Editorial: Voucher plan will leave public schools suffering

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, February 15, 2005

A proposal announced by two suburban Republican lawmakers has the potential of driving a wedge between supporters of public education and supporters of bringing educational opportunity to the disadvantaged.

State Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, and Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan, would basically use public dollars to send poor Minneapolis and St. Paul children to private schools. A form of school vouchers, the pair calls their plan &uot;education access grants,&uot; and would shift up to $4,601 a year per student in state funding to lower-income students in the two inner cities who want to go to private school but can’t afford the tuition. The $4,601 figure is what the state sets under current law as the basic formula given to school districts for each public school student.

While the authors hail the plan as a real &uot;school choice&uot; for parents otherwise limited in their educational opportunities because they simply can’t afford better, the plan seriously undercuts the state’s mission to provide equal access to public education for all children, regardless of where they live. Rather than provide the best public education system possible, allowing a way to siphon off public support to the very schools that need it the most only puts equal opportunity to public education for all at risk.

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Minnesota schools, which have suffered from budget constraints the past few years, would suffer even more under Hann’s and Buesgens’ plan. And while Gov. Tim Pawlenty has offered a 2 percent boost a year for two years in the basic formula, he would also open up more opportunities for local property tax levies &045; something voters in Hann’s and Buesgens’ white-picket-fence communities would embrace but form high hurdles for inner-city residents.

While the two GOP lawmakers would attempt to allow some poor students in the two inner cities to pay for private school, Bemidji is still left out, as well as any other poor families outside the two cities. That alone unconstitutionally sets up an unequal education system.

The better solution is in finding ways to bolster public education, not drain resources away from it. Of course, the public demands accountability for what it spends for public education, but that doesn’t mean abandoning it. Supporters will say competition to public schools will improve them, and that could be true &045; if all schools were on the same level playing field in regard to standards, requirements, licensure and other regulation. They are not, and the use of vouchers would only subsidize private schools at the expense of public schools.

And all education in Minnesota would suffer for it.

(Pioneer (Bemidji))