John Boehner is pushing to reinstate vouchers that let the public pay for students to choose which private school to attend.
I have not heard much coming from Washington about supporting public education, but this was just passed by a House panel.
House panel approves D.C. school voucher billA House committee approved a bill Thursday to extend the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, advancing a key priority of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that has long divided District leaders.
The program provides federal funds to help low-income District students pay for private school tuition. Democrats on the Hill moved two years ago to close the program to new entrants, only allowing current scholarship recipients to continue. But Boehner personally offered a bill in January to reopen the program to new entrants, and the measure was passed Thursday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a 21-14 vote.
The tally was mostly along party lines: All Democrats present voted against the measure, while all but one Republican -- Rep. Todd Platts (Mo.) -- voted in favor.
Here is more about this effort. Joe Lieberman is one leading the way on this issue. Boehner is meeting with Catholic Bishops, and there are comments from the Catholic church in this next article.
House speaker lends legislative support to Catholic schoolsThis article is from January.
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R–Ohio) showed his support for Catholic education and school choice on Jan. 26, announcing the introduction of a bill that would restore funding for school vouchers in Washington, D.C.
“There’s only one program in America where the federal government allows parents from lower-income families to choose the schools that are best for their children, and it’s right here in D.C.,” Boehner said in a morning press conference, announcing his plan to restore funding to the program along with Senator Joe Lieberman (I–Conn.).
..."Boehner is placing a high priority on his bipartisan effort to restore vouchers in the nation's capital. The D.C. voucher restoration proposal is the only bill he plans to sponsor during this session of Congress.
The previous evening, he had indicated his support for Catholic education by inviting several guests from Washington, D.C.'s Catholic schools, along with the district's Cardinal Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, to share the Speaker's Box at his first State of the Union address. The school representatives were involved with the Consortium of Catholic Academies, which benefited from D.C.'s school voucher program before its defunding.
Good for Americans United for taking up this issue. They ask how can a nation be so "broke", and still afford to give taxpayer money to religious schools.
Americans United Asks Why ‘Broke’ Nation Still Has Enough Money To Subsidize D.C. Religious SchoolsSpeaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) keeps saying the country is “broke” – so Americans United for Separation of Church and State would like to know why he is determined to funnel $20 million in tax dollars to religious schools in Washington, D.C. Boehner is attempting to railroad the reauthorization of a controversial school voucher “experiment” in D.C. through the House.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today approved H.R. 471 on a 21-14 vote. The Boehner-sponsored measure could go to a House floor vote as early as next week.
“Speaker Boehner says we’re broke and have to slash federal spending,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Yet, he’s willing to throw $20 million at religious and other private schools.
Barry Lynn of AU has more to say.
Added Lynn, “This voucher scheme undermines public education and church-state separation, and I am disappointed that the House committee voted to fund it.”
..."“The D.C. voucher experiment has failed,” Lynn said. “It’s time to put the focus back where it belongs: on the public schools.”
One state senator from Indiana is really zeroing in what kinds of serious problems could arise from such a voucher program.
Public Funds For Fred Phelps?: Voucher Dollars Could Go To Religious Schools That Teach HateWhen it comes to school vouchers, Indiana State Sen. Brent Steele (R-Bedford) seems to get it. The Republican lawmaker doesn’t want to support an Indiana bill that would use public funds to send students to religious and other private schools. Steele is the first Republican legislator in the state to voice opposition to the proposal.
In a letter to every lawmaker sent out this week, Steele writes that he wouldn’t want his taxes to pay for students to attend a school run by the Westboro Baptist Church. Members of the notorious Topeka, Kan.-based church demonstrate at the funerals of soldiers, holding up signs with hateful anti-gay messages. The church’s protests are constitutionally protected free speech, according to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
“We just saw this week the Westboro Baptist Church is recognized as a religious entity that is protected,” observed Steele. “How would you like your tax dollars going toward educating their children being privately schooled inside their church? I don’t want my tax dollars used to raise a child who is going to want to kill my grandchildren because they are of a different religious belief.
“Once you start letting tax dollars go out to religious schools,” Steele continued, “you can’t make a determination which is the best religion or what is a proper religion.”
Not just vouchers. In Florida at least 8 religious schools, 7 of them Catholic, applied to become charter schools because they needed taxpayer funds to survive financially. Their plan worked. In fact issues such as this have been used all over the country to perform what some call a
fundamentalist takeover of public education.Raleigh, North Carolina - "We must eliminate public education as it is structured today and reinvent it in a new form," according to Roxane Premont, director of the North Carolina Education Reform Foundation (NCERF). If successful, the "new form" of public education will ultimately result in private religious schools paid for by taxpayer money.
...The first step in the proposed plan is to establish charter schools, which are, according to Premont, "public schools that operate independently of local school district jurisdiction and operate much like private schools."
According to NCERF literature: "Charter schools will provide a pool of independent schools that can readily be converted to private schools to meet increased demand for private education once voucher laws are passed. Charter schools that are converted into private schools will be initiated by those persons who want religious education.
"With charters the money goes directly from the state to the charter school. With vouchers it goes directly to parents who then take it to the school."
So vouchers or charters, one or the other. A ruse to destroy public education? Public schools and the public school teachers are so vulnerable now after the last two years of concentrated assault on them.
Wouldn't be hard to do that right now.