Major Victory For School Choice

Indiana’s Supreme Court unanimously upholds Indiana’s voucher program.

http://www.in.gov/activecalendar/Ev...92217&view=EventDetails&information_id=177616

Taxcutter says:
The suit brought by ISTA was clearly fatuous and self-serving.

Now, Governor Pence is free to expand this program.

 

Victory for the parents and kids. And I'm willing to bet...it will help the public schools as well as they work to compete.

 

Or they will end up abandoning millions of children to lesser educations because some parents cannot afford the private school even with a voucher and because there are not enough private schools out there to take up the slack, we shall see.

 

Public schools cost the taxpayer roughly $10,000 per pupil per year. Two private high schools (Park Tudor and Brebeuf) in Indiana cost that much. The rest are at least 20% less expensive. Some as much as 60% less expensive.

It is good that parents have some financial "skin in the game." It assures committment to performance.

 

And when parents don't commit, then what?

 

"...when parents don't commit, then what?"

Taxcutter says:
Odds are the kid is dogmeat.

 

Private schools will get the "pick of the litter" on which students they want and take their voucher....the rest will get shuffled back into the public schools and abandoned.

Amazing, isn't it? Those Rightwingers who quote the Founders (yet ignore Thomas Jefferson's support for public education) or point to America's glorious past as the example to follow (yet ignore that it was during the greatest rise of America from a backwater frontier to a world superpower, that we had public education).......who want to destroy public education.

 

What amazes me is that the GOP are the same bunch that always claim that if something is broken that we need to pull up our boot straps and get it fixed but when it comes to education they are ready and willing to leave Millions of American children in sub-par schools instead of resolving the problems. It is a wonder anyone believes a word they say anymore.
They should be careful what they wish for, leave enough children behind and one day those same children may tear their world apart, it has happened many times in history but right-wingers are not good at history so what can one do.

 

And teachers will be blamed.

 

Ding, ding, ding!


By the way, why is it okay for my tax dollars to pay for voucher schools like this:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/hippies-satan-worship-school-history-book-201334876.html


"But this isn't the first time books used in Jindal's voucher program—which allows poor and middle-class students the opportunity to attend private schools that often have religion-based curricula—have been called into question. Last fall, Mother Jones magazine published a list of "14 wacky 'facts' kids will learn in Louisiana's voucher schools." Among them:

"A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

And:

"[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

Last month, Jindal defended the program in Washington.

"To oppose school choice is to put the wishes of the adults who control the status quo ahead of the needs of our children," Jindal said. "To oppose school choice is to oppose equal opportunity."

 

Except that's rarely the case. Take for example http://www.thorntonacademy.org/ which has the top music program in the state, and great athletics (holds most football championships and just won one last year - also doesn't charge students' families for sports equipment, as many local schools do). They have superb academics. Most of the teachers have a master's, and many have degrees from prestigious colleges and universities, to include: Stanford, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Amherst, Oberlin, U London, Syracuse, BU, Northwestern, Wesleyan, Temple, and multiple have Doctorates. It offers 16 AP courses, 42 Honors courses, eight languages, college level courses, over 100 electives, and has a boarding program with international students from more than a dozen countries.

And if a parent from a nearby school were to have a voucher, they could send their child to Thornton Academy and have a couple thousand leftover for tutoring (if the voucher program allowed for that).

 

There is a "odd" coincidence between the end of segregated schools in the 70s....and the rise of Rightwingers demanding vouchers so that kids can go to private schools, schools which could carefully SELECT the students they wanted to admit and accept their voucher.

Just as there was the same spike in private school construction right as Southern schools were desegregated. Teachers hadn't changed...the school buildings hadn't changed...the curriculum for the most part hadn't changed.....but SOMETHING had changed, and the Rightwingers didn't like it.

 

"Private schools will get the "pick of the litter" ..."

Taxcutter says:
When did competition among students become undesirable?

How do the schools in Louisiana that you criticize do on getting their students to pass standardized tests. Why is it I suspect they whip the socks off the unionized public schools? does Mother Jones address that? I suspect not.

 

Schools in the South were desegregated in the mid-50s following Brown v Board of Education.

 

:icon_pee:

[video=youtube;csbZMHYt18E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csbZMHYt18E[/video]

 

Go ahead and prove it; otherwise, since that's your argument, you're conceding defeat. I accept your resignation from the discussion.

 

Many cities have strong private school systems that have been in place for years and years. Very few of these schools charge a higher tuition than the Indiana voucher. Some deliberately do so to enforce parental commitment.

A voucher system provides an incentive for new schools to form in areas where there is no competition.

Competition by the schools.
Competition for the teachers.
Competition for the students.
All are beneficial.