“What are vouchers exactly? School vouchers come in many forms and since the general public is typically opposed to voucher schemes, politicians who favor them have come up with a variety of Orwellian doublespeak names for them like Opportunity Scholarships, Education Choice Scholarships, or the Education Savings Accounts. Russ Walsh teaches college reading at Rider University and publishes the blog, “Russ on Reading.” This March he wrote “ School Vouchers: Welfare for the Rich, the Racist, and the Religious Right.” That’s certainly a novel take on the “3-Rs” of education. Charter schools and their like are definitely antithetical to this promise.” … Public money is shared money, and it is to be used for the furtherance of shared values, in the interest of e pluribus unum. “A pluralistic society cannot sustain a scheme in which the citizenry pays for a school but has no influence over how the school is run. She shared this quote from the longtime teachers’ union leader and one of the original supporters of charter schools, Albert Shankar. Mercedes Schneider’s book School Choice makes a powerful arguments for why “school choice” is not only an idea that is unsupported by evidence but will cause extensive damage to our world’s greatest democratic institution. Does he believe public schools in America are in that kind of crisis or is this just another feckless politician demagoging education for his own selfish purposes? Trump is calling for a nearly Manhattan Project sized effort to privatize America’s public schools. Another estimate says $2 billion in 1945 dollars was equivalent to $26 billion in 2016. That was estimated to be equivalent to $30 billion in 2013.
The US spent about $1.9 billion on the atomic bomb development. It is equal to more than two-thirds of the spending on the Manhattan Project.
President Trump proposed spending $20 billion supposedly by repurposing title I funds to promote “school choice.” That is a stunning number. In addition, the improved pedagogy which has been touted in advertising is refuted by refereed studies. Private schools that compare favorably with public schools are much more expensive than any proposed vouchers.Īs for the charter school claims they have not innovated, they have increase education costs and the lack of oversight has resulted in an endless stream of scandal. Secondly, voucher-fed private schools are not that good. While it is true that some schools have been so poorly resourced and politically damaged by both racism and corruption that they are an abomination, in general America’s public school system is amazingly great – not failing, great! Unfortunately, there are three base assumptions here that are wrong. The traditional public schools which are encumbered by state regulations and teachers’ unions will learn from these charter school innovations and market forces will cause them to also improve. The claim is made that – because of market forces and reduction in both operating rules and oversight – charter schools will innovate and provide improved pedagogy. The question is asked, “why don’t poor people have some of the same choices as wealthier people?”Ī possible solution is proposed, “Instead of sending public dollars to ‘failing schools,’ vouchers could be given to parents so their children can attend private schools.” Another popular option is to use tax policy and monetary incentives to encourage privately operated charter schools. Worse yet, the poor families living there have no affordable education options and are trapped. The argument for privatization schemes like charter schools and vouchers is that public schools in many low-income neighborhoods are abhorrent failures. Photo by Alex Brandon of the AP taken from report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. President Donald Trump visited a private religious school in Florida on March 2, 2017, signaling once again that his education agenda will focus on school choice.
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