Bush inappropriately uses Katrina to push vouchers
By BARBARA MINER
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
President Bush is misusing the Katrina disaster to push his pet projects. Case in point: private school vouchers.
In a recent proposal for federal funding to help evacuees from the hurricane, Bush slipped in a request to funnel in $488 million -- or almost half a billion dollars -- to send Katrina's schoolchildren to private schools.
The American Association of School Administrators -- a 140-year-old organization of staid school principals and leaders, hardly known for its radical rhetoric -- denounced this move.
"It is unacceptable that the administration would put forward an ideologically driven gimmick at a time of crisis," said the group's director, Paul Houston.
Unacceptable perhaps, but hardly surprising.
As The Wall Street Journal has reported, Bush and his allies are planning to take advantage of hurricane relief measures to "achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond."
School vouchers use tax dollars to pay for tuition at private schools that have no accountability to the public. They are a cornerstone of a conservative free-market agenda that denigrates public social services.
Common good
But as Katrina showed all too tragically, we abandon our government's commitment to the common good at the peril of untold loss of life, heart and soul.
An estimated 372,000 students were forced from their homes and schools following Katrina. For most, the public schools are the only true safety net, providing not only education but also nutrition and health screening. The reality is that private schools just don't have the capacity and space to care for this influx.
Bush's voucher scheme would allow payments up to $7,500 per child to a private school. Already, one can imagine the calculations of overly ambitious entrepreneurs and scam artists -- start a storefront school, enroll 40 kids and presto, you'll have $300,000.
My hometown of Milwaukee, which has the country's oldest voucher program, provides ample evidence of the problems with this system.
Under our 16-year-old program, citizens of Milwaukee have publicly funded these privately run voucher schools in former tire stores, above vacuum cleaner shops and in cramped, windowless basements. Some voucher schools have no discernible curriculum and only a few books, with classes taught by high school graduates. One school was started by an ex-con convicted of raping a woman at knifepoint.
These private schools are often beyond the reach of government regulation. That's why the right likes them. It's also why they are untrustworthy.
Accountability
By contrast, public schools are accountable. They do not discriminate. They take everyone regardless of academic ability or special need. And they have been a gateway to success for countless generations of immigrants.
Bush's private school voucher plan for Katrina's victims will do for public schools what the federal government did for the levees in New Orleans: It will weaken the public schools until they collapse -- with predictable and horrific consequences for the poor and most vulnerable.
X Barbara Miner is a columnist for the Milwaukee magazine Rethinking Schools. The writer wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services