True Competition in Education
Welcome to the start of the 2008-2009 school year. I look forward to sharing with you this coming year on the topics related to education. The year has gotten off with a bang. I do not know if you saw the recent editorial in the Tucson Citizen about Public schools and vouchers and tax credits. The editorial called for an end to tax credits because now that desegregation has been set aside the public schools are now truly competitive. You can read the editorial at this site: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/93504.php
Besides the interesting idea that it was desegregation law that made public schools less than competitive the disturbing point they made was that tax credits are taking money away from public education. This is flatly wrong! It is disingenuous and misleading. As you can tell it made me mad! The tax credit law has not taken a cent away from state spending on education. State education spending has grown each year under the tax credit law. To imply that public school students are somehow being deprived because of this program is dishonest. In truth thousands of
In fact tax credits are actually helping public education in
Here at Desert more than 1/2 of our families benefit from the tax credit legislation. Many of these families would not be able to send their children to this school without the presence of this scholarship money. Tax credits have increased the economic diversity of our school family by allowing lower income families to attend DCS.
It was interesting that the editorial also said tax credits were in violation of the state constitution. That is completely untrue! The tax credit law has twice been ruled constitutional by the State Supreme Court and once by the US Supreme Court. The judiciary says it is in line with the state and federal constitution. One can be of the opinion that it should not be constitutional but that is different than saying it is unconstitutional.
There is a battle brewing over education. The state monopoly continues to try to remove any competitors in the arena of education. Let us all continue to expose the untruths being used to attach educational choice. Here, by the way, is an interesting article to read on the history of US education: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v30n4/cpr30n4-1.pdf
You will not hear these things in the discussion on public education!