No Vouchers for Private Schools

No Public Charter Schools

 Improve Our Public Schools

We need to apply our public resources to our public schools. 

I see few advantages with privately administered public charter schools.   The profit motive of the for-profit company administrators will result in corners being cut and it will be difficult and costly to regulate the charters.  Rather, we should constantly work to improve our public schools.  We should review regulations to remove unnecessary constraints and constantly develop and apply promising new  methods.

I oppose any large scale use of vouchers for private schools.  I would consider supporting a limited voucher program if applied on a very select basis where it can be shown that a student has a significantly  better chance of success in a particular private school than in the public school.  If applied on a large scale basis, vouchers for private schools could lead to a very unequal schooling based on wealth.  There could be well funded private schools where parents substantially supplement the vouchers, struggling private schools for students whose parents could not supplement them, and public schools.  With the wealthy relying on the better funded private schools, there would be less support for school funding, in general.  As a result, vouchers would be reduced along with the financial support for public schools. 

The best course is to look critically at operation of and constraints on public schools.  Schools should have adequate tools to deal with discipline issues.  Mainstreaming and inclusion make for very difficult classroom management for teachers.  Inventive new computer based teaching programs can be of help.  These programs can easily adapt to the learning level of the individual student and provide student progress and needs analysis to the teacher (and to parents). More ...