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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (9173)	3/20/2001 9:45:17 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

Everything I always feared about vouchers.... Never having had any kids in schools, about all I know is what I experienced long ago as a student, so I don't opine much on the subject. But that article really struck a chord with me. I keep hearing all this yammering about parents making choices and I've wondered how they would know a good school if they had the option to choose. It seems to me that parents would mostly make choices just as the woman in the clip did--discipline or individual attention or religious/political content or uniforms. I don't know how they would know if school X prepared students better in math or geography than school Y. Yes, a parent would know if the child were engaged or not by schoolwork and that's would surely be an important factor. And sooner or later the parent would notice that little Johnny couldn't read or multiply. But by then it would probably be too late. If there were lots of kids in the extended family or in the neighborhood who went to different schools, the parents might be able to tell their kid had more or less subject matter knowledge, but, again, that might be too late. I think it would be tough to be a parent trying to decide among schools. My hometown had a Catholic school that went to the sixth grade. When the Catholic kids joined us kids from public school in the seventh grade, they seemed, on average, to be ahead. I remember that clearly. But I had no way of knowing why that was. The Catholic school gave homework and the public school didn't. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was discipline. Or maybe it was self selection. Who knows? Karen