I am the product of an excellent public school system. In the 1940s the schools in my hometown of East Orange, New Jersey were recognized throughout the country for their excellence. So I was lucky. I’m sure many other systems were academically poor. Of course, it helped to be white. I fear Blacks were marginalized, even in my recognized system.
But good or bad, public education was all that was available.
That’s not strictly true. There were Catholic schools and, as I learned when I entered college and became acquainted with some students from rich families, there were exclusive private prep schools. The Catholic schools cost plenty, and the prep schools were very expensive.
I remember many Catholic families felt cheated because they had to pay for their kids’ educations on top of the taxes they also had to pay to support the public school system. But there was always the understanding that the private approach was a choice and a recognition that the choice had a financial penalty.
That recognition extended through the desegregation days of public schools when those who could afford it pulled their lily-white kids from schools that, gasp, had Black children and teachers.
It wasn’t until the 21st century that the notion that public tax dollars going to non public schools was a “good” idea.
Thus the voucher system was born in Florida where certain kids could leave public school to attend other ones and have the cost largely covered by the state. Using money that no longer enters the public school coffers.
Every year the Florida legislature finds a way to expand this system to more and more students. This year they said vouchers would be available to any student who normally would attend a public school, including those rich kids who are already in private schools and who now will be able to get much of their fees covered with public money.
There are many valid arguments against vouchers, and they have been expressed since the system was initiated. You see, these schools don’t have to have their students take standard exams, or offer state approved curricula, or accept disabled or gay students or students with gay parents, or teach evolution or any other science of which they disapprove.
But there’s even worse.
We’re talking big bucks here, possibly involving billions of dollars. And what happens when the money becomes large? People want it. And not always the most honest of people.
It is easy to imagine the more nefarious drooling over all that money and working out ways to latch onto some of it. After all, all they have to do is find an empty room or two, fill it with a few chairs, and announce they’re open for the education of the young. Maybe they’ll create a glossy brochure and impress gullible parents with the promise of a first class education for their kids.
These parents may very well be on the low end of the economic ladder without a good understanding of what excellence in education means. They just know they are being promised that and it is exactly what they want for their kids.
And it’s free for them.
Then the low lifes can rake in the essentially unlimited money for which they have to do almost nothing.
You say no one would be that mean? To cheat our kids that way? They already are. They already do. Some schools receiving voucher money have shut down in the middle of the year, leaving families to scurry to find a solution. Others have run-down facilities, or have failed to pay utilities, of have provided an educationally suspect curriculum, or have employed unqualified teachers.
Think how many more people will abuse the system when lured by the massive amount of money that now will be potentially available. Those with no interest in education, but with a large interest in cashing in on the public largesse.
And who is looking out to protect the kids from the damage performed on them.
Certainly not our legislative leaders who drool over this attack on education.
But good or bad, public education was all that was available.
That’s not strictly true. There were Catholic schools and, as I learned when I entered college and became acquainted with some students from rich families, there were exclusive private prep schools. The Catholic schools cost plenty, and the prep schools were very expensive.
I remember many Catholic families felt cheated because they had to pay for their kids’ educations on top of the taxes they also had to pay to support the public school system. But there was always the understanding that the private approach was a choice and a recognition that the choice had a financial penalty.
That recognition extended through the desegregation days of public schools when those who could afford it pulled their lily-white kids from schools that, gasp, had Black children and teachers.
It wasn’t until the 21st century that the notion that public tax dollars going to non public schools was a “good” idea.
Thus the voucher system was born in Florida where certain kids could leave public school to attend other ones and have the cost largely covered by the state. Using money that no longer enters the public school coffers.
Every year the Florida legislature finds a way to expand this system to more and more students. This year they said vouchers would be available to any student who normally would attend a public school, including those rich kids who are already in private schools and who now will be able to get much of their fees covered with public money.
There are many valid arguments against vouchers, and they have been expressed since the system was initiated. You see, these schools don’t have to have their students take standard exams, or offer state approved curricula, or accept disabled or gay students or students with gay parents, or teach evolution or any other science of which they disapprove.
But there’s even worse.
We’re talking big bucks here, possibly involving billions of dollars. And what happens when the money becomes large? People want it. And not always the most honest of people.
It is easy to imagine the more nefarious drooling over all that money and working out ways to latch onto some of it. After all, all they have to do is find an empty room or two, fill it with a few chairs, and announce they’re open for the education of the young. Maybe they’ll create a glossy brochure and impress gullible parents with the promise of a first class education for their kids.
These parents may very well be on the low end of the economic ladder without a good understanding of what excellence in education means. They just know they are being promised that and it is exactly what they want for their kids.
And it’s free for them.
Then the low lifes can rake in the essentially unlimited money for which they have to do almost nothing.
You say no one would be that mean? To cheat our kids that way? They already are. They already do. Some schools receiving voucher money have shut down in the middle of the year, leaving families to scurry to find a solution. Others have run-down facilities, or have failed to pay utilities, of have provided an educationally suspect curriculum, or have employed unqualified teachers.
Think how many more people will abuse the system when lured by the massive amount of money that now will be potentially available. Those with no interest in education, but with a large interest in cashing in on the public largesse.
And who is looking out to protect the kids from the damage performed on them.
Certainly not our legislative leaders who drool over this attack on education.
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