HomeschoolrsRUs
06-20-2005, 08:32 AM
School choice threatened
Star Parker
June 20, 2005
Thanks to an active school-choice movement, funded and staffed by dedicated and principled private citizens, an increasing number of American parents have the quintessentially American opportunity of choosing where to send their child to school. However, if the teacher unions, ACLU, People for the American Way and similar organizations have their way, a successful voucher program in Florida will cease operation.
Should Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program be found unconstitutional, it will be yet another defeat of the poor and disenfranchised at the hands of a pretentious and self important elite. Opportunity scholarships are an important ticket out of failing public schools for the poor. Yet, these elites, a good portion of whom can themselves afford options to public schools if they so chose, for their own ideological reasons, want to preclude choice for poor families.
The constitutionality of Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program is being challenged because it affords the opportunity to use a voucher, financed by public funds, to pay to attend a private school, including religious schools. This option may be exercised when a public school is found to be failing. Parents can pull their child out of the school, pick a different public school, or use a voucher to finance attendance at a private school. Performance data show dramatic improvement in test scores and graduation rates in Florida since the implementation of the Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The rest of this article found here: Star Parker: School choice threatened (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/sp20050620.shtml)
Star Parker
June 20, 2005
Thanks to an active school-choice movement, funded and staffed by dedicated and principled private citizens, an increasing number of American parents have the quintessentially American opportunity of choosing where to send their child to school. However, if the teacher unions, ACLU, People for the American Way and similar organizations have their way, a successful voucher program in Florida will cease operation.
Should Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program be found unconstitutional, it will be yet another defeat of the poor and disenfranchised at the hands of a pretentious and self important elite. Opportunity scholarships are an important ticket out of failing public schools for the poor. Yet, these elites, a good portion of whom can themselves afford options to public schools if they so chose, for their own ideological reasons, want to preclude choice for poor families.
The constitutionality of Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program is being challenged because it affords the opportunity to use a voucher, financed by public funds, to pay to attend a private school, including religious schools. This option may be exercised when a public school is found to be failing. Parents can pull their child out of the school, pick a different public school, or use a voucher to finance attendance at a private school. Performance data show dramatic improvement in test scores and graduation rates in Florida since the implementation of the Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The rest of this article found here: Star Parker: School choice threatened (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/sp20050620.shtml)