If you think a private school is about to take money from the state you need to get off the crack pipe. There's no way in hell they're let Uncle Sugar into their classrooms.
Oh! I do see now. Sorry -- I don't mean that they'd be throwing them directly at private schools, but in a way it would be, albeit indirectly. Offering vouchers to individual citizens/families is the same as giving those families money earmarked for private schools. They then pay the tuition (or part of it) with those vouchers, and THAT money IS going to the private schools.
There's no way the .gov is just going to hand out checks to parents. You'll tell them where your kids are attending, and they'll send the money to the school in question.
That's the way it originally worked in Wisconsin, yes. However, a later revision to the law, which brought it before the Supreme Court again, actually did not work in the way which you describe. (Below emphasis mine.)
Fourth, the legislature amended the original MPCP so that the State, rather than paying participating schools directly, is required to pay the aid to each participating student's parent or guardian. Under the amended MPCP, the State shall "send the check to the private school," and the parent or guardian shall "restrictively endorse the check for the use of the private school." Id. at § 4006m. Fifth, the amended MPCP places an additional limitation on the amount the State will pay to each parent or guardian. Under the amended MPCP, the State will pay the lesser of the MPS per student state aid under Wis. Stat. § 121.08 or the private school's "operating and debt service cost per pupil that is related to educational programming" as determined by the State. See id. The amended MPCP does not restrict the uses to which the private schools can put the state aid. Sixth, the legislature repealed the limitation that no more than 65 percent of a private school's enrollment consist of program participants. See id. at § 4003. Finally, the legislature added an "opt-out" provision prohibiting a private school from requiring "a student attending the private school under this section to participate in any religious activity if the pupil's parent or guardian submits to the teacher or the private school's principal a written request that the pupil be exempt from such activities." Id. at § 4008e.3
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I guess there is a way the .gov is just going to hand out checks to parents!
Wisconsin is the case I was thinking of. The Supreme Court* ruled that the fact that parents were going to send their kids to private schools that had a religious nature was not enough to prevent school vouchers from being Constitutional.
EDIT: The WISCONSIN Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, so the WSC decision stands.
NCLB doesn't come with funding attached. Nice of Congress to do that, no? Federal funds are allocated to the individual schools through the local system, not the state, so WI state funds have no bearing on Federal funds.
NCLB is SUPPOSED to be funding this crap, it just has been renegging on the promise. It's been pissing Ted Kennedy off something fierce, but hey, that's what you get for sleeping with the enemy.
And -- you're being a little disingenuous here. The federal government does offer some assistance to state education funding. It's not a lot, but it's there.
In the case of special ed, the federal gov. is supposed to fund 100%. In our state, they fund 20% but still expect us to hold up to 100% of the law with only 20% of the funds.
If the private schools take fed/state money they may have to start doing state testing and take 'orders' from the state in the same maner public schools do. And thats the reason why public schools are failing.
State regulations (though of course it depends on the state) do have a lot to do with why public schools are failing, but chronic underfunding (or misuse of funding, more like) of key areas, the lack of good teachers in critical areas of the country, the retention rate of the good teachers that we do have, administrative bureaucracy, and a whole host of other areas eat into our public school system. To point at any one of these as "the reason" ignores the weightiness of the other horrifying incompetencies.
I don't discount her knowledge of this at all! However, I have had a stake in this for years as well, albeit not as personally. Both my father and mother were teachers, and I was intimately involved in their eventual leaving of the profession; not to mention, where a lot of the hell of the regulatory bullshit comes from is Ross Perot's "reforms" in Texas, which has one of the craziest public schooling systems ANYWHERE, and was taught by a lot of activist teachers who just loved to expound on everything.
So what I'm saying is, I don't discount what she's saying at all, but I'd appreciate the same consideration; I may not have had a personal dog in this hunt, but it's one of my major sources of political interest. The sanctity of public education is very extremely strong with me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I guess there is a way the .gov is just going to hand out checks to parents!
Wisconsin is the case I was thinking of. The Supreme Court* ruled that the fact that parents were going to send their kids to private schools that had a religious nature was not enough to prevent school vouchers from being Constitutional.
EDIT: The WISCONSIN Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, so the WSC decision stands.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
And -- you're being a little disingenuous here. The federal government does offer some assistance to state education funding. It's not a lot, but it's there.
no subject
no subject
no subject
These all presume that a private school would accept federal or state tainted money in the first place.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
So what I'm saying is, I don't discount what she's saying at all, but I'd appreciate the same consideration; I may not have had a personal dog in this hunt, but it's one of my major sources of political interest. The sanctity of public education is very extremely strong with me.