Give vouchers a fair chance
Editorial
The Post and Courier
Monday, April 13, 2009
The debate over whether to spend public funds on vouchers for private-school tuition produces a dizzying array of competing statistics. But the 1,714 students in Washington, D.C., who stand to lose the enhanced educational opportunities they have been receiving from a pilot voucher program enacted by Congress in 2004 aren't numbers. They're low-income children who deserve better.
It's a shame that Democratic lawmakers, in predictable lockstep with the educational establishment, recently voted to effectively end that program at the close of the 2009-10 school year.
As a prominent U.S. elected official put it earlier this year: "If there was any argument for vouchers it was, all right, let's see if this experiment works, and then if it does, whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids."
That wasn't a conservative ideologue trying, in the overwrought mantra of many voucher opponents, "to destroy public schools." That was President Barack Obama.
Since the president made those remarks, the U.S. Education Department has released a study showing positive results from the voucher "experiment."
The research reported that the students who attended private schools thanks to those vouchers made "significantly" more progress in reading than their counterparts who remained in public schools.
Yet opposition to vouchers remains entrenched and powerful, not just in Washington but across the nation, including South Carolina. State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, a longtime opponent of including private schools in public-education choice programs, has lately been criticized — and in some cases vilified — for daring to change his mind on this issue.
Sen. Ford is backing a bill to provide tax credits for private-school tuition. He makes a compelling case for giving children stuck in substandard public schools a better option.
That doesn't mean vouchers are an educational panacea. And the success of the D.C. program doesn't necessarily mean it can be replicated on a vast scale there or anywhere else. There are practical limits to how much money we should spend on vouchers or tax credits, and how many new students whom private schools can take.
Ultimately, public schools must improve if American education is to improve. But making private schools a more accessible choice could strengthen educational competition and the public system. Certainly many students in the D.C. system, which is both among the nation's most expensive and most academically dismal, could benefit from that additional choice.
If vouchers — or tax credits — can produce positive results at private schools for some students now attending struggling public schools, why not give that innovation a fair chance?
Why not, in President Obama's words, "do what works for the kids"?
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/apr/13/give_vouchers_fair_chance78438/
2 comments:
Its pretty easy for voucher schools to do better than public schools since the students who are sent to voucher schools usually have parents that are more interested in a quality education for their kids. And that's one of the fundamental problems with most public school systems, they don't give parents any choice as to where they can send there kids to school.
In my opinion, parents should be allowed to send their kids to any public school within the city or county that they live in or work in. Forcing parents to send their kids-- only-- to the school in their neighborhood is inherently discriminatory.
The public school system should also offer more choices for parents. Besides regular schools, there should be high GPA schools for the top students. There should be all girl schools. There should be military schools. Maybe even a school for the performing arts:-)
But there should also be special schools (possibly military) to accommodate frequently disruptive students who require a more disciplinary environment. This would allow principals to expel frequently violent and disruptive students from regular schools in order to place them in an environment where these students can receive the proper attention and discipline that they need.
http://www.newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
Public school choice is a good concept. I am all in favor of investing in education and have always voted for measures to adequately fund our public schools.
We need to pay teachers like professionals and give them the ability to maintain classroom discipline. Of course, you raise an important point about the value of education to the parent. If a parent values learning, then their children will be far more likely to excel in school.
A variety of approaches are best since education simply doesn't work with a one size fits all stratgegy. I agree that there should be specialized schools. I am all for military schools and single gender schools as an option. If we can help kids get a decent education with vouchers (which have proven to be cost effective and need not drain resources away from public schools) or public school choice or charter schools, then let's do it.
Post a Comment