Public-school defenders often argue that school choice would
destroy the public schools. Almost 90 percent of children in
this country attend public schools. If we had vouchers, no
compulsory attendance laws, and an unregulated education free
market, millions of parents might transfer their children to
private schools. This would drain hundreds of millions of tax
dollars from public schools. Those children left behind in the
shriveled public schools would then get an even worse education
than they do now. Therefore, the argument goes, we have to fight
school choice to protect the public schools.
School authorities use the same argument against charter
schools. Charter schools are public schools controlled by
parent-teacher boards, not central school authorities. School
authorities claim that charter schools, like vouchers, divert
millions of taxpayer dollars from regular public schools, and
can therefore undermine these schools. Public schools may have
serious problems, school authorities say, but almost forty-five
million American children attend these schools. Allowing school
choice would "threaten" these children's education.
Public-school apologists argue that, despite these schools'
never-ending failure and betrayal of our children, we should
just keep using the same old failed solutions - spend more
money, hire more teachers, and reduce class sizes - and hope we
get better results (which of course we never will).
In the meantime, what happens to forty-five million
public-school children? In effect, school authorities' don't
care about what happens to children who are forced to stay -
but rather what happens to the public-school system if they are
free to leave. By this reasoning, no matter how bad the schools
get, we must not help children leave because that might make
the public schools worse. That is like asking a parent to stop
her child from escaping from a prison because doing so would
upset the warden.
The question therefore is, do our children exist to serve the
public-school system or should our education system exist to
serve our children?
It seems that school authorities and public-school employees
would rather protect an irreparably broken, failed system, than
risk the security of their jobs by giving parents real school
choice. We can certainly understand public-school employees
wanting to keep their guaranteed job security. However, should
we sacrifice our children's education to keep failed public
schools in business?
The argument that vouchers, charter schools, and other
school-choice alternatives might destroy the public schools is
one of the best arguments for school choice.
Government-controlled public schools, not school choice, can
cripple our children's education and banish millions of
inner-city kids to a lifetime of poverty and ignorance. We need
to scrap the public school system, once and for all, and the
sooner the better.
Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Joel Turtel
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