Russ on Reading: False Choice: Vouchers Will Destroy Public Education

Russ on Reading: False Choice: Vouchers Will Destroy Public Education:

False Choice: Vouchers Will Destroy Public Education

My response to a pro-voucher newspaper editorial.

Yesterday the Times of Trenton printed an editorial arguing for expanded “universal school choice transfers”, a euphemism for vouchers. In the opinion piece’ Israel Teitelbaum, secretary of Alliance for Free Choice in Education, argues that the government should return the money that the it collects in school taxes to parents so that they can make a choice about where to send their children to school. Sounds good doesn’t it? What could be more American than choice?

In truth, the first thing that is more American than school choice, is a free, quality public education. American leaders of the past recognized that free access to an education was necessary to maintain a democratic society; to teach young people to live and work together with others and to teach the skills necessary for full participation in a free society. Paying public school taxes, whether or not your children go to a public school or even if you have no children, is a civic responsibility. Some things are not open to choice, even in a free society. We pay taxes for police and fire protection. We pay federal taxes for military protection from foreign enemies. We pay taxes for public