DreadChoice

The Last Word of 8/16/07 touched on a Washington Post piece that showed that students in D.C. who attended private schools under a federally funded voucher "experiment" showed no academic gains.

But in BushAmerica, if a program fails, it's more likely to be replicated elsewhere. Ohio did just that when it began its misnamed Educational Choice Scholarship program - or EdChoice.

EdChoice in effect gives taxpayer money (over $70,000,000 a year) to private and religious schools - in open defiance of the Constitution. The money could have been spent on public schools in poor neighborhoods, but instead it goes to private schools with the patronizing expectation that the schools will gain a captive audience of poor students.

I'm not exactly rich, but I went to several private schools as a youth - and believe me, most of the ones I attended ain't hurting for money. Private schools also don't have to follow regulations that govern public schools, and they even get tax breaks and other handouts besides vouchers.

Most of the private schools I attended ain't good either, which proves good money was just being thrown after bad. I'm sure there's fine private schools out there, but my experience is far from unique.

Now Ohioans have learned this the hard way, as the Republican-backed EdChoice has also proven to be an unqualified disaster.

About 3 out of 10 EdChoice students failed the writing portion of all-important statewide standardized tests. About 4 in 10 failed reading. About 6 in 10 failed math - and the same amount flunked social studies. And about 7 in 10 failed science.

This is how private schools "educate" our kids? Public schools keep having to close down and slash courses because they don't have money, but private schools get gobs and gobs of dough just to turn out uneducated young people.

I'm not in the least bit surprised. I'm only surprised this was actually reported. The Ohio Department of Education does not compile such statistics for private schools as it does for public and charter schools. The Cincinnati Enquirer had to make a public records request just to gather them. Officials won't even disclose which private schools get EdChoice money.

Because state education officials don't compile these numbers, private schools won't lose voucher money if they fail. So there's not even any accountability.

But the Republicans continue to support EdChoice, despite its failures. It suits their agendas of privatizing everything and of intensive social engineering.

The right-wing brain trust is blaming the Cincinnati Enquirer for daring to run this story (even though the Enquirer has editorialized in favor of vouchers for years). They accused political foes of "feeding" facts to the newspaper. So the facts are supposed to just be covered up for political reasons, according to them.

Even in an era when accountability has become a four-letter word, EdChoice's fleecing of Ohio taxpayers just about takes the cake. Public funds can be spent on public schools or health projects, but instead it gets squandered on private schools that perform more poorly than their public counterparts.

The Buckeye State should ask schools that accepted EdChoice vouchers to return the money they've received. That would be accountability.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090124/NEWS0102/901240345/1055/NEWS)