Published on Wednesday, July 10, 2002 in the Boston Globe
The Realities of School Vouchers
by Derrick Z. Jackson
VOUCHING FOR vouchers is easy if you do not intend to use them. After the Supreme Court upheld Cleveland's school voucher program, President Bush called it a ''great victory to parents and students.'' He said vouchers give ''freedom to parents.'' He said ''it was an important statement'' to ''make sure no child is left behind.''
Bush equated vouchers with the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregated schools. ''The court declared that our nation will not accept one education system for those who can afford to send their children to a school of their choice and for those who can't, and that's just as historic,'' Bush said.
Bush put vouchers on the same shelf as a decision whose application periodically required the National Guard to ensure that no black child was left behind or stomped on. That makes it all the more transparent why Bush flew to Cleveland last week to blow a kiss at vouchers yet blew out of town with no revolutionary proposal to expand them. Truly pursuing vouchers means roiling America almost as much as 1954. It requires the equivalent of Bush sending the National Guard to the suburbs.
If vouchers are this good, why should the disproportionately blond burbs have all the fun? Besides, the right wing for years has been saying we are wasting, through busing and union contracts, the $5,934 that we spend per student per year in school districts where the poverty rate is more than 35 percent. Let us see what happens for that $6,144 per student per year in districts where the poverty rate is less than 5 percent.
Based on Bush's personal path to education, at Phillips Academy in Andover and at Yale, we obviously should not stop there. Only 6 million of America's 47 million schoolchildren attend private schools. The horrible divide in resources is only getting wider. While the national ratio of one private school student to every eight public school students is about the same today as it was in 1970, the ratio of private school teachers to public school teachers has risen from 1 for every 9 to 1 for every 7.
How sincere the nation is about addressing inequities is revealed fairly rapidly by looking at Cleveland's voucher program. Currently, only one Cleveland student out of every 20 uses vouchers. They cannot use them to go to the suburbs because no suburban school system will take them. Vouchers are useless for elite private schools since they are good for only up to $2,250 per student. Nationally, nonsectarian private school tuit ion averages $4,693 a year at the elementary level and $9,525 in high school. In the Northeast, elite private schools easily go for $15,000 a year for day students and $25,000 a year for boarding students.
Those realities have led to 96 percent of Cleveland's voucher students using their money to go to subsidized religious schools. That may make Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia happy in his efforts to increase the relationship between government and religion, but it hardly represents ''choice.'' A religious school may be a better choice than imprisonment in a decrepit public school, but this is nowhere near the ''freedom'' proclaimed by Bush.
Vouchers would not be an issue if we properly funded public schools. The nation has so successfully destroyed them that a majority of African-American parents have come to support vouchers.
Bush might have seemed more sincere if he had come to Cleveland not only to show off the black folks who supported vouchers there but admonish the suburban systems and private schools that do not participate. But even when suburbs are willing to help out, government is not very interested. In the Boston area, several suburban systems have for years volunteered slots to students from the Boston public schools in the METCO program, yet state funding has been frozen, and the program now faces Draconian cuts.
Bush stands in a no-man's land of education. Disastrously underfunded urban public schools are on one side. On the other are the uninterested burbs and the disconnected, disburdened nonreligious private schools. Short of announcing that he is disbanding urban public schools altogether and offering freedom for all, Bush is pushing the disingenous distraction of vouchers. Vouchers cannot offer a path to freedom when so many children will be left behind.
Bush can liken vouchers to the Brown decision all he wants. He has yet to rise to the leadership of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. They sent federal troops to desgregate schools. Bush has yet to even whisper against the segregation that stands between families who can afford to send their children to a school of their choice and for those who can't. When he does, that will be historic.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company
found it.... the main page is;
schoolchoices.org
careful with those URLs, lonestarmadam... :wink:
that said;
imho, school is readin', 'ritin' & 'rithmatic. no fourth "r" for religion. i don't mind a "moment of silent meditation" at the beginning of the day. that's what they had when i was in school; and it seemed to work for everybody.
other than that, i believe that religion should be left to an elective class such as "comparitive religion" or whatnot.
as to vouchers, i'm not too into the idea. we have no kids, but i don't mind paying taxes for public education. however, i believe religious education is the job of the church.
maporsche wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:maporsche wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:That is very strange to me that not one of you can find anything by yourself. I KNOW the links are on Google, you want to be adult & find them or you want to keep your head buried in the sand & call me a liar? I really don't care one way or the other.
Show me one link....
If you KNOW they are there, prove it.
I'm not going to give anymore links, I've given two, they don't work by pointing your little mouse on them, too bad, look them up the old fashioned way.
If you can't do that, then too bad, you'll just have to take my word for it. lmao
YOU are irrelevant.
And I never take anyone word for anything. You have to prove things when you post them.
I don't have to do anything other than what I wish to. I don't dance to anybodys fiddle.
OMG, I would never post to an "irrelevant", they don't exist for me, just watch, you'll see what I mean....poof, you're gone.
I'll give you guys a hint, what $$ funds schools? No federal $$ goes into schools? Better check it out before you answer that.
cicerone imposter wrote:How about god's fiddle?
I do try to live a Christian life, but I fall way short of the glory of God.
I'm pretty sure you fall short too!
LoneStarMadam wrote:maporsche wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:maporsche wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:That is very strange to me that not one of you can find anything by yourself. I KNOW the links are on Google, you want to be adult & find them or you want to keep your head buried in the sand & call me a liar? I really don't care one way or the other.
Show me one link....
If you KNOW they are there, prove it.
I'm not going to give anymore links, I've given two, they don't work by pointing your little mouse on them, too bad, look them up the old fashioned way.
If you can't do that, then too bad, you'll just have to take my word for it. lmao
YOU are irrelevant.
And I never take anyone word for anything. You have to prove things when you post them.
I don't have to do anything other than what I wish to. I don't dance to anybodys fiddle.
OMG, I would never post to an "irrelevant", they don't exist for me, just watch, you'll see what I mean....poof, you're gone.
If you refuse to follow the simple rules that exist for making an argument or proving a point then you ARE irrelevant.
You simply do not post unsupported claims without providing a source to verify your statements. If you are posting something that is your opinion, then fine, but to make a claim such as you did, then refuse to back it up, you're only proving yourself to be irrelevant.
I'm sure most here agree with me on this point, even those who support your side of the argument.
DontTreadOnMe wrote:found it.... the main page is;
schoolchoices.org
careful with those URLs, lonestarmadam... :wink:
that said;
imho, school is readin', 'ritin' & 'rithmatic. no fourth "r" for religion. i don't mind a "moment of silent meditation" at the beginning of the day. that's what they had when i was in school; and it seemed to work for everybody.
other than that, i believe that religion should be left to an elective class such as "comparitive religion" or whatnot.
as to vouchers, i'm not too into the idea. we have no kids, but i don't mind paying taxes for public education. however, i believe religious education is the job of the church.
School USED to be readin, ritin, & rithmatic, AND even the Lords Prayer was recited, I have never heard of anyone that was harmed by that. Unless one went to a private school, athiests, liberals, & conservatives all came out of those public schools.
Having said that, I was & am against school vouchers for the simple fact that once an institution accepts federal funding, they are subject to follow the rules of the gov't. in all aspects of what goes on in that institution.
LoneStarMadam wrote:I was & am against school vouchers for the simple fact that once an institution accepts federal funding, they are subject to follow the rules of the gov't.
It sounds like you want to protect the church from the state. You are worried about the slippery slope of allowing people to use government (school) vouchers to fund religious schooling.
But when it comes to public schools promoting religious dogma (like the lords prayer, or prayer before a football game), you don't seem to worry about a slippery slope there at all.
To be fair (and to follow the constitution), you should want to protect the state from the church as much as the church from the state.
rosborne, I believe people of relgion have a blind spot.
rosborne979 wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:I was & am against school vouchers for the simple fact that once an institution accepts federal funding, they are subject to follow the rules of the gov't.
It sounds like you want to protect the church from the state. You are worried about the slippery slope of allowing people to use government (school) vouchers to fund religious schooling.
But when it comes to public schools promoting religious dogma (like the lords prayer, or prayer before a football game), you don't seem to worry about a slippery slope there at all.
To be fair (and to follow the constitution), you should want to protect the state from the church as much as the church from the state.
Am I posting in a foreign language here? You had to have drug your thoughts of what I said out of thin air.
Let me ask you a question, why are you so freightened of religion? Has it ever harmed you?
LoneStarMadam wrote:rosborne979 wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:I was & am against school vouchers for the simple fact that once an institution accepts federal funding, they are subject to follow the rules of the gov't.
It sounds like you want to protect the church from the state. You are worried about the slippery slope of allowing people to use government (school) vouchers to fund religious schooling.
But when it comes to public schools promoting religious dogma (like the lords prayer, or prayer before a football game), you don't seem to worry about a slippery slope there at all.
To be fair (and to follow the constitution), you should want to protect the state from the church as much as the church from the state.
Am I posting in a foreign language here? You had to have drug your thoughts of what I said out of thin air.
Let me ask you a question, why are you so freightened of religion? Has it ever harmed you?
Ask the Jews if religion has ever harmed them. Ask Muslims. Ask Hindus. Ask Christians. Ask EVERYONE if religion has EVER harmed them. The answer is an astounding YES.
LoneStarMadam wrote:IRRELEVANT POSTER ALERT
Self actualization is a commendable goal to have acheived. Good job.
LoneStarMadam wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:....that said;
imho, school is readin', 'ritin' & 'rithmatic. no fourth "r" for religion. i don't mind a "moment of silent meditation" at the beginning of the day. that's what they had when i was in school; and it seemed to work for everybody.
School USED to be readin, ritin, & rithmatic, AND even the Lords Prayer was recited, I have never heard of anyone that was harmed by that...
perhaps you can imagine what it would be like to have, on a daily basis, someone else's beliefs forced on you.
would you care to have another, one of authority, insist that you recite the liturgy of
their religion in place of your own?
would you deny and bury your beliefs/religion/practice every day just to avoid making waves?
LoneStarMadam wrote:
Quote:Let me ask you a question, why are you so freightened of religion? Has it ever harmed you
?
Has religion ever harmed anyone? The question should be when hasn't religion harmed anyone. Religion is an infection that unfortunately anti-biotics can't cure.
maporsche wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:IRRELEVANT POSTER ALERT
Self actualization is a commendable goal to have acheived. Good job.
Oh alright, I'll answer your charge....
RELIGION has NEVER harmed anyone, MEN have USED religion to harm.
au1929 wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:
Quote:Let me ask you a question, why are you so freightened of religion? Has it ever harmed you
?
Has religion ever harmed anyone? The question should be when hasn't religion harmed anyone. Religion is an infection that unfortunately anti-biotics can't cure.
How about bathtubs? Rivers? Base ball bats? Again, "RELIGION has NEVER hurt anyone". MEN USING religion have hurt!!
DontTreadOnMe wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:DontTreadOnMe wrote:....that said;
imho, school is readin', 'ritin' & 'rithmatic. no fourth "r" for religion. i don't mind a "moment of silent meditation" at the beginning of the day. that's what they had when i was in school; and it seemed to work for everybody.
School USED to be readin, ritin, & rithmatic, AND even the Lords Prayer was recited, I have never heard of anyone that was harmed by that...
perhaps you can imagine what it would be like to have, on a daily basis, someone else's beliefs forced on you.
would you care to have another, one of authority, insist that you recite the liturgy of
their religion in place of your own?
would you deny and bury your beliefs/religion/practice every day just to avoid making waves?
I know what it is like to have others beliefs forced on you. How about the gay agenda when it is taught in the schools and children are forced to accept homosexuality.
When it comes to praying before a sports game, I don't see an issue. As long as the coach doesn't force players to play and as long as their non-prayer doesn't affect their playing in the game then who cares.
It seems that the only religion that is allowed to be taught and isn't complained about by the libs is Islam.
The same rules should be applied to all religions in school but that doesn't seem to happen.
