To Voucher or Not To Voucher: It All Misses the Point

Yesterday The Indianapolis Star published an article claiming a majority of Hoosiers say schools are failing. Although this should come as no surprise (really, what constituents are truly happy with public education nowadays), the president of the state teachers' association claims their polls do not find this view. Yet no one denies there are serious problems in public education.

This blog is not the place to expound why there are problems; the internet is filled with such rantings. It is far more efficient at this point to start expounding real solutions and it cannot be anything like what has been tried before.

We can't think of education as a factory stamping kids out from ages 5-18 in lock step. We can't think of localities' property tax rates as the sole form of sustaining education institutions. We can't think multiple choice assessments as proof of success or failure.

Vouchers could be a good thing. But I harbor far more fear that politicians will find a way to politicize them into total useless oblivion, as another failed potential to achieve real reform. It shouldn't be about whether or not the voucher money ends up in a private school if that's where a parent sends their child; it should matter what specific school and how the child performs after studying there. If the student did not make any positive progress, then that was a bad investment - even if the outcome might have been the same had the student stayed in the previous school.

If education is indeed a "free public right" (free being a conditionally-operated term), then the money should follow the student immediately - none of this ridiculous 5-year waiting period currently in place in Indiana. School administrations might be more careful in spending and more aggressive in pursuing effective management methods (behavior policies if anything else!) if "income" were more business-oriented. Losing students left and right? What is it about your "practice" that's turning away "customers"? Have a reputation for allowing ridiculous student behavior? How will you rebuild your school's image? Getting massive applications from students and teachers? What are you doing that is so attractive?

The fact is businesses come and go; so do students, teachers, and administrators. Yet the system they all operate in does not...and the results are getting worse. It's high time the foundation itself is totally rebuilt with new thinking.

It's not like we build skyscrapers out of sticks and hides, now is it?