past some of the problemsm were that the funding was not necessarily limited to those. of low income or to those even currently in public schools. While the current proposal attempts toa ddress those criticisms. there are no requirements for the schools to which students go with voucher to
- abide by anti-discrimination legislation
- apply the same tests that are used to determine that the public schools are 'failing'
- meet anything close to the requirements of teacher quality imposed by NCLB.
In the case of the current proposal, it has nothing to do with lesser costs for schools because students on vouchers are not in the school. This is an additional expenditure, not transferred from anything else, because any attempt at removing money from public schools by vouchers is poison at the polling both, and the republicans know it. This is to get the nose of the camel under the tent, and then try to achieve more.
Every parent can choose the school - or home schooling - they want for their children. The Supreme court has so acknowledged. But public schools are a public good and a public responsibility, even if you have no children. Similar examples include various modes of public transportation which are subsidized by tax revenues as a public benefit, even if you always drive your own car. The existence of the highway system is also a public good paid for by taxes -- and please do not claim it is all user fees, because it is not. 90% of the cost of Interstate highways is paid for by federal gas taxes, but many local and state roads are paid for out of general tax revenues.
We can make a decision that there is no public responsibility for education at all. But the past several hundred years would seem to argue against that, since the Congress under the Articles of Confederation provided for pulbic schooling in the NW territories. Also, most state constitutions are explicit on the rights of citizens to a free public education, clearly at least through 8th grade, and in most states through HS or age 21, whichever comes first. Many states specifically prohibit expenditure of state funds to religious institutions -- these are th so-called Blaine Amendments, which is why the Florida Supreme Court found that that state's vouchers system was illegal under the state constitution.
If you want to start arguing on the basis of not making people pay for public services they don't use, I choose not to use the military in Iraq, so I want my proportion of the federal taxes I pay to be cut accordingly. Of course you will say that my argument is nonsense - that providing for the common defense is clearly something defined in the constitution. I would agree, and would note that same Constitution requires a declaration of war, and a whole lot of other things not being abided by so that this is as much a stealing of my tax money to benefit certain favored corporpations.
I don't expect to win my argument, either legally or politically in current day America. And despite the best attempts of those hostile to public education to set up a frame to use vouchers to delegitimize public schooling, the report that the Department of Education was forced to release under FOIA, which is a study of hundreds of thousands of students, came to the clear conclusion that there is .. once you control for things like the income level of the students' families.. no significant difference in the performance of public and private schools. That undercuts the entire rationale of this proposal.
The administration wants to throw a sop to those of its supporters who oppose education, and hopes to use this issue to try to claim Democrats who oppose are racist, not wanting to let poor black children get a good education. Tell you what -- since this is ADDITIONAL money, take the same amount for those 28,000 students and give it .. per student who qualifies.. to the public schools they currently attend to improve among other things
- broken windows
- toilet stalls without doors
- quality of instructional material
heck - If I had 10 such students in one elementary school, it is almost enough money to fund another teacher and thus reduce some class sizes.
Oh, it is too little when spread out to make a difference in any school? Then why cherry-pick? If you think it is so important why not fund it at the one billion level,which would be 280,000 students? Of course, there are not enough spaces in private schools in the entire country to absorb that many students, which is why the administration does not make the argument. They want to ramp this up so their buddies can set up for profit and/or unsupervised schools. Throw another billion into public education for targeted things (not just more tests) and you might make a difference. And if children had better schooling and better opportunity they would earn more, pay more in taxes, be far less likely to be incarcerated (where they cost us more per inmate than a beginning teacher earns in many states).
One other thing. A woman still has a constitutional right to an abortion -- if she can pay for it. People argued that even if it were a right the public should not have to fund it. If it applies there, let's be consistent, shall we, and note that you have a constitutional right to the education of your choice, provided you can pay for it.
have a nice day.
Privatization is a curse the republicans are forcing on us in many arenas.
1. The choice aspect for individuals is fine, but they are using part of my tax contributions to send their kids to a school that I might not approve of. If the voucher was limited to their own tax contribution (the portion of taxes they paid that would go toward eduction) then perhaps my argument would be moot. But that's not going to happen - it's very difficult to calculate and would only be a significant benefit to people who pay higher taxes (i.e. the rich). So these individuals are not only choosing where to send their children (which is not my business) but how to spend my tax money (which is my business).
2. Very much along the same line as #1, what about those paying taxes and therefore supporting education in general who do not have children? The voucher is essentially giving people a choice of how to spend education tax dollars. For people without children, can they just ask for their contribution to be returned? No. Can they direct their contribution to private schools of their choice - even without sending kids there? No. If we're really talking about an education funds redistribution system then everyone should have a say in how their portion is allocated.
Ultimately parents should have the final say in where their children receive an education. And they do - at least within their means.
But when it comes to public funding for education, which is a necessity for a successful society, that money should not be scattered all over. Problems with the education system need to be directly addressed, not avoided.
The public school system has been overwhelmed in the past 30 years with determining what each child needs to address their learning disabilities. You won't find that kind of attention in private schools. We are now spending a fortune to educate kids with all kinds of learning disabilities that were not identified in the past. If you had severe learning problems you just dropped out of school. Your test scores didn't enter the mix. When I taught in the 80s we had kids who lived on farms that only showed up for school ocassionally. You all are thinking about private schools that cost tons of money that are basically segregated, i.e., they're for rich people. For handicapped kids they aren't welcome in the voucher world and if they are, I doubt the schools would have the resources to help them. They'd just get passed along while the school kept the money.
Everyone has an opinion about school because they went to one. I think it should be required that every parent spend 1 whole day in a school. They might have a better understanding of what the professionals go through--that would be the teachers they so love to vilify.