Vouchers - The Golden Ticket

Just like Charlie in Willy Wonka, the child who gets the golden ticket is given a golden opportunity. With vouchers that golden opportunity is to better education and a safe environment in which to learn. How lucky a child must be to be selected to receive this opportunity in Ohio; just like the movie there are only a select number of vouchers available; 14,000 to be exact, as “Deadline to Apply for Tuition Vouchers Loom” illustrates for us, out of 80,000+ students enrolled statewide. Voucher applications are filled out, criteria is applied i.e., income, neighborhood in which the child lives, the rating of the local public schools, etc. and then the child is selected. Fair is fair I suppose, those who are selected for the vouchers are very fortunate, but what about those who are not selected or the 14,001 child when the vouchers run out?
Is it fair for a child to be shut-out of a program? Or for a program to be dissolved because of politics? Is it fair for our government to abandon our public schools by offering an alternative?
Our federal government established a “five year pilot” voucher program in Washington D.C. to allow or give opportunities to children to attend private schools instead of public schools because they were so bad. In the article, “D.C. Vouchers Provoke Debate”, the voucher program will most likely be abandoned after next year. Why? Because of politics, money and the simple explanation of “it was just a pilot program”; it wasn’t meant to be long term. Great – now what? What is the plan for the children, who have been able to attend a private school for a number of years, adjusted to the private school curriculum, established friends and succeeded in the environment; are they going to be ripped out of their safe environment and thrown back into the ill-fated public schools? Our government, whether federal, state or city look for quick fixes to a problem without regard for the future. Quick, let’s put a program together to fix the immediate problem, we’ll worry about the future when it happens and when the future happens they all of a sudden have no answers, no plans, and no forethought.
What about the children who haven’t been given the opportunity for alternative schooling? Why hasn’t the federal government taken a look at public schools to identify the problems, address the issues, and apply some effort in bettering the schools for all children? The State Supreme Court of the state of Arizona has addressed their Private School Vouchers, by rejecting them. Their philosophy or plan is to have a strong public school system. Why can’t other states address this the same way?
Don’t get me wrong…vouchers are good and do provide a choice (for a select few); however, I believe vouchers would work better for children who have physical or learning disabilities, to provide them a specialized environment conducive to their needs. But as a whole vouchers are exclusionary and unfair.