At 10:57 AM 9/20/03 -0500, The Fool wrote:
------ If only 1,300 of the District's 67,500 students are to benefit from this experiment, what happens to those who remain in public schools? The education bills being debated in Congress include an additional $27 million in funding for charter and public schools.
Of the $40 million for set aside for education, a third would go to the vouchers plan.
That's worth repeating. One-third of the federal funds given to D.C. for education would be used to benefit 2 to 3 percent of our students. ------
<http://www.houstonvoice.com/2003/9-19/view/editorial/vouchers.cfm>
School vouchers leave gay students behind
If the Republican Congress gets its way, gay students will either have to study in the closet or stay where they are at failing public schools.
By KEN SAIN
IT APPEARS CONGRESS is about to downgrade District of Columbia residents from people who don’t matter to guinea pigs who don’t matter. They intend to force school vouchers on us even though some congressional supporters admit they would never do that to their own constituents.
The only time District residents were asked if they wanted vouchers, they voted 89 percent against the idea in a 1981 referendum election. But who cares what the people who have to live with this experiment think? Congress doesn’t. Once again D.C. pays the price for lacking a vote on Capitol Hill and gay students are the ones who could suffer this time.
President Bush has had a hard time convincing anyone to give his school vouchers program a chance. Bush campaigned on a plan to give federal funds to parents of children who are attending a failing public school and allow them to enroll their children in a private — usually religious — school.
Enter D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. He gets a seat in the president’s box at the State of the Union address, and suddenly he reverses his position on school vouchers. He supports them now. In fact, if it wasn’t for Williams changing his mind, this threat would have died months ago.
Williams is one of those New Democrats, you know, the ones who look suspiciously like Old Republicans. Also flip-flopping on the issue is D.C. School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz and City Councilmember Kevin Chavous. All three had told the Gay & Lesbian Activist Alliance in pre-election questionnaires they were against school vouchers.
Armed with these three conversions, the Bush administration came up with a five-year trial period for school vouchers in the District. It would give the parents of 1,300-to-2,000 students $7,500 annually per child so that they can take their child out of a failing public school, and put them into a private school.
THIS IS JUST another attempt by this administration to force more religion into citizens’ lives.
Still, it hasn’t been easy convincing Congress. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) supported imposing vouchers on District residents even though she admits she would never do the same to Californians.
The House approved the bill by one vote. To get that approval, House leaders scheduled the vote for the same time as the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate last week. Voucher opponents and presidential candidates Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) were at the debate and missed the vote.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), another voucher opponent, also missed the vote because he was acting as host for the debate, which was co- the Congressional Black Caucus, which he chairs.
And, according to the Washington Post, they still didn’t have the votes to pass it. They had to negotiate a deal with Kentucky Republican Ernie Fletcher to get him to switch sides.
It passed 209-208.
GLAA, D.C.’s GAY rights organization, has come out against vouchers. GLAA points out that school vouchers would complicate the lives of gay students.
Gay students who take the vouchers and attend a religious school would likely have to remain in the closet. A private school does not have to follow the same rules as public schools. In most cases, there will be no gay-straight student alliances. Courts cannot force private schools to add gay-friendly clubs.
There will likely be no openly gay teachers or administrators kids can turn to for support. Any gay teachers who come out of the closet at a religious school can be fired.
Ask Albert Santora about that. He lost his job at Paul VI Catholic High School in February when some students recognized his photo on a Web site for gay men.
It is very unlikely there will be any safe-sex education. Religious educators prefer to keep our youth ignorant while preaching abstinence.
Not only will they be putting their education at risk, but also their lives.
If a gay student goes to a counselor at a religious school with a problem, they risk being expelled if they don’t repent. The parents and student would have no recourse.
Imagine a female student taking her girlfriend to the prom at a religious school. Not an image that comes to mind easily, is it? Forcing students to live a lie is not progress.
And that is what school vouchers will do. Gay students would either have to live in the closet or stay at a failing public school.
THE SCHOOL VOUCHERS plan is nothing more than a multi-million dollar gift to religious schools in the District. The $7,500 grant is not large enough for parents to send their children to the really expensive private schools that charge up to $22,000 per year, according to a Cato Institute report.
Taking public money out of public schools and giving it to private schools is a bad idea. Not just for gay students, but for everyone.
If only 1,300 of the District’s 67,500 students are to benefit from this experiment, what happens to those who remain in public schools? The education bills being debated in Congress include an additional $27 million in funding for charter and public schools.
Of the $40 million for set aside for education, a third would go to the vouchers plan.
That’s worth repeating. One-third of the federal funds given to D.C. for education would be used to benefit 2 to 3 percent of our students.
That money would be better spent improving the public and charter schools in D.C. for all students.
Congress should not use the citizens of the nation’s capitol as guinea pigs for unpopular ideas that they can’t get their own constituents to buy into.
Public tax dollars should not go to private religious schools that discriminate against gays. That, above all else, is why there must be a separation of church and state. If they want to discriminate, let them do it with private funds and not the tax dollars of a group of people they discriminate against.
The school vouchers plan is an idea that would leave many children behind.
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-- Ronn! :)
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