mClick here: Opinion: Today's Letters: Vouchers can be a tool to aid struggling parents
I assume that since Bill Maxwell is a black man, there is less hue and cry over his opinions.
Click here: Opinion: Vouchers can't help if black parents won't
How did the concept of vouchers ever start?
Was it because parents wanted another alternative because the educational system was not working for them? Was their perception based on personal opinion through personal experience?
Was it because capitalists saw a way to make money? These capitalists proceeded with a propagandized marketing scheme to falsely claim that the public education system was failing so that education money, through the voucher scheme, would end up in their pockets?
What is the truth? Is the public education system doing what it was designed to do? Yes or No?
One thing we do know is that the public education system is a huge bureaucracy. One thing we do know is that the first goal of a bureaucracy is to maintain it's existence. One thing we do know is that bureaucracies deal with large numbers of kids and base decisions on statistics of these large numbers. Bureaucracies could care less about isolated incidents because of the negligible effect it has on what they focus on.
Parents deal with a statistically very small set of kids. They base their decisions on these 'isolated incidents" because that is their job. Their primary responsibility for their children is to "maintain their existence". Parents could care less about the large numbers because they have little meaning for what their child is experiencing right now.
What we are witnessing is the struggle between each of these entities to maintain their existence. They are each fighting for what is most important to them. Since there is a forced relationship between parent and Public School, the business adage that the customer is always right does not play out. Indeed, it has been the mantra of many school personnel that, in regards to who knows best about education be it school or parent, the school personnel are "the experts" and the parent is too ignorant to know what is best for them. This is the same concept that fuels increasing government responsibilities - the ignorant masses do not know what is best for them.
What is not honestly dealt with is that the bureaucracy is fighting for money using education as the article of trade - the parent's are fighting for education using money (vouchers) as the article of trade.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Wealthy people created vouchers so that others of means who think that they owe little to society at large might retrieve some of their tax dollars. Since they pay property taxes but send their children to private schools, they feel that they are entitled to receive the tax dollars they put into the system. They do not see that by supporting a public education system, which graduates working people, they will benefit in the long run because more consumers means more money for them. These are the same people who believe there is such a person as a self-made millionaire. When in reality it is through the spending of their fellow citizens that they became millionaires. If no people in their community (local or global) were spending their hard-earned dollars, they would be as poor as a rock.
Therefore, come up with a scheme to wring more from the community coffer, spin it in to a godsend for the poor, and voilà the vouch system of today.
I assume I was right that the school system is fighting for money.
If allocation of public education money is the issue, I would submit that the local school boards are the first bastion of accountability to the public. Do they (Boards) have to agree to set up voucher programs and accept voucher money?
I keep thinking that there must be a correlation between voucher money and Superintendent bonuses.
Post a Comment