A Final Case For Vouchers

Okay, no ranting today, lets just get into busting that last few Myths surrounding school vouchers:

Myth: Vouchers violate the separation of church and state Truth: Are you serious? The reason the left pulls this one out is beyond me, other than the fact that the left has a real problem with religion in general, perplexes me. First of all, there is no SEPERATION of church and state. The 1st Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”, which means that this myth has legs ONLY if the government is telling you what church-sponsored school you can send your kids to. Which brings us to…

Myth: Vouchers will lead to an explosion of religious schooling Truth: So? I agree that initially, should vouchers become a reality, most of those leaving the public school system would go into religious sponsored schools. Why? Well first of all, most private schools currently ARE religious schools. Also, a lot of churches already have the infrastructure (buildings, etc…) to set up schooling.

But what the left really fear isn’t going to materialize. Many fear that these “religions” will throw out the fundamentals, and focus solely on religious instruction. The thing they don’t realize is that A) Who’s going to send their children to that kind of a school, and B) those that would support that kind of education are probably already homeschooling their kids.

Besides, as vouchers come into play, we will see other types of schools, which we will discuss in a moment

Myth: Some of these voucher students may have trouble getting into college Truth: Does everyone need to go to college? 15.5% of Americans have a bachelors degree, while 8.9% have a graduate degree. In other words, less than one in four Americans have a degree. Even if we can double the number of graduates, that would still mean the majority of Americans don’t have degrees.

Currently, nearly 20% of Americans do not graduate high school, with 7.5% of Americans getting no further than ninth grade. Obviously, the public school system is failing these people. Assume that through voucher schools – schools geared towards the future these individuals see for themselves – half of these individuals could be saved. Isn't that a good thing?

Like I said recently, my sister is a teacher. She recently earned her second masters degree and is now a Special Ed instructor (kind of – I’ll explain later). Prior to that, she taught students at one of the poorest school systems in Texas, near Corpus Christi. The majority of her students were “at risk” students, many of them already parents and destined for the welfare ranks. Did she teach them to get into college? No, although some of them with her help did. What she taught them was life skills. She ran the student store, and was there every morning at 5:00 with her students, overseeing them, and teaching them valuable retail skills. Without that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. WITH that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. The difference is whether they are working as cashiers or management.

The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of options that would become available with the new world that vouchers would open up. In some cases it’s a matter of finding a curriculum that suits them better than what the public school offers. This could be a religious school, a “trade school”, or some other form. Imagine that in your town you have a school that educates pregnant students and those who have already had children – boys and girls. This is a group that is highly at risk of dropping out, and their offspring are probably going to be starting behind the 8 ball as well. But what if you had a school geared not only towards educating these kids, but also towards teaching them parenting skills as well as life skills. Wouldn't that be a positive thing?

Some of these schools would be more traditional in their curriculum, but they may start earlier and run later, or go all year long. Heck, even the Liberals who are the ones most against the voucher system could benefit. For years they have tried to sneak their leftist indoctrination into the public schools, now they can have their own schools where they can implement any wacky social experiment they want. Of course they would have to convince people to attend their school, and that might be a trick, since most liberal leadership trumpet the cause of public schools and then send their own kids to the more conservative private schools.

Remember my sister, and how I said she was “kind of” a Special Ed teacher? Well my sister has always wanted to teach kids with special needs, and she worked her ass off to earn a second masters degree that would allow her to teach these kids. She got that degree while already working full time as a teacher, and this fall she started her first job teaching severely disabled kids. One of these kids was a big, big boy prone to violent outbursts. After his first attack on my sister they added an assistant to the classroom, a large young man to protect my sister. Well, despite his presence, there were still outbursts, and Sue’s assistant wasn’t always close enough to protect her. The injuries from the last attack resulted in Sue being too disabled to continue to work.

So why didn’t they remove this kid after the first attack? Texas law says he couldn’t be denied an education, so instead they lost a dedicated teacher. Look folks, I think those that choose to go into Special Education are a rare breed. God knows I don’t have the patience to teach kids without disabilities. But if this is the way that the NEA protects it’s teachers, well…….