One of the results of Hurricane Katrina is that about 372,000 school-age kids have been displaced and relocated to cities all around the country. Those kids need to go to school, and in a lot of areas that's going to strain the capacities of local school systems and run up considerable costs. So Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has requested $2.6 billion from Congress to help reimburse schools for educating evacuee kids.
The catch is that a great many kids in Louisiana - far more than any other state - attend private parochial schools run by the Catholic church. Those kids also need to go to school, so Spellings' proposal includes the option of a $7500 education voucher for each of these kids to reimburse schools for the cost of educating them, applicable to both public and private schools. This seems only fair, since almost a sixth of them come from parochial schools, and it also has the added benefit of reducing the burden on overcrowded public school systems and shifting some of it to more flexible private and parochial schools. In fact, one of the ironies of this situation is that $7500 isn't sufficient to reimburse most public school systems for what they spend per student, but it is probably more than enough for all but the most expensive private and parochial schools, a sad indictment of the inefficiency of the way that public schools spend their money.
Already this has stirred up anger and resentment among the usual gang of government school advocates, from Senator Edward Kennedy to the National Education Association's President Reg Weaver who said:
- "Vouchers do nothing to solve the problems created by Hurricane Katrina. Vouchers are a flawed and divisive approach that undermines public education. It is opportunistic and inappropriate to raise the voucher debate at this time. Vouchers don’t repair or rebuild neighborhood schools that have been devastated by this storm or provide traumatized children with access to comprehensive services they and their families need. We need to look at real, long-term solutions - not risky band-aid fixes that won’t do anything to help these kids find the normalcy they’ll need to help them heal."
Of course, 'normalcy' for over 60,000 of these kids is and has been private education, and it seems almost sadistic to follow the trauma of being displaced by a disaster by plunging them into the trauma of a failing public school system when better options are available. If Reg Weaver had his way, 'normalcy' would be mandatory government education for all with no way to escape or have a chance at a better education, because that serves the political interests of his constituency of professional school administrators and bureaucrats who suck away more than 50% of the money spent on education in many states.
Article comments
1 - Georgio
Dave this is a very informative article and you make a good case for vouchers..I have never doubted your knowledge of facts because you do a lot of research but your claims that you are a Libertarian moderate is in question at least to me so I am challenging you to write on one of the following .
1....should Bush be allowed to appoint one of his own to investigate the slow response to Katrina
2....should Karl Rove be allowed to control the money going to whoever
3...should congress be allowed to investigate Katrine without equal members of both Rep and Dem.
4...In Maryland I understand the victims of a flood disaster received from Fema only a 1/4 th of the value of their homes ..should this be investigated ?
5 where should we get the money to pay for Katrina.
2 - Dave Nalle
Georgio, those are all good topics. Why don't YOU write on them? There are only a couple of topics I'm likely to write that kind of almost pure opinion article on.
On 1 through 3 I really don't give a rat's ass - I like to write on topics which actually make a difference to people. 4 at least moderately interests me. Do you have a link for any kind of source on it? I have strong ideas on 5, and you're not going to like them at all, but then neither will anyone on the right.
Dave
3 - Georgio
I don't have a link for the Maryland disaster Dave ..I saw it on CNN yesterday and I was shocked at how these ppl where treated..they interviewed families who where caught in this flood and I'm not sure what year it was but I think it was about 5 yrs ago anyway the houses had about 3 or 4ft of water in them so you can imagine what the drywall looked like and Fema offered to pay them for only the four ft that was under water..it was take it or leave it so now they have small trailers in the front yard that they live in because they said no contractor will repair their home for the money Fema gave them ..and these where not poor black ppl either..I am going to try and find out more..
4 - Eric Olsen
interesting silver lining, Dave
5 - Matt
"I'm sick of paying huge amounts in taxes half of which gets spent on bureaucratic overhead to produce a school which I wouldn't send criminals to, much less my kids. They deserve better and so does every other kid in this country. "
So, what you are saying is that any public school these kids would be sent to is tantamount to no less than prison, or even worse since you wouldn't send a criminal there? Dave, step away from the fonts for a couple of minutes and go into some public schools and see what they're doing. Your blanket dismissal of public educaiton shows how little of a clue you have.
We can argue school choice if you'd like, but just shitting on public educaiton across the board is insane.
6 - Dave Nalle
Actually, Matt, I was referring to the specific public school my kids would end up at - particularly my older one - if I let them go there. It has armed security, metal detectors, multiple active gangs, etc.
I've seen plenty of Public schools, Matt. I had a kid in public school for a number of years and was VP of the PTA and on the Campus Advisory Committee,. I also have several friends who are teachers or administrators in three different area school districts, plus I actually taught college extension classes in one of our local districts for several years. Rather than not having a clue, I know exactly what I'm talking about.
I reiterate that I didn't say that all public schools were disastrous, just that some are. And that all but the best ones provide an inferior education to even mediocre parochial or private schools. And again, I have a lot of experience in that are as well, so I know intimately what I'm talking about.
Dave