Very strong opinion column by Ed Eiler, the retiring superintendent of the Lafayette School Corporation. The column is not so easily dismissed by his association with public schools because he has already announced his retirement.
He makes a number of important points about vouchers. Among them:
#Students and parents already have choices:
The issue isn’t about choice. The issue is about whether taxpayer dollars should pay for the choice parents make when the choice is made for a religious purpose or on the pretext of a religious purpose to avoid association with children of different socio-economic status or race and done to seek an enclave where beliefs are not questioned, challenged or tested, merely talked about and not practiced.
#This is not about healthy, strengthening competition because that kind of competition is not possible in the absence of a level playing field:
As to competition, education is a blend of collaboration, cooperation and healthy competition. Competition can be destructive, corrupting and harmful, especially if the competition is unfair. If every school was compelled to accept every child regardless of academic ability, socio-economic status, race, ability to speak English or religion, public schools would welcome the competition.
#He also discusses how the money supporting the PR efforts of the voucher system is tied to a financial incentive to make more money due to the tax credits associated with charter schools. I confess to ignorance about this financial angle and didn’t entirely follow.
The entire column is worth reading.
Ed Eiler is exactly right. And his credentials regarding the subject of vouchers are unimpeachable.
My biggest problem with vouchers is that non-public schools (remember chart schools are still public schools) aren’t held to the same standards as public schools.
They don’t have to provide the same level of special education access.
They don’t have to take all applicants (they get to discriminate based on some criteria).
The voucher system will make the public schools a dumping ground for “hard to teach” or otherwise “unwanted” pupils.
I also don’t think non-public schools are required to meet No Child Left Behind but I could wrong.
Dr. Eiler has been a strong superintendant, but the paragraph that begins “The issue isn’t about choice” is offensively stereotyping.
That said, as regulation again and again follows government money, I’d be very wary of taking vouchers if I were running a school that truly wants to call its own shots.