Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Former education secretary calls for universal school choice

Former Secretary of Education Rod Paige called for universal school choice in the United States on Monday. Paige was the secretary of education during President George W. Bush’s first term.

“My suggestion is to design our school operations around the principle of universal school choice,” Paige said at a school choice forum hosted by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. “Completely remove the power of government to dictate where a child attends school. ... Chaining a child to a school that does not serve them well is a miscarriage of justice. ... All parties, teachers, parents, students and the public at large would benefit from the innovation and creativity inspired by universal school choice.”

Paige said public school reform efforts have failed to make any progress for decades. “The current failure of public school reforms cannot be attributed to lack of effort.” From the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, “school reform was dominated by education theorists, political leaders, researchers, a long list of other interested parties and agencies, governors, corporate America chimed in,” Paige said. But all that effort was for naught. “It is indisputable how we are presently working is not working. And continuing as we are presently working seems clearly unwise,” Paige said.

More

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

All this talk about school choice. 20% of the population is either to lazy or stupid to do the research to figure what school to send their children to. There will always be a failure rate of 20% because 20% of the population doesn't have the mental capacity to be successful. This is why the poverty rate is 20% and always stays around 20%. No amount of formal education and tutoring can fix stupid.

Anonymous said...

You know, 3:06, I'd have to guess that if such options were available to parents they'd probably find the time and enough gray cells to come up with a good choice.
It's true that some will remain cracked out and miss the boat, but I'm SURE things would go better than they are now, don't you?

Anonymous said...

You have to much faith in your fellow man.

Also if you live in Salisbury what school would you choose for your children.

Anonymous said...

4:18 16% of the population has an IQ below 85. Are you really SURE things would be any better than they are now.

The reason people keep voting for the government to run their lives is because they either aren't smart enough or are to lazy to take care of themselves. So they let the government do it for them.

20-25 percent don't have the intelligence to make complex decisions. 20-25 percent are to lazy or to busy to make complex decisions. 10-15 percent make enough money to not worry about such decisions. That leaves the other 35-50 percent to just get screwed.

Anonymous said...

I have been in the "get screwed" category for many years. My husband and I chose Private School when our child was in 3rd. grade. We made the change, made the sacrifices, and listened to all the naysayers.

We realized Way Back Then that educating our child was our responsibility, not the government, not our friends and not our neighbors.

Of course, by law, we had to continue to pay taxes to cover the government schools and the tuition for our child. Thank God the tuition was Not impossible with certain sacrifices and we made it through.

No parent should have to do this any longer. It's not fair and it's not right. We should have school choice and vouchers attached. Even homeschool should be a part of this.

This is my experience and I hope this issue changes for the best soon.

Anonymous said...

yes school vouchers the only solution to the education problem in this country....however powers to be will fight to keep to indoctrinateing our children in communism ...we should have the freedom to choose our educational path be it Christian school or public school the market will weed out the failures

Anonymous said...

Im with the majority above. Ive been teaching in the county for over 20 years. I pulled my own child out of middleschool and put in private school. There is a part of the population that does not have the mental capacity or doesnt care about school choice. I have dealt with these people for 20 years. Many of their kids dont care about anything either and theres nothing we can do about it. its pretty sasadd but its reality.