School Vouchers;
                                             Cure or Snake Oil?

In response to "Florida Pupils Teach Nation About Vouchers", by Tamara Henry, ran in the LIFE Section Wednesday September 1, 1999:

I circulated this article to the Virginia Deputy Secretary of Education, Board of Education, and State Superintendent's Office as they are re-evaluating the consequences of Virginia schools that don't receive SOL accreditation level scores before the program is scheduled to take affect in 2007.

I found the last few paragraphs about in the Florida Voucher article regarding the availability of lunches and transportation at public versus private schools and the prominence of failing related to inner city schools most interesting.

I also found the concept of schools that fail "accreditation" (as it is being called in Virginia) allows parents to move their student(s), or some predetermined portion of the student body, to other schools.

My question: Do the private schools get tested to know if they are really doing a better job than the public schools or is it assumed as is the current scenario in Virginia?

My Concerns:

- What happens to the school system who now may be required to bus students to other public schools and has vacancy at one building and over-crowding at another? Do the same teachers move to the other school?

- What happens if the parent selected public school is out of the residency-based school system and into a neighboring system; less student means less federal and state funding which reduces the chance the struggling public school is going to rise above it's failed state.

Why not fix what local taxpaying parents, grandparents, and residents have invested so much time, effort, and dollars into over the years rather than cripple and eventually destroy the public school system that has made more equality in education than in any other period of American history?

We seemed destined to voucher and charter our country back to a period of "schools for the affluent" separate from "schools for the less fortunate".

Then what prevents the attitude from digressing farther to "why educate the poor at all". Then we'd have more uneducated candidates for minimum wage or less-than minimum wage jobs and could return international labor intensive jobs to our own country????

Been there. Done that. For the decision makers and politicians that may need what seems to be a major problem in Virginia, Social Studies SOL remediation, history tends to repeat itself for those that don't learn from the past.

I hope we can move continue to move forward with public education in Virginia and America. That requires an emphasis on teaching with periodic testing for progress, not testing and labeling success or failure based on one assessment test, and eventual segregating of students (and indirectly their parents) under the disguise of vouchers.

Sure colleges look at assessment test scores for student acceptance, but that is not all they use to evaluate students.

We cannot afford to win some intangible bragging rights of the highest international test scores or highest state in the nation test scores at the expense of our children and real efforts to improve educate. Many students find themselves in the middle of remediate/retain/relocate/alternate ed/or just drop-out situations based on one time state tests that ignore the accomplishments of the student during the year.

Real education requires time, attention, and dedicated teachers. If we keep condemning teachers and threatening their jobs, when they quit who is going to want to endure the scrutiny to replace them? At least not at teachers' current pay scales.

Sure, we need to change and improve to keep pace, but if American schools are in such shambles, why do so many come to America for a better education?

A child's ability to learn is partially genetic and out of our control. The other part is based on tangibles we can control.

I believe these tangibles are resources, support, and attitude. Remove one or more of these factors and you limit a child or anyone else's potential to learn or succeed.

I'm for support and commitment. Let's fix our public schools, not voucher out.