Set Our Teachers FREE!

The Los Angeles Times has been carrying a continuing story related to an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of educational vouchers.

For years, proponents of vouchers have held up examples of students who have benefitted under the voucher subsidies. This debate gives a pretty clear picture of the impact nationwide. The story reports:

“Nationwide, there are 21 school-choice voucher and tax-credit programs that serve approximately 200,000 students. Since 2004, nine new school-choice programs have been enacted in Georgia, Utah, Ohio, Arizona, Rhode Island and Washington D.C. These 21 programs are ranked in a February 2007 Milton Friedman Foundation report (PDF) that evaluates how well they live up to the late economist’s gold standard for school choice. These programs include the 17-year-old voucher program enacted by the Wisconsin Legislature, which serves about 18,500 students in 122 private schools; Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program, in which 25,000 special education students use vouchers to attend the school of their choice; and Arizona’s voucher program for foster children.”

I’m very happy about the children who have been helped through these programs, but these statistics show the very reason that vouchers as a mainstream solution don’t work. The total number of children helped by these combined voucher programs is only a drop-in-the-bucket compared to the overwhelming needs of disadvantaged children, not to mention under-educated students, across the country.

Vouchers do NOTHING to improve troubled schools. Yes, a small percentage of students benefit, but the majority are left behind in schools that are not functioning AND have resources further depleted so the remaining students are even worse off than before. Why can’t all these people who are pushing for vouchers see that we NEED TO FIX SCHOOLS INSTEAD? Are we willing to place improvement emphasis on only a small percentage of students? Or should we bankrupt the entire United States by having a universal voucher system?

In “Set Our TeachersFREE! A Plan to Save Public Education”, Don Kingsland offers a plan that includes vouchers only in emergency situations, such as the need to get a child out of a threatening environment (home or school). Instead, The Kingsland Plan offers solutions for making ALL schools good. Doesn’t that make more sense?

As long as we choose to ignore educational problems on a nationwide basis, then we will be left with stop-gap measures that benefit only those few lucky enough to be a part of that particular program.

We need to Straighten-Out Our Public Schools NOW! Piece-meal and stop-gap solutions are as useless in the long term as sticking a piece of bubble gum in the crack in the wall of the dam. Let’s apply some common sense solutions to the problems in our public schools and help ALL students have a better chance.

Brennan

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools

Filed under: Education News