Lets have real school choice nationwide. Let parents have the money
they are paying in taxes so they can send their kids to private
schools if they want. That's step number one. Get rid of teacher's
lobbies like the NEA... if they are all so dedicated to education why
do they need to be spending so much money lobbying congress?
Wouldn't that money be better spent in the actual education process?
Or how about just higher salaries for the good teachers?

We have school choice here in Iowa City, to a degree. We may enroll
our kids in any school in the district, so long as we can figure out a
way to deliver them each morning. (Well, this year they curtailed
that practice between the high schools, because one side of town is
growing way faster than the other.)

This works okay, to a degree -- but one result is all the bad kids
(AKA: The ones without caring parents) end up in the same schools.
All the good parents move their kids OUT of the bad schools.

This, of course, leads to other problems. High teacher turnover/
burnout becomes a real problem. You would think more resources would
be poured into the bad schools, but because the student count drops,
they actually get LESS money, unless extraordinary efforts are made.

Because of the totally screwed up employer/employee relations between
administators and teachers, there is little hope of a solution coming
from that quarter. The teacher's union stands in the way of
innovation -- union contracts don't permit too much in the way of
experimentation with staffing -- and the administrators are just as
bad or worse.

"Administrator" is just a fancy name for "bureaucrat" -- and by their
nature bureacrats do not want anything to change, unless it means more
money and less work. These bureacrats, therefore, appointed by our
elected school boards and supposedly safeguarding the People's money
by working in their best interest, end up working in collusion with
the teachers unions to make sure that nothing actually changes. In
the end these two forces -- seemingly in conflict -- tend to work
together to ensure that no solutions are forthcoming.

Throwing private schools into the mix of "school choice" -- without
fixing the underlying conflicting interests in this employee-employer
relationship -- would be a disaster, IMHO. And that's just not going
to happen in today's political climate.

Which, of course, brings us back to where we started -- and are
stuck.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"