School Voucher Initiative

Re “Vouchers--First California, Then America,” (Column Right, Aug. 26):

As a parent of two children who attend Cubberly Elementary School in the Long Beach Unified School District, I would like to assure George Will that my wife and I will vote no on Prop. 174 in November. Our children are receiving the benefits of a high-quality public education, although we could afford to send them to an expensive, but inferior, private school. The dedicated teachers and support staff at our school provide a positive learning environment for any child who walks in the front door, without excluding any student on the basis of gender, religion, economic status, ethnicity, race, academic ability, physical ability or proficiency in English.

My wife and I know a lot about quality education. She teaches at Glazier Elementary School in Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District. I teach at Gage Middle School in Los Angeles Unified School District. We dedicate our professional lives to educating children in urban public schools and are extremely satisfied with the educational opportunities that our urban public schools offer our children.

BILL HIGBEE

Long Beach

Will is yet another in a series of out-of-state voices who want to tell Californians how to educate our children.

It is unfortunate that space prevents a real response to his broad-brush criticism, inaccuracies and omissions. The principals and others who compose the membership of the Assn. of California School Administrators are particularly concerned with one of Will’s omissions of fact.

If passed, the 550,000 students presently attending non-public schools would be eligible to receive voucher payments in the 1995-96 school year. This could take $2.6 billion away from the children in our neighborhood public schools--without even one student leaving to attend a voucher school. That is the equivalent of 10% of the entire state education budget. The 5 million children remaining in public schools would suffer an immediate and cruel blow to their educational opportunities.

LAWRENCE KEMPER, President

Assn. of California School Administrators

Sacramento

Taking money away from public education will never improve it. Giving money to unregulated private schools will not guarantee quality education either. The way to improve public education is through reforms such as the bill by Assemblywoman Betty Karnette, in the state Legislature, which would require 95% of education funds to be spent at the school site. Support real reforms, not welfare for the wealthy.

KATHY McGUIRE

Huntington Beach

I have long regarded the American Civil Liberties Union as a champion of individual freedom against state tyranny. So the Sept. 7 Commentary piece by ACLU Executive Director Ramona Ripston was terribly disillusioning for me.

It is the Sacramento educational Establishment--not parents, teachers or even local school boards--that makes the important decisions regarding curricula, textbooks and values taught in the misleadingly named “public” schools. Parents and other taxpayers are forced to subsidize a monopoly system that not only fails its stated mission to educate children, but also promotes philosophies and values not shared by the majority of Californians. This is precisely the sort of injustice I thought the ACLU was formed to combat.

Ripston’s harping about “slick operators” and “entrepreneurial academies” preying on middle-class and poor families demonstrates her contempt for the intelligence of ordinary people. When the ACLU defends free speech and democracy, it affirms the ability of the public to judge competing claims made in the open marketplace of ideas. How, then, can Ripston claim that parents are too foolish to judge claims made by competing schools?

SCOTT BIESER

Costa Mesa

The current discussion on school vouchers, like Benjamin Zycher’s column (Sept. 7), misses the real issue in education: No one wants to get involved with the education of our children.

Parents don’t want to go to PTA meetings or parent/teacher meetings nor do they want to get involved with helping their children with their schoolwork. The public doesn’t want to get involved with school board elections. Politicians only want to get involved with talking about the problem, but do not want to get involved with any real solutions.

No system of education can work unless there is real parental and public involvement. The voucher system is, therefore, symptomatic of our determination to avoid that necessary involvement in education. Vouchers are our last-ditch effort to pass the buck on to someone else. In this case we are attempting to pass the buck to free enterprise in the hope that the magic of capitalism will solve the problem. But not even capitalism can educate the children without parental or public involvement.

KEVIN B. POWELL

Torrance