Two Additional Views of

School Voucher Proposal

* In response to the letters written by David Miller and Thant Tessman (July 11), I wonder if either one of them has read the voucher initiative and some most dangerous provisions which it advocates?

Anyone who recruits 25 or more students can open a voucher school--anyone. Voucher schools are not required to hire college graduates or credentialed teachers, nor must they teach a solid curriculum of basic skills. Students are not required to be tested in any kind of state or local testing program.

The initiative would enable any political or religious group to open its own school and collect tax dollars, potentially opening a Pandora’s box for extremists who want to use public money to promote their cause. David Koresh could have benefited greatly from this initiative.

This initiative also allows private groups to take tax dollars and revoke the authority of locally elected school boards. The initiative virtually prohibits new state regulation of private schools, although they will receive public money. These schools don’t have to meet the same health and safety requirements applicable to public schools.

Voucher schools can take tax dollars and keep all operations and finances a secret. No public school in the country is allowed to do this.

We need to fight drugs on campus, reduce class size and make our schools safer. The voucher doesn’t address these critical issues. It just gives up on public schools. We can’t abandon public education and leave the fate of our children in the hands of deregulated private schools.

CAMELIA O’CONNOR

Encino

* In response to Carolyn Ellner’s Commentary, “A Seductive Proposition,” July 4:

Once again, another example of an educratic insider lamenting the involvement of people interested in improving their children’s education.

Ellner states the people need to renew their commitment to the only institution which can bring a healthy turnabout--our public school system--and spend our energy making it worthy and productive.

The current public school system has failed. It is intellectually and morally bankrupt. What Ellner refuses to see is that people are getting involved, are committing to improving the education of their children. What they are not committed to is the continuation of a self-serving, bloated bureaucratic system that is staffed by arrogant, ivory-tower educrats who believe that theirs is the “only institution” that can bring an educational turnaround.

It is this very attitude that has galvanized people against a system that continues to produce declining reading levels and lower SAT scores.

SERGIO SAIS

Northridge