By I guess you can declare this a win for the teacher’s union and a loss for the kids who will be forced back into public schools:
An effort to preserve D.C.’s school voucher program – which pays parents to send their children to private schools – died Tuesday evening when the Senate rejected a Republican amendment to the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.
The amendment from Sen. John Ensign, Nevada Republican, to strike language in the bill restricting voucher funding and to reinstate funding for the 2009-10 school year went down in a 58-39 vote.
Mr. Ensign said the omnibus bill would “effectively kill” the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allows qualified low-income families to claim up to $7,500 per student toward a private education of their choice. About 1,700 students are currently enrolled, and they will have to return to D.C. public schools. [Washington Times]
I have featured the Superintendent of the Washington DC schools Michelle Rhee before here on the ROK Drop and here is what she had to say about this issue:
Michelle A. Rhee, the schools chancellor, said she did not share the negative view of vouchers held by many big-city superintendents.
“Part of my job is to make sure that all kids get a great education, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s in charter, parochial or public schools,” Ms. Rhee said. “I don’t think vouchers are going to solve all the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids.” [New York Times]
I have to wonder if the politicians who killed the school vouchers have their kids in public school or not?
10:11 am on May 13th, 2009 1
I'm torn on this.
If the US wants good schools – and even the patrons of expensive private schools should want more than basic education for others – they have to support public schools. The vouchers always seemed a bad idea to me.
On the other hand, DC is infamous for the terrible schools in the district and any way to escape them should be taken.
8:53 pm on May 14th, 2009 2
Vouchers are an excellent idea, and many Korean Americans may even support it. Some Asian parents pretend to live in their friends / relatives house so they can send their kids to a school outside of their own districts. Some of these public classroom assign little more than pointless busy works.
12:25 am on May 15th, 2009 3
In the article it said that 90% of the students receiving these vouchers were African-American students from poor neighborhoods. It is unfortunate to see these top minority students being forced to return to the chaos that is the DC school system. What frustrates me even more is that the politicians forcing them to return the chaos to receive a lesser education all have their kids attending private schools.
Ending the racial divide in America begins with allowing minorities that live in poor neighborhoods a chance to have an equal educational opportunity as everyone else. Having a system that assures that these kids stay in failing schools is not the answer.
10:52 am on May 15th, 2009 4
"Some Asian parents pretend to live in their friends / relatives house so they can send their kids to a school outside of their own districts. "
Non-Asian parents do this, too. Every year our school expels about 15 white, black, and Hispanic students who either live in another school zone or live in a nearby district. There are others who we suspect live out of district but cannot prove.
12:04 am on October 11th, 2010 5
Michelle Rhee is wrong for judging teachers and administrators that have become a victim of a school system that has still failed to define it’s objectives. Michelle Rhee too quickly blames teachers and administrators but never realizes her own flaws or the fact that she has become a power hungry attention seeker who only truly cares about her own political well-being. Ms. Rhee proposes higher salaries for teachers who excel but she has not realized how this "bullying action" will completely destroy teacher collaboration and create an "unfriendly work environment". Yes, I agree that something has to be done, but first, realize the origin of the problem.
The fact that Ms. Rhee doesn’t want to address is that there are still far too many sub-districts in the local, county, state, and federal levels that provide jobs without accountability for thousands of administrative bodies and personnel that have no job description or time clock to punch. Why doesn’t Ms. Rhee get tough with the real problem of the 6-figure salaried administrators in the federal and state level?
Ms. Rhee is too quick to forget the struggles of a teacher and she forgets why she stopped being a teacher…She stopped being a teacher because she couldn’t handle the day in and day out challenges beyond a few years because teaching burned her out. Now, she’s an administrator unable to realize any solutions to why she left her previous teaching job. Ms. Rhee doesn’t have what it takes to be a career teacher but she thinks she is better suited to critic teachers. Ms. Rhee has done exactly like so many others. Ms. Rhee is not unique. She does not offer solutions. Ms. Rhee offers proof of having a vindictive nature that is strongly supported by her incompetence that offers no solutions without creating larger problems that further expose her inefficient mind that only thinks of herself and other self-serving glory hogs, like herself.
Ms. Rhee has not, yet, realized that teaching is a team effort where all stakeholders are expected to contribute solutions that will employ a higher level of learning within our students, teachers, and staff. Ask Ms. Rhee what has the DC school system done on a modern scale to assist teachers in the management of their classroom objectives? Has the DC school system upgraded it’s support of teachers since 1950? What type of teacher software has been designed or offered to teachers to assist them? "In 2010, Ms. Rhee, do you still expect teachers to make xerox copies with broken copy machines?" Are teachers in D.C. provided “Smart Boards”, like teachers in Australia, to teach lessons or do you still expect teachers to create miracles on chalkboards? If teachers are expected to behave as professionals wouldn’t it seem necessary to provide teachers with modern tools/technology to allow them an opportunity to address these objectives in a modern platform? Ms. Rhee needs to first upgrade her support of teacher to match the 21st century before she expects them to provide miracles in the same dim light that is dedicated to hiding the thousands of 800 pound administrative gorillas who are eating all the bananas…"I am a teacher, not a monkey in a zoo!!!" It’s time to stand up and fight this ape like mentality that only blames teachers without recognition of the entire enormity of the problem. Ms. Rhee is not supporting her teachers but if she were a better leader she would know how to work with her peers to bring about positive change…Ms. Rhee is isolated into her own world that only sees flaws in everything around her because she doesn’t have the creativity to think of the solution. Now, she wants to run the DC schools like a concentration camp that has no capacity to think or plan ahead in order to create success for all teachers and administrators. Instead, she has made thousands of enemies…without perfect results. Teachers are not robots and therefore we need the assistance of modern technology to keep up with modern needs of our students, plus, all of Ms. Rhee's unwritten or never ending requests/ridicule.
Ms. Rhee needs to invest her administrative efforts back into the teachers by designing a digital lesson plan book where each day of the year has the academic state standards input for each subject. Has Ms. Rhee outlined the objectives in a digital format that allows teachers to archive lessons according to each days objectives? Great teachers are often only great because they teach the same grade level for 30 years. What is Ms. Rhee doing to support teachers that are forced to switch grade levels? Ms. Rhee has plenty of expectations of teachers and administrators but what expectations does she hold herself accountable? What will Ms. Rhee do to upgrade teacher support to match the needs of our 21st century students in order to improve our outdated teaching environment?