Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Profits drive voucher issue

Recent reports in the local newspaper have disclosed research that says that children away from the public schools on voucher programs do no better and often worse on achievement scores than children in public schools. So why are they there if the rationale is shown to be incorrect?

Widely reported data suggest that most charter schools (private schools using public funds) produce no better results than equivalent public schools. So why are public funds being diverted?

The so called “achievement district” schools are below-average performing schools restructured to charter schools. Given that instructional approaches are now relatively similar, how can we expect the private charter school to produce different results? Answer: We can’t.

So why all the right -wing chatter supporting these radical approaches? There is only one answer: profits. When public money is transferred to a private enterprise, the goal of the enterprise is not performance but profit. That is fine for a business but not for nonprofit public schools. Public schools are more likely to succeed if we stop taking their funding and diverting it to private, for-profit use.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy