Open Enrollment A Good Choice or a False Promise?

1. Linda Haymond said:

My comment about the son using drugs at Hunter Jr. 1. Drug use is very widespread at east side schools. Her son will not be away from the problem. 2. Test scores are a mirror of socio-economic level, not whether there is better teaching going on at east-side schools. Every study that looks at this finds this result. That is also another reason why standardized tests fail poor children and communities, and are a tool in the arsenal of the right wing to penalize and then privatize, then profitize schools. 3. I hesitate to criticize parents but --- working 2 jobs is not good for children. Children need a relationship with their parents. Children who raise themselves are at risk for drug experiences and other at-risk behaviors. I worked 2 jobs myself as a single parent and it put my family at risk, even though I had little choice. But if this mom is working 2 jobs in order to pay for private school, this doesn't jerk my tears. She is abandoning her son to an unpleasant fate. The family, as immigrants and refugees, need even more inner solidarity than other families because the cultural landscapes pose problems for them that other more acculturated families do not face. I think you need a follow up on this less-than-complete "school choice" story.Thank you. Linda Haymond

3. Rob said:

Blaming schools for drug use and grades is rediculous. There is some factor there, but I am completely convinced that a lot of the problem is parents expecting the schools to do all the educating. The parents need to be involved in the education as well as working to keep their kids out of trouble like drugs. Are we supposed to partition all the kids that do drugs in a single school? Get real.

5. Todd said:

FACT 1: We recently toured a private school that was better in every way than the public elementary schools our children attended and now attend. At that private school, third grade children were mastering essential language skills my 7th grader with a 3.85 g.p.a. had never yet learned in public schools. FACT 2: Vouchers are essential to choice and improvement in education—because without choice there is not competition and without competition public education quality will eternally lag what it could and should be. Honestly, would you rather buy the quality you get from a Soviet, government-made, one-size-fits-all automobile, or have the choice to buy the quality offered by American and foreign models? Do you think autos would be so highly developed if they were all designed and built by a government monopoly? Our public schools are essentially a government and union monopoly.

FACT 3: Utah’s promise of “open enrollment” is misleading. We had to sell our home and move across town, so our children could attend better schools—and those are not as good as the quality private school education they could receive if vouchers were available.

FACT 4: We need a broad and generous voucher program to free education from monopolistic mediocrity. Our children deserve it and our national strength depends on it.