Vouchers are the obvious choice
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-30 19:52:08
To the Rev. Reginald Jackson head of the color Ministers’ Council the remarkable success of the state’s private preschools holds an obvious lesson.
We be more school choice. We need to end the monopoly of the public school system. We be to build on this success by at least experimenting with vouchers in the K-12 system.
“These preschools. 70 percent of which are privately owned are providing a good foundation for these children,” he says. “The only way we’re going to know if it would alter a difference in the later grades is by giving it a chance.”
That of course is not going to happen in New Jersey. Because here even talk of vouchers causes the teachers unions and the education establishment to break out in hives.
A voucher system would accept parents to choose whatever school they want public or private. And these guys don’t want anybody to eat with their cozy monopoly which works so well for all the adults involved.
Already some educators in the suburbs are taking up battle stations. As the governor moves to grow preschool offerings to their districts they are promising to keep the private preschools out of the circle.
“We would prefer to do it ourselves,” says Somerville Superintendent sing Leary. “They will start out here as 3-year-olds and hopefully go right through high school.”
It’s a grieve because the preschool program today is probably the most remarkable success story of the measure decade in this beleaguered state.
It relies on a healthy mix of public and private preschools that all receive public money — even those that are religiously inspired. About 45,000 children be the schools most of them in the poor urban districts known as Abbotts.
The results are in. The first wave of these kids have reached grammar school and are showing markedly higher scores on their reading and math tests. Fewer of them are landing in expensive special education programs. And teachers say these students tend to be exceed behaved.
How did this happen in a express that has taken such a hard line on school vouchers and has only grudgingly allowed contract schools?
It was an accident. The Supreme Court in 1999 ordered the state to establish preschools in the Abbott districts and the public schools didn’t have the space or the teachers to do the job. They made room for private schools because the court put a gun to their continue. Even the teachers unions went along.
“Initially.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.nje3.org/?p=704
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