Trump school voucher plan comes against backdrop of opposition in California
While K-12 education issues were rarely mentioned in the 2016 presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trumps’s proposal to give children taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend a range of schools, including private schools, could find fertile ground in his administration.
It’s an idea that has never been popular among California voters, and one that union leaders and those close to them view with trepidation.
Josh Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, said that with Congress under GOP control, enactment of Trump’s voucher plan was a “scary prospect.” Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles Unified school board, worried that Trump would promote a “radical deregulation policy” that would include “federally implemented vouchers.”
In part because so few education issues were raised by either Clinton or Trump during the campaign, his $20 billion “school choice” plan to give government-funded vouchers to all low-income children in the United States to attend schools of their choice stands out.
He derisively referred to public schools as “failed government schools.” He said that it was a “civil right” for millions of inner city children “trapped” in those schools to be able to attend schools of their choice – whether private schools, charter schools, magnet schools or traditional public schools.
“There is no failed policy in more urgent need of change than our government-run education monopoly,” he said.
Although California offers parents a generous choice of charter schools, Californians have not been receptive to the idea of issuing vouchers for private Trump school voucher plan comes against backdrop of opposition in California | EdSource: