Six Words: Deadly, Trustee, Voucher, Expectation, Brilliance, Conservative
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has fought for school vouchers, even though the state legislature has rejected the idea multiple times. Public school board trustees are universally opposed to providing vouchers for students to attend private or religious schools. It is conservatives that argue in favor of vouchers. Their argument is that parents should be able to choose the schools that their children attend. Too often, they want their schools to be able to choose the type of students they’ll encounter, or schools that can teach a particular religion, or schools that reject points of view that they disagree with. They want to create their particular types of ghettoes.
Opponents to school vouchers, and I am among them, think that school vouchers would be deadly to the public school system and, over time, deadly to American democracy and the American melting pot. Vouchers would drain money, and thus resources, from the public school systems. The brilliant concept of free, public education doesn’t just educate students on the basics. It exposes them to a range of ideas and perspectives and cultures. It creates the smorgasbord that America has held as an ideal, even though we too often fall short of that ideal.
Because of the free, universal public school system we have an expectation that “We the People of the United States, can form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty”. I think that could even become a slogan.