The one issue that everyone should be able to agree on — education — has become in the last decade one of the most polarizing political hot potatoes around. The public versus private education debate heated up when vouchers became a buzzword in the 1990′s. The concept — where taxpayer money funds private-school tuition, often for children in low-performing public schools – has been approved in various forms by lawmakers in a handful of states, including Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. Advocates disagree on whether the programs have improved the education of either the students who leave the public schools or those who stay.
The subject of vouchers is a volatile one, with conservative Republicans supporting the concept and most Democrats, and organizations like the National Education Association, denouncing it. The specter of vouchers often offends public school teachers, who are generally held to higher accountability standards than their private-school counterparts, and the debate has disintegrated into a public school versus private school battle.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released a report that found children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and math than comparable children in private schools. The only exception was eighth-grade reading, where private school kids did better.
The report went beyond just looking at average test scores — when studied that way, private schools score higher. But when researches compared like groups, based on a child’s racial, economic and social background, public schools performed better.
Why is this important? Because the whole premise of private-school vouchers is the promise of a better education for kids who otherwise couldn’t afford it. Digging deeper into the success of private-school children reveals that a parent’s income has far more to do with their child’s academic accomplishments than the quality of their school. Children who are dealing with the by-products of poverty will have far more challenges to overcome than their affluent peers, whether they’re in a private of public school setting.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders from the House and Senate joined Education Secretary Margaret Spellings today to announce the introduction of national school voucher legislation. The America’s Opportunity Scholarships for Kids Act would provide grants to states, school districts and non-profit organizations for vouchers to allow disadvantaged students in underperforming public schools to attend private schools at taxpayer expense.