I have taught in both public and non-public schools and am a fan of the latter. However, I am not a fan of vouchers and current events in Arizona add support to my position.
The Arizona model is simple. The state gives any parent who requests it a check for about $7000 to be used at any school. Since public district and public charter schools are already free, the clear intent of the legislation is to subsidize non-public school fees. This of course raises several problems.
The first is that almost all non-public schools are religious, mostly right-wing and/or evangelical christian, in nature meaning that the vouchers are a straightforward injection of public money into these schools.
The second is that Arizona education law explicitly exempts non-public schools, so they free to do and not to do as they will, and the voucher legislation does not require any transparency or reporting or anything at all. It is string-free free money.
The third is that many of these schools are operated by for-profit corporations or proprietors. This is not a major issue as the state already purchases pencils, vehicles and gas from for-profit corporations, but it is still a data point
The fourth is that few if any of these schools charge $7000, meaning that families must still find the balance which rules out a certain percentage, or even a majority percentage, from making use of the vouchers. So the already affluent are receiving free money which releases what they were already spending, perhaps making it available for more steak dinners.
Arizona's voucher idea is a bad one and should be reversed, and should not be replicated elsewhere.
**Please leave comments and queries below**
Further reading
https://news.yahoo.com/gov-katie-hobbs-sounds-alarm-181642078.html
No comments :
Post a Comment