A Case for School Choice

Parents are concerned about the quality of education in our area.  The best way to improve education is to offer parents and students more choice.  School vouchers or school choice allows parents to choose any school for their children with tuition paid by the local and state governments.  It levels the playing field allowing children of poor and middle income parents the same educational opportunities enjoyed by children of wealthy parents, who can afford private schools for their kids.  Voucher programs have been successfully implemented in several cities and in 13 states in the US.  Reasons parents cite for choosing to participate in voucher programs are: better programs for children with disabilities, academic excellence, stricter discipline, less bullying, and for religious reasons.

Vouchers introduce competition in the education system which is good for all the schools, both private and public.  Competition for students, and the money they would bring with them, will bring improved academic programs and better response to parents’ concerns.  The private schools will compete with each other to provide the best programs for less money and new schools will emerge to provide more diversity in educational models from which parents can choose.  The benefits of a free enterprise system are just as true in the marketplace of education as in the marketplace of commerce.  In order to attract students, schools both public and private, will improve their academic programs, respond more quickly to parents’ concerns, and hold teachers accountable for what they are supposed to be teaching. They would also make schools safer by cracking down on bullying, student apathy, misbehavior and drug use because these are issues of concern to most parents.

Even though parents overwhelmingly support school choice, the opposition from the education establishment and teachers unions has been very strong and has denied this opportunity to most localities in the United States.  The parents are caught in the middle and feel their concerns for their kids’ education are being ignored. School vouchers would bring the focus back to the students and the quality of education.  The argument against school choice always includes dire predictions of loss of money to the public school, laying off of teachers, loss of extra-curricular activities, etc.  These things may happen but only if the public school doesn’t measure up to the competition from private schools.  Aren’t the students and the quality of their education more important than protecting teachers’ jobs?  If the public school competes by cutting out unnecessary positions, offering better classes, etc.  then they will have nothing to worry about because they will keep their students, and the education dollars they bring.

With school vouchers, local and state governments would save taxpayer money because private schools produce better educated students at far less cost when compared to public schools.  According to government data the 2011 average public school cost to educate a child was $10,364, more than twice the median cost of a private school.  The county and the state of Virginia would save about $5000 for each child who chose a non-public school, even if they paid full tuition.  There are ways to save even more taxpayer money by capping the amount of the voucher or requiring parents to pay a small percentage of the tuition.  In Cleveland, Ohio, a state funded voucher plan for low-income students, in the 1996-97 school year, paid up to 90% of the tuition to any private school, up to $2,250, which was about one third of the cost to educate students in the public schools that school year.  A detailed report of the Cleveland voucher program, shows that the overwhelming majority of these low and middle income parents were very pleased with their children’s private school, that they became more involved in their children’s school after the switch of schools and that their children’s test scores improved. Lawmakers need to be convinced that school choice is a way to please voters and save taxpayer money at the same time.  Parents need to become aware of the advantages of school choice and more forceful in their demands.  They need to voice their demands to their representatives at the local and state levels and to their school boards.  They need to make school choice an election issue in every election, from local elections to national elections.

School vouchers bring competition to education with students and parents being the big winners.  Competition would improve the quality of education at public as well as private schools; in academics, in the participation of parents, and in the discipline and atmosphere in the schools. The only way it will become a reality in our state and localities is for parents to speak out and put more pressure on legislators and school board members in favor of vouchers than the unions and teachers do against them.  School choice is a common sense solution that accomplishes two goals at once, improving education and lowering the cost of education.

Cindy Koether, Farmville

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Dear Editor:

It’s disappointing and ironic that you say the Sunday hunting issue is about choice and then rail against an individual landowner’s choice to allow hunting (or not) on Sunday. I can’t think of a more local option. The bills making their way through the House and Senate do not force anyone to hunt on Sunday. Nor do they force individual landowners to allow anyone on their land on Sunday. They have a choice.

What’s more disappointing is your divisive language pitting “city boys” against “those of us who choose to live in the country.” A number of surveys have found a majority of Virginia residents (all residents) and a large majority of Republicans support Sunday hunting. Hunters also support it by a 2-to-1 margin. I can assure you plenty of us who choose to live in the country are hunters and we are in favor of doing away with this archaic law.

This isn’t a city-country issue. Had you done your homework, you would have seen the House bill patron, Delegate Todd Gilbert, is from Shenandoah County; the Senate bill patron is Phillip Puckett. He represents the Tazewell region. Hardly “city boys.” Also, one is a Democrat, the other a Republican. Contrary to your column, both bills garnered broad bipartisan support from both rural and urban legislators and both passed by overwhelming majorities (71-27 in the House; 29-10 in the Senate.) If that’s not democracy in action, I don’t know what is.

Anyone who truly supports freedom, less government control and private property rights should speak out in favor of giving individuals the opportunity to hunt (or not) on Sunday. A hunter’s personal decision to sit in a tree on his own land has zero impact on anyone. (I’ll remind you it is legal to shoot hundreds of rounds at targets on Sunday, so don’t bother with the tired “peace-and-quiet” line.)  Hunting is safe six days a week. Their is no evidence it will be anything but safe on the seventh as long as hikers and horseback riders stay off private property where they don’t have permission to hike or ride. Even where hunters and horses share land, horses are not being shot from under their riders. I’ll remind you the current bills prohibit hunting on public land, leaving millions of acres of state, federal and local forests and parks for those who wish to enjoy nature without a gun in their hand.

The good news is that it appears the argument is over. Both bills are expected to pass and Governor McAuliffe (a Democrat, no less) has indicated he will sign it. Even better, this gives us country folk a choice. We can hunt or not and we can allow hunters on our land or not.

By this time next year, I fully expect all the Sunday hunting opponents will be eating a big dish of crow. That crow might have even been killed on a Sunday.

David Hart, Rice, Virginia