So in good ol' D.C. the heated debate trudges on. I am not talking about Healthcare, I am dealing with the federal school voucher program, locally known in D.C. as SOAR (Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act). The house has ok'd this bill, but not without much stifled giggles from D.C. Council members. Now they are pushing for the program to go nation-wide. Even though the choice is offered to many parents and their children between underperforming public schools and private schools, there is a question that is not being answered, or even asked...
In the private schools, are these students going to have to be subject to the same state rigors as the public schools? Each public school, such as in Texas, has to follow the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS, throughout the framework of the curriculum. The students are then tested over their mastery of their knowledge of this curriculum during certain times of the year with the STAAR tests (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) and have to pass them to be passed on to the next grade (for grades 5 and 8). The high school students have to pass 5 End of Course exams to graduate. I have taught in private schools before and, even though I know that they do have some benchmark testing, I do know that the schools I was a part of did not do state testing. Will all of this be incorporated into the private school education? (Do they even want it?)
The biggest issue I have is that if we are allocating state or federal funds via vouchers to allow parents to take their students to private schools of their choice, these schools should be subject to the same rigors as the public schools? Or, are these "rigors" the reasons the parents are wanting to get their children away from the public schools in the first place? Maybe this is the first question we need to ask.
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