If you look at the policies regarding public education there
is no effort being made to cut overall spending by the state. This isn’t really about saving.
The attacks being made are against public schools, teachers
and unions – where the money goes – but not against the spending. The cuts are enormous and devastating, but
while funding for public schools is cut, the collection of taxes is not. The idea isn’t to eliminate the revenue but
to redirect it.
If you cut the funding to public schools enough then you can
make the schools look bad, which reinforces what is already being said. Yet the alternatives have nothing to do with
making school funding equitable or lower or even with improving public schools. The only alternatives offered are private and
charter schools.
Vouchers are intended to fund private schools with tax
dollars just as charter schools are funded with tax dollars. That’s the redirection. The idea is to take tax money away from
public schools and public employees and funnel it into private corporations who
will take over the education of America’s
children. This plan offers less
accountability, lower standards and no improvement in education. Recent studies have shown that charter
schools do not perform better than public schools.
No one is talking about cutting taxes or reducing overall
spending. There are only two goals:
breaking the teacher’s unions and putting tax dollars into the pockets of
private corporations.
It’s about money.
It’s not about education.
No comments:
Post a Comment