School Vouchers: Converting Failure To Disaster

Pamela Gill

1998

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 2nd quarter 1998, No. 328

The "School-Choice/Voucher" issue keeps appearing on ballots all over the United States. In many places, it has been defeated more than once, and still it reappears, gathering adherents to the point that it may well pass where it failed before. In some instances, Black and Hispanic parents provide growing support for what started as strictly a right wing move to get more children out of the public educational system. An article titled "School-Choice Allies," p. A-3, (December 27, 1997), San Francisco Chronicle quotes Janie Perry, administrator at Watch-Care Academy, an all black private school in Denver, as saying, "Minority children are the ones doing the worst in public schools." The article cited figures from a recent Denver study of reading proficiency; the study showed whites to have a 58%, and black and hispanics only a 24% proficiency rate. On the whole, the environment of the Whites is "richer" and the environment of Blacks and Hispanics is "Poorer."

I would argue that minority students are doing "the worst" in public schools because many come from low income neighborhoods, homes with lots of financial problems, and got a slow start on their educations. And, yes, public schools compound this failure with cramped and ill-supplied institutions staffed by overworked and demoralized people. Some are better than others. Some are worse. Still, one would be pressed not to agree that by equalizing the environment of the two groups, the disparity noted above would lessen.

The public schools, in general, set a base line for what is accepted or tolerated as "education." Parents assuage their guilt and blur their sense of reality by hustling to get their children into "alternative public schools" and/or private schools. I contend that even "good" private schools are only good relative to this base line. They may have many more books, more computers, smaller classes, teachers with higher degrees and more pluck. Then, again, they may have very little more and, on the down side, segregate children from a wide variety of people and experiences, thus stultifying the children's educational development. Even the most elite private school, where you can be sure these poor minority students will never get in, shelter their students in peculiar and unhealthy ways. (Nature opts for diversity, when possible. It is the route to a healthy population).

Half of the children in California, to use one State as an example, live in low income or poverty level households. ("State's Success Failing to Reach Half of the Kids," San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 5, 1997. Most of these underprivileged children are less prepared for everything that happens to them than are the wealthier children. I can understand why many in the wealthier half would shun these children. They slow things down, a lot. Sending them to private schools with vouchers in hand is a cruel hoax. (Granted children are in bad shape; they've got whole other sets of problems, often connected to over-privilege.) And what of the children who would be left behind in the increasingly bereft public school system? Will we call it another arm of the penal system, and just "keep them off the streets", for the time being, anyway?

Our public schools ought to be, and could be, so good that no one would even think of sending a child elsewhere. Rather than gutting our public schools, we need to dramatically improve them. There are many factions vying with one another to determine how to improve our schools, or pointing out why we shouldn't bother. There already exist many valid theories about how to teach, how to help students who start out behind others, how to reach those with special problems, and on and on. Money is thrown around here and there, but not over this way or that. It doesn't really matter where the money is thrown. Students need so much more care and attention than they are getting in any of these systems, public or private. To say, as many who hope to profit from the voucher system do, "We can do better than the Public schools." isn't to say much.

If we want healthy, productive children -- tomorrow's citizens -- we need much better means of making them that way. This includes an enriched environment in and outside of school. Starting at birth, wouldn't be too soon, either. Only a society very different from our own can provide such an environment. Currently, we have a society in which the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Forget a wonderful environment for all children in this society; many don't even get health care.

The voucher system is a tiny glitch one way or the other. With vouchers, we would still have a dysfunctional, piecemeal educational system. It would make a cosmetic change, but would compound the actual failure of our public schools. That will solve nothing. We need an entirely new environment.

Technocracy Inc., a scientific, educational research organization, proposes a mammoth change that would bring society into a new environment. In this new social structure, called "The Technological Social Design," the educational system would be entirely revamped. Those concerned and involved would be well advised to study Technocracy's concepts and decide if the organization has a valid solution to our perplexing education problems. Ample literature is available. There are numerous articles outlining how the North American Continent could be organized. I won't go into that aspect here. First we have to admit just how bad things are; then, we can focus on what to do about it. Once accomplished, we can benefit from the skills and talents of all children because we will educate them as the unique and valuable individuals they are.