Smarter Than Credit is Given For
HoustonChronicle.com - Few expected to leave low-performing schools
I hope the school voucher crowd reads this article. I know, it's not "cool" to read something as blatantly "biased" but try it. If you do, you might learn a valuable lesson and it goes something like this: parents are often smarter than issue activists give them credit for.
School choice is a good thing, mind you. But thinking that if we just play a massive shell game of letting people pick which Titanic they want to enroll in would solve anything, then they're ignoring fact.
So what would happen if the choice option were opened to private schools? Not a lot more. A few more would enroll in private schools, a few more parents would be relieved that Johnny or Jane were getting a better education, but the problem wouldn't go away ... it would just be shifted.
People don't want just the choice to go to a good school somewhere else ... they want the school in their neighborhood to be good. Till there's focus on that, the Leninger crowd will be waging an inane battle with windmills.
Speaking of windmills ... isn't it more than a little ironic that the party in power now has the unseemly task of defending public schools while at the same time, pushing for methods to get people out of schools in crisis ... a crisis they deny out of the other side of their mouths?
Money quote for the day:
Milder called the organization a grass-roots operation. He said he invited business leaders, particularly those from the construction industry, to attend Tuesday night's fund-raiser.
Yeah, when I think "grassroots," I always think of construction industry leaders holding a fundraiser.
Anyways, as can be expected, Rick Casey has the lowdown on the backscratching behavior of Friends of Texas Public Schools. Money quote is as follows:
I have a confession to make. In some previous columns I have been entirely too hard on Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley.I have not properly appreciated her self-proclaimed role as head cheerleader for our public schools.
Who else could respond to news reports indicating evidence of cheating on the all-important Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test at more than 200 schools by asking the public to "please keep in mind that no problems have been found at an additional 7,500 campuses"?
The boldness of that statement became clear when she announced at the same time that her agency was hiring an outside expert because it had no system for monitoring the administration of the test.
Amazing how you never find any misdeeds when you don't bother to look for them. How stupid do these people really think the public is?
Comments
A little more info to bolster your argument about school vouchers: last year in Washington, DC, Congress set up (and paid for) a program involving school vouchers that allowed DC children to go to private schools. There were several problems:
1. More applicants than vouchers (parents had to apply and vouchers were given based on income).
2. More high school applicants than available vouchers (the program also covered elementary school children).
3. Transportation problems (costs were covered but parents objected to length of trip).
4. Actual school choice (most of the private schools on the list were Catholic).
Results:
1. Approximately 15% of approved applicants decided against vouchers. (Transportation was most cited)
2. Approxiamtely 40% of approved applicants were students in the private schools prior to voucher program but lived in the school's district. This essentially shifted the student's scholarship money source from the private school to the US Congress (DC public school system had nothing to do with the program).
So 45% of the approved applicants were using the school voucher program as legislators expected.
Posted by: EG | January 27, 2005 10:29 AM