Speak Out!
Do School Vouchers Make a Difference?
Thu, 03/13/2008 - 13:38 | Education
The USA Today Op-Ed section recently tackled a debate on school choice. The paper takes the position that we should move beyond vouchers:
Instead of continuing to fight about vouchers, it's time to focus on other, more promising school-choice options. But when local schools fail, children deserve access to a good education, even if vouchers aren't the answer.The exec director of the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice says, "Don't write them off:"
Vouchers win and they work. They put parents in charge and empower families with real educational options. If we want true change, we should support vouchers now more than ever.Are you for or against school vouchers?
Empowerment Cards
Comments
The comment above by Amy is a
The comment above by Amy is a terrific one and totally lucid. It highlights what I am saying. The problem with public education is an enormous one; without question. My position is that IF WE DO NOT FIX IT, we, as a society, are doomed in the long run and that will include all those who appeared fortunate enough to have escaped to a 'better' educational environment.
I am against vouchers. In my
I am against vouchers. In my opinion they circumvent the real problem and only wind up making it worse. The low quality of public school education, particularly in poor neighborhods IS the problem. If we simply cannot fix it, we should at least have the courage and decency to admit this. If we admit this, the naked horrific implications will become apparent and we will ALL feel threatened, as we should. I therefore say we need to fix public education via new and radical concepts; not by offering a few a way out. If anyone would care to hear my ideas on this, I would be more than happy to share them.
If somebody gets me a
If somebody gets me a voucher, I'll let you know!
Peace
Hi, Tavis. I'm a single
Hi, Tavis. I'm a single working mother of a 4-year-old, and I live in a college town with remarkably well-funded public schools. We support bond referenda and local sales tax options like crazy, and we have a healthy district foundation, too. As we grow more social problems, the schools have been struggling and taking on more social-work function, but on the whole it's still a very good district.
We spend about $13K/yr on each child. If I had my druthers, I'd take that money, homeschool my girl, work part-time, and send her to her wonderful daycare part-time. (As she grew older, if she wanted to work, volunteer, or do something else requiring sociability and cooperation for a few hours instead, that'd be fine by me.) I have no doubt that her father and I, both well-educated, can do a better job than the district can, and for less money. We could save the overage for college or return it to the taxpayers.
Why am I so sure we could do better? I see what we've done already, and what she can do. She pushes us to teach her. She reads and writes some now, does some arithmetic, plays pattern games, learns music theory and a couple of instruments, pushes me for religious instruction, and studies civics in our newspaper discussions. (Like many young people, she's an Obama supporter.) She gets history from chance conversations and fiction. Science...well, she's played with my molecular modeling kits since babyhood, and sciences are part of our conversation, too. She has more time for gym and art than most public-school students get. And we needn't discuss the lunches.
So I don't demand an education for my child. I'm more than happy to educate her. I just don't want to pay someone else to do a middling job of it, and if we're going to be handing out public money for teachers, I'm putting my hand up to be her teacher.
I am aware that this leads to the "rich white people take their kids and run, leaving the rest to sink into oblivion" argument, and I'll bite even though it doesn't quite fit the picture we've got here (yet). I'm even willing to equate "well-educated" with "rich" for the purpose of that argument. I'm not quite the pinko I used to be, but even so, if I really believed that the presence of lucky kids and their demanding parents could lift the public schools substantially, I'd say, "Yes, it's irresponsible to take the better-off kids out." But I don't believe the fortunate kids help. If the other children's lives are a misery and a shambles, if they come in hungry and exhausted and unable to sit in a chair and learn, if their parents don't respect education or are AWOL mentally or physically, the problems are not solved by dumping luckier kids into each classroom. Then the lucky kids sit by while the teachers attempt to manage the kids with behavior and learning problems and drag them over the test hurdles. (Or, worse, the lucky kids get no real education, but are drafted as teachers, an idea I don't mind if it's a volunteer setup, but am vehemently opposed if it's essentially forced labor for the schools' convenience.) And if the ed schools consistently recruit from the bottom, and turn out tractable teachers who might love kids but aren't too interested or able in whatever subject they're teaching, you cannot lift the quality of the education in any meaningful way.
I'm a big fan of the idea of public education -- a fan of common childhood experience and a ladder to pull yourself up by. But the public ed I'm thinking of is a romance. If it ever existed, I don't believe it does now.
I'd be happy to eat crow, btw. Just show me that pie.
The main concern should be
The main concern should be finding a way to address the educational and motivational needs of our school children. Vouchers or the Charter School is just a means of paying for a better way of educating our children. Now a lot of Blacks who are vested in the public school system want it to continue at least until they retire. However, the need is past critical for our children. They are being suspended in record numbers. Those suspensions lead directly to the high numbers in drop outs. Suspend a child two days here, five days there and eventually he will one day return to a classroom that is a foreign place to him/her.
I started a private school in Henderson North Carolina that addresses the needs of the child who is repeatedly suspended. The school system and the political powers that be are actually fighting me. They condemned the building I housed my school in. I was arrested at the local library for using the computers there for school curriculum (they actually had the nerve to send me a letter to that effect. We as a community must create a way for our children to succeed.
Money comes into every town to address the educational needs of our children. We allow a well-organized group of familiar looking people to grab that money before it is used for the purposes to which it is intended.
Parents need to band together and stop the madness. I have eighth graders reading and doing math on third grade levels. Tenth graders who can't name the United States...forget about spelling them. After two years of running this school without a salary and grant money, I'm ready to take my show on the road. I have students who are now on fire for learning.
We can't allow school systems to let substitute teachers teach for an entire year. We must demand an education for our children. We must demand of ourselves as parents that we take the responsibility to walk our children through the education process.
I think they should rename no
I think they should rename no child left behind to no school left behind. Vouchers only excuse the state and government from supporting our school systems in the inner cities and especially in the south. Education should not be issued out like a coupon.
School vouchers will not
School vouchers will not solve the problem of education in our country simply because they will not ensure a quality education for every child in America. As much money as we pay out in taxes, our children ought to be able to go to school in their own neighborhood and receive the same quality education as any other child in America.
As a teacher in the public school system, I can attest that the real problem in education has to do with the politics of it. Since the implementation of "No Child Left Behind," the quality of education has diminished tremendously. Essential components have been taken out of school curriculum that do anything but ensure that the children learn. They put so much emphasis on test scores knowing full well that most students are not adequately prepared to do well on the test in the first place. Therefore knowing that most low-performing schools are going to remain low-performing, they are used as an excuse to have school vouchers in place. Every child in America will not be eligible to receive a school voucher, so what is the point.
More money should be put into putting some programs that will truly help low-performing schools improve, and that takes the community to get involved and holding their local school boards, school administrators, and elected officials accountable. This also means that parents, students, and teachers need to hold each other accountable as well. Until this happens our educational system is going to continue to fall and no school voucher or charter school will be able to change that.
I agree that vouchers are
I agree that vouchers are necessary to increase the academic success of students within failing schools. I also believe that Vouchers as well as Charter schools
must continue to rise; by doing so, this will forcibly bring about education reform. In addition, allowing an independent superintendent of poor-performing schools in some regions has proven effective. Modifying the tax distribution within the provinces or counties of those low-performing schools could multiply school funds as well.
School vouchers are not the
School vouchers are not the complete answer to this enormous problem and challenge. However, I do think until we have a comprehensive solution addressing the under achieving educational system, we must help the children now, the ones that we can. Imperfect, yes. We can't let all the children suffer; we have to do what we can for the ones that we can. Lastly, we must hold our elected officials accountable, more importantly our parents. We have decided to leave educating our children up to the school system, as dysfunctional as it is, while also being uninvolved; a recipe for failure. One of the challenges to going to a voucher system for all is that many children will get the short end of the stick, especially minorities, particularly the black and brown poor.
Solution has to begin with the outrage of the parents, grandparents, aunts, brothers, families all across this country. Complacency has become the norm; accepting the system as it exists. If we can get outraged over other things, civil rights, election fraud, then we can and must do the same over our educational system. We have to start from the bottom up, inspiring the everyday, average citizen to be involved. The more people involved, the more pressure we can put on those in charge to make changes. From there we must also elect those who have a progressive vision, linked to a grass roots, family oriented, community outreached emphasis perspective.
[...] fail, children deserve
[...] fail, children deserve access to a good education, even if vouchers aren’t the answer.