Today, The Chicago Tribune published an
editorial praising Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s education reform package
recently signed into law, which expanded the Student Scholarships for
Educational Excellence Program statewide.
In “Momentum for
School Choice,” the Tribune Editorial
Board writes:
The Bayou State is part of a "Top this!" competition among
many states to open public schools to competition. Indiana has set up an
expansive voucher program that covers students in families that have incomes below
$61,000 a year. Wisconsin has expanded school choice programs in Milwaukee and
Racine. Ohio will give tuition vouchers to as many as 60,000 students by 2013.
And Illinois? Left in the dust.
A bill that would have offered private school tuition support to as many
as 30,000 Chicago kids came close to passing a couple of years ago. The latest
version is languishing in the Senate assignments committee.
And that’s not the
first time the Tribune Editorial
Board advocated vouchers. In July 2011,
the editorial board wrote:
Major school reforms are unspooling in as many as a dozen states,
including Illinois. These laws bring the promise of a transformation just as
dramatic as — forgive us — anything that Decepticons could manage. (Ask your
kids.)
It starts with giving parents more options about where their children
can go to school.
The American Federation for Children, a Washington D.C.-based school
choice advocacy group, dubs 2011 "The year of school choice."
But Chicago isn't the
only place where newspapers are taking notice of the importance of voucher
programs.
Both The Washington Times and The Washington Post editorial boards have long been supporters of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps students from low-income families attend the school of their parents’ choice. Just this month, the Post again attacked President Obama for zeroing out funding for the program and praised the research and supporters of this vital program:
Both The Washington Times and The Washington Post editorial boards have long been supporters of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps students from low-income families attend the school of their parents’ choice. Just this month, the Post again attacked President Obama for zeroing out funding for the program and praised the research and supporters of this vital program:
Why cap the
number at the 1,615 students currently enrolled when the program has
accommodated larger numbers (1,903 in 2007-08, for example)? Does the
administration really want to send the message — much like the one delivered in
2009 when Democrats tried to kill the vouchers — that there is not much of a
future for the program?
Surely, it
shouldn’t be among the president’s priorities to single out for attack a tiny
federal program that not only works — in
the judgment of federal evaluators —
but also enjoys bipartisan support. If it is, we trust that Mr. Boehner would
step in, as he did last year, to save a program that D.C.’s poorest families
value for their children.
Here are some of the
other major newspaper editorial boards that are endorsing school choice:
But choice is essential to driving
reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to
schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs
for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger
goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper.
This year's choice gains are a major
step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall's
elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions
are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate
goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their
parents want them to attend.
It's
morally wrong to use a student's demographic background – poor, minority,
social standing – as an excuse to offer him or her a substandard education. I
don't care what neighborhood or background a child comes from; if teachers and
administrators are truly the professionals they profess to be, they need to
come up with a way of educating every student to his or her fullest potential.
Right now, that's not happening.
Vouchers,
and the competition they would spur, would help force failing schools in
Terrebonne, Lafourche and across Louisiana to get better or shut down. If
public schools excel, none of their students will qualify for a voucher under
Jindal's plan.
Supporters
of the status quo will find all kinds of excuses for why one public school or
another is unable to achieve excellence. Haven't we heard enough excuses?
The case for vouchers is obvious:
There are about 150 schools in this commonwealth that have consistently
underachieved. Some of those schools are in the Harrisburg School District —
mere feet from the state Capitol.
Any middle-class family would simply move to a better school
district or send their children to a private school. That is not an option for
lower-income families.
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