Public  education has been underfunded for years.  The state has just begun to  start funding their share of the money required; taxpayers can’t afford to  fund an experimental private school voucher pilot program. We must use our  limited tax funds to adequately support and strengthen every public school and  help underachieving students to succeed. Taxpayers don’t want their property  taxes raised to make up for the loss of money to pay private school tuition  for a few, and they don’t want a voucher tax.

 

By June 2003, taxpayers will have spent more than $1 billion on the Texas charter school experiment. Texas legislators must solve problems with the 185 charter schools in the existing school choice experiment before considering creation of a new experiment.

In 2002, 37% of the Texas schools receiving low-performing ratings were charter schools. Failed charter schools show exactly why regulation is needed of privately-run schools funded with public money. Public education needs tough oversight, regulation, and accountability to the taxpaying public.

Special interests are trying to take money away from neighborhood schools to support chains of franchised for-profit preK-12th grade schools, highly profitable private schools for 3-7 year olds, religious schools sponsored by any of the more than 55 U.S. religions or entities that purport to be a religion, investor-owned virtual schools offering classes over the Internet, and home schools.

Proposed funding for a voucher program must be balanced with other fiscal priorities, and there is little to justify funding vouchers. Every dollar used for tuition vouchers would be taken from the funding pool that could support smaller public school class sizes for struggling students, tutoring and summer school for low achieving students, addressing the teacher shortage, and reducing dependence on school property taxes.

Private schools aren’t subject to the federal No Child Left Behind Act and aren’t mandated to give the new rigorous TAKS test, to bar promotion to 3rd, 8th, and 11th graders who don’t pass the TAKS test, to withhold diplomas from high school seniors who fail the state exit exam, to only hire highly qualified teachers, to have 22:1 class size limits in elementary school, or to abide by the open records act, No Pass-No Play laws, or any of the other thousands of mandates imposed on Texas public schools.

The number of neighborhood schools in urban districts rated low-performing for two consecutive years are few: Houston ISD, 0; Dallas ISD, 2; Austin ISD, 1; Fort Worth ISD, 0; San Antonio ISD, 0; El Paso ISD, 0; Northside ISD (San Antonio), 0. Typically, a public school is only rated low-performing for one year, as resources are focused on schools and children. Texas parents have many choices for the public school their child attends, including intra-district and inter-district transfers, magnet schools, charter schools, and open-enrollment schools. Under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, students attending underperforming schools may transfer to better public schools with transportation provided or receive tutoring or after school services.

For example: Special education, transportation, teacher qualifications, TAKS testing, private school ratings and consequences, textbooks, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum, class size limits, free and reduced price lunch and breakfast programs, admission process and testing, discriminatory practices in admissions and consequences, discipline and expulsion, recruitment of voucher students based on athletic abilities, services for economically disadvantaged students, bilingual education, length of school day and school year, promotion standards, facility requirements under Americans With Disabilities Act, attendance reporting rules, religious icons in classrooms, discriminatory employment practices, required student fundraising, governance board makeup, nepotism, conflicts of interest, financial audits of private schools, and use of public funds for private purposes.