Reading, Writing and Ridiculous

I rented Waiting for Superman this weekend. Unfortunately, we were far too busy with a rummage sale – hoping to make a few bucks for a family vacation up North – for me to watch it. I get the gist of it, though. Teachers' Unions = BAD. Apparently they ruin everything and allow horrible teachers to suck dry the tax payers while providing the education equivalent to a Sesame Street episode.

Okay. Sure.

This movie comes out and scares all the FOX viewers (whom are already prone to fear-based decision making) into thinking that their children will be living in the street if they attend a public school. I just picture all these middle-aged white people running down the road screaming and swinging their Prada bags as zombie teachers chase them with math books. Okay, so my imagination runs away a bit, but I think you get my point.

Before this film we heard very little about vouchers and school choice. They were there but certainly not as supported as they are now. So, great job to the director!!

I will not go as far as to say school vouchers/choice is immoral. I will say that I find it to be hypocritical, ridiculous, offensive, unfair and wasteful. Please let me tell you why I feel this way.

As said by the AP:

For the next school year, only 250 students would be allowed to use vouchers in Racine but they could earn up to 185 percent of the poverty level ($41,348 for a family of four). In the second year, 500 students would be allowed and they could earn up to 300 percent of the poverty level ($67,050). After that there would be NO enrollment cap.

Each voucher is paying up to $6442 per student depending on the cost of the chosen school's tuition.

So, let's use The Prairie School as an example. Their full day/full year tuition is $12,540 – $14,040, depending on grade. Subtract the $6642 scholarship and you have AT LEAST $5898 to come up with each year per child. While my family makes more than the allowed amount for the first 2 years, we STILL couldn't afford that. Imagine the people barely making it as it is, and aren't those the kids that need help the most?? I would be upset about the middle class being left out once again, but I would never send my kids to a voucher school anyway. So, that is not my fight.

We are being led to believe that this “choice” is benefiting those who need this “choice” but it is not. It is benefiting the kids whose parents can already afford these schools (even if it may be a struggle). Now they have a nice little 6k+ break to use on their trip to Jamaica. Fantastic!

Over the next two years, while this program is to be implemented in Racine, at least $800 million will be cut from public schools. And during those same two years, the vouchers will be funded by the state partially by monies taken from RUSD's state aid allotment. This is estimated to cost $4.8 million by 2013. And I strongly believe that number will grow significantly.

In The Racine Journal Times, a mother, Fabiola Diaz was quoted as saying, “I don't have anything against the school district, the public schools. It's just that I feel with the budget cuts and things there's going to be an even larger number of kids in the classrooms. In my experience, in a smaller classroom my kids got more out of it and more attention from the teachers.”

My head hurts from pounding it on the keyboard, so give me a moment.

Okay. Now, can we see, people, how THIS MAKES NO SENSE?? Of course classrooms will be bigger, what do you think so many of us have been fighting against? And guess what?! Your little ole private schools aren't going to be so little anymore, are they? It's every man, woman, child and invalid for themselves and screw the community as a whole. That is the mindset invading the consciousness of the public.

I think it is super interesting that Walker also proposed eliminating the requirement that voucher school students take the same statewide achievement test that public schools must take. Does this not ring a school bell for anyone? It has already been shown that students from private schools are not any more successful than those from public. The info is out there for everyone to see. Yet, people still have this grandiose image of these facilities as if they are destined to turn their offspring into wizards.

I don't get it. But then again, I graduated from public schools – RUSD all the way, baby – so perhaps that is the disconnect. (Yes, I am rolling my eyes).