Garbage In, Garbage Out
[August 24th] -- Nothing in education brings out the emotions like school choice does. And well it should.
My wife and I moved our family from St. Louis Missouri to West Palm Beach Florida in the fall of 1985. I had taken a job with a better firm that paid more money, and our family was beginning to reap the rewards that hard work offered. We spent a good deal of time finding the "right" place to live to make sure that our daughter was going to attend the "right" school. We found a nice apartment in an ideal part of West Palm. Once moved in, my wife and I went to the local elementary school to register our daughter.
"You can't send your daughter to our school" said the principal. It seemed that that part of Florida was under a judges bussing order, and in the name of forced segregation, Kira was going to be bussed to a predominately black part of the county, nearly a 40 minute bus trip from our home. Luckily, we were able to circumvent the law because we had a "special needs" child in our home, and my daughter was able to attend the local school.
Today, school choice is as important a topic as it was 20 years ago. Many parents, working with local legislators, are trying to create a "voucher" system, which would allow familes to send their kids to the schools of their choice. Of course, the NEA and is subsidiary associations are against the idea. And that's fine. But when members of either side create information that is less than factual, they only hurt themselves.
Phi Delta Kappa recently published the results of an opinion poll they commissioned which suggested that only 37% of Americans supported voucher programs. Thinking something was askew, the Friedman Foundation asked the Harris Poll Company to create a poll of their own. The Harris Poll showed that 60% of Americans supported school vouchers. Why the difference?
Phi Delta Kappa used a "loaded" question, asking if the person supported using public funds to send students to "private" schools. Of course, this is not how vouchers work. Parents can use the voucher at any public or private school. When Harris added the "public" to the "private" schools in the question, support for vouchers received an astonishing 23% increase.
Phi Delta Kappa is on the same page with the NEA. They seem more intent in maintaining the status quo rather than admitting that something needs to be done to give our future generations a chance for any real success in their lives. Perhaps vouchers are the answer, perhaps they are not. But truth and accuracy should never be shunned in the hopes of making any side of an argument more palatable.
