My opinion on school vouchers

Just for the record, I am voting FOR prop 1.

I believe that the majority of public school teachers are working wonders with what they have to work with, but I absolutely believe that competition is necessary in order to give the public schools an incentive to continually strive to improve their services.

Case in point: my local neighborhood school. 2 years ago 8 families (from my ward alone) pulled their kids from the local school and put them into private (1 family) or charter schools. That is a lot for one 5 block area. If my counting is correct, it pulled 20 or 21 students from the school, and I'm not counting another family with 4 school age children who were on the waiting list for a charter school but didn't get in.) I can only assume that similar things were happening in other neighborhoods nearby. This mass exodus made the local school stop and ask WHY? They contacted families to find out why they were leaving the school. The reasons they found were that charter schools (and private schools) have a more challenging curriculum; provide leveled learning in math, reading, and spelling; offer art, music, science, PE, and Spanish all included as part of the regular curriculum; have better overall discipline (including uniforms) and an overall environment more conducive to learning.

As a result, the neighborhood school started offering a form of leveled learning for math and offering art and additional music classes as after school activities. They are working with the district to try to redistribute the low income and ESL students more evenly between the local schools. (because our neighborhood school was new and had a lower student population than some other schools, it got the lions share of the students when another school (low income area) closed its doors 3 years ago . Our local school saw a drastic rise in gang behavior (yes, this is an elementary school), drug activity, non-English speaking students (one boy in my ward was 1 of 7 "English as the primary language" students out of 31 in his 1st grade class.), and overall behavioral problems.

The simple fact of the matter is - that because parents were looking for (and choosing) other alternatives for their children, the school stepped up and made some positive changes to the services they were providing the students.

Opponents to Prop 1 would have us believe that the public schools are going to lose huge amounts of money if these vouchers are allowed. I don't believe it. I don't believe that a massive swarm of families will pull their students from the public schools just because there is now a voucher. (believe me, I looked into private school for Aaron, and even with the $3000 maximum voucher amount - which we wouldn't qualify for - Private school would be a major strain on our finances. We might be able to swing it for one child, but not all of our children. Luckily, our charter school has been everything I want, and it doesn't cost me thousands of dollars every month. It does costs me MY TIME in fulfilling my required volunteer hours, plus any monetary amounts that I choose to donate during fundraising activities)

Parents are pulling their children from the public schools because they feel that it is important to give their children the best educational opportunity they can. I believe that instead of spending so much money trying to fight the vouchers, teachers unions should be focusing on what improvements could be made so that parents don't feel the need to look for other alternatives. No one who feels that their student is getting a good quality, free education, is going to pull their child out and put them into an environment that is much harder on the parent. I'm telling you the truth, it takes a whole lot more effort on my part to have my son in a charter school than it would be to have him in the public school. However, there is no question in my mind that it is absolutely the better place for him to be.

So - although I don't have the credentials of some, and I don't write as eloquently as others, I believe that competition is good for everybody. It pushes us to continually look for ways to improve. I believe in parents having options. I believe that if the schools (or more appropriately the unions) are feeling threatened by vouchers, they should question WHY they feel threatened and aim to fix the problems, instead of trying to eliminate the competition.

And THAT, as they say, - is MY OPINION.