Rambi, yes, my parents sent me to a private school in Washington, DC. Here's why. Washington is America's only colonial government, with a budget that still must be approved by Congress. When I was growing up there, in the 1940's, the city was also run by a congressional committee, whose members tended to be from nearby southern oriented states. It is no surprise that Washington was governed like a little ol' southern town, complete with segregated schools and the like, including a very, very low budget for K-12. One of the reasons for that low budget was that the committee members who ran the town, if they happened to live in DC, sent their children to private schools.
In truth, the Washington DC school system reflects exactly what would happen with government support for private alternatives. It would degenerate into a set of schools all geared to the lowest common denominator of performance by students and teachers, where it is already headed, thanks to decades of underfunding. If you put public and private schools on a level playing field, the two can function to the betterment of each other. But a system of vouchers as proposed by the Republicans would do nothing more than add to the stress inherent in public education. |
