The Language and Politics of School Vouchers
As student academic achievement continues to improve at a snail's pace, families and communities are showing a greater propensity toward educational choices that were considered anathema just a decade ago. We can all recall the outrage from educational elites and others as school vouchers became more visible and began to gain momentum. These new student scholarships were described by the opposition as taking public dollars and giving them to the private sector. These same opponents, however, were not at all eager to acknowledge that they (and those they wanted to protect) were failing miserably at educating our young people. Proponents of vouchers genuinely sought to grant less fortunate youth with access to better educational opportunities, while also hoping to force school systems to innovate. These scholarship programs were indeed good faith attempts at school reform, but too often many of them were flawed and fell short of providing the full range of academic support a child might need if awarded a voucher. Although many of these early voucher experiments were truly imperfect, they represented game changers and forced most of us to check ourselves and ask why not consider a new approach, especially considering the incredibly poor performance of far too many students. The tired rhetoric, political posturing, and misrepresentations of people's agendas drowned out the voices of reason and openness for many years. Current scholarship opportunities reflect the enhancements and additional funding needed to make them more promising and attractive to parents seeking functional learning environments.
Thankfully, students' academic needs have moved to the center of the debate and parents' choices and decisions are not being tainted by the poisonous political and divisive climates of past years. The alarmingly low test scores, the knowledge and information explosion globally, and all the other stark realities about America's students and schools seem to have finally gotten the attention of everyday people. The political climate surrounding standards and accountability seems to be less toxic and more sensible and pragmatic. Parents and professionals representing non-education sectors and industries should be given a lot of credit for leading this shift toward openness to school choice -- it has been their growing concern for America's failing schools that has effectively shifted the debate and blurred the lines between the old opposing forces. Rationale thinking educators have known for years that the right, ethical, and fair approach is to provide families with the appropriate school choices; it has been their failure or inability to step up that has prevented a groundswell of reform in the trenches. Without the financial investment and commitment of the nonprofit, private, and religious sectors, we could still be faced with school systems that are resistance to change as it relates to teaching and learning systems and processes that have not worked for decades. Thanks to the prodding and creativity of these sectors and their professionals, the educational elites, traditionalists, and political stalwarts are being forced to join the shifting paradigm or move aside because the train has already left the station.
Thankfully, students' academic needs have moved to the center of the debate and parents' choices and decisions are not being tainted by the poisonous political and divisive climates of past years. The alarmingly low test scores, the knowledge and information explosion globally, and all the other stark realities about America's students and schools seem to have finally gotten the attention of everyday people. The political climate surrounding standards and accountability seems to be less toxic and more sensible and pragmatic. Parents and professionals representing non-education sectors and industries should be given a lot of credit for leading this shift toward openness to school choice -- it has been their growing concern for America's failing schools that has effectively shifted the debate and blurred the lines between the old opposing forces. Rationale thinking educators have known for years that the right, ethical, and fair approach is to provide families with the appropriate school choices; it has been their failure or inability to step up that has prevented a groundswell of reform in the trenches. Without the financial investment and commitment of the nonprofit, private, and religious sectors, we could still be faced with school systems that are resistance to change as it relates to teaching and learning systems and processes that have not worked for decades. Thanks to the prodding and creativity of these sectors and their professionals, the educational elites, traditionalists, and political stalwarts are being forced to join the shifting paradigm or move aside because the train has already left the station.
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