Yikes: Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools

[AJTheMan]

11. It's Simple Really

I believe that parents should have the option on how their children should be schooled. The parents know what will work for their kids and what won't. Some of these kids live in public school districts where the school has received bad grades and has a high dropout rate. If their parents want to give their kids an alternative to the failing public school and the only thing stopping them from doing so is income, then I believe the government should absolutely subsidize that student's tuition. The actions taken by the governor are about two things. Number one, is giving control of education back to the parents. In years past, only the highly affluent would be able to attend prestigious private schools. The minorities, the poor, the under privileged were forced to go to the public school. If the public school is failing and has a high dropout rate and the teachers are down right crappy, then the student would still have to go, knowing that he or she faces an uphill battle. Now that this piece of legislation has been enacted, parents have a few more options. If they feel like the public school in their area will not properly prepare their child for the future, they now have the opportunity to seek alternatives, regardless of income. For the first time, many poor to middle class parents will have a choice in how their children are to be educated. Trust me, I live near Shreveport, in Caddo Parish, where 19 schools have failing grades. If we can help just one student by subsidizing their education at a better private school, then this program is a success.

The second core issue with this piece of legislation is putting teachers on the same playing field as every one else in life. You know, how, in your job, if you constantly screw up, you're going to get fired? Well, it motivates you to do your job properly so that you don't lose your job. You keep your job, the task at hand is done successfully, and the company prospers as a whole. What if, however, your company told you that no matter what you do, save something outright lewd or illegal, nothing you could do could get you fired. What results, in that situation? Complacency. Apathy. Screw ups. You can fail at the job all you want and no matter how bad you are at it, you cannot get fired. Well, for many years, this was the case in our class rooms. Now I'm not saying that all tenured teachers are bad. I knew plenty of great teachers who were tenured. I also knew quite a few who were just awful but because they were tenured, the administration couldn't do a thing about it. I had a teacher freshman year who failed 66% of her students. And this was at a school that consistently gets ranked as one of the best in the parish. My family asked the administration if something could be done but alas, nothing could be done. She was tenured and they just had to wait for her to retire. The second issue here is that teachers, like every other profession in the planet, should be held accountable for their work. If they consistently fail students and are given bad performance reviews, then their jobs may be in jeopardy. Just like you or me. If they are consistently shown to educate students in a good manner, then they can be promoted with salary increases. This idea that your career revolves around how you perform is not all that new. Look in any other sector other than teaching and you see it in place. The bad employee gets fired, the good one gets promoted.

Now to your points. For most of my Freshman and Sophomore year, I went to a school called Evangel Christian Academy. Every Tuesday we had Chapel, where the leaders of the school would talk about God and sing his praises. (I was and still am atheist in my thinking, so this didn't phase me too much) Beyond that, however, school was exactly like public school. We learned the same math as everyone else. We learned the same science as everyone else. Believe it or not, we had to learn about the way life evolved and our ultimate origins. We learned literature such as Shakespeare and other great writers. The curriculum, for the most part, was nearly the same as at public school. We didn't learn much about the big bang but that's mostly because the big bang is covered in our eighth grade year here in Louisiana. My last two years of High School went to my local public school. There weren't very many differences, save the fact that the teachers at private school are a little more forgiving whenever it comes to test scores.

Now there may be a school that has no windows or may seem like a bunker. The best part of this legislation is that if the parents are offended by the religious elements, or the bunker like appearance of the school, they can decide to take their business elsewhere. Maybe a different private school or even a different public school.