Vouching for Excellence 

            It seems vouchers are one hot topic in today’s polarized political discourse.  Sincere proponents of school vouchers assure us it’s all for the benefit of the children and their excellence-seeking parents—that vouchers are the way to make American education the best in the world.  They might be right.  They might be wrong. 

Sincere opponents tell us that schools are just the latest objects of amorous attention from excuse-makers and money grabbers.  They protest that school vouchers insert religion into government and take money from public school systems already damaged by political parsimony.

            Whatever your particular predilection vis-à-vis vouchers, it’s no secret that public school performance sucks.  It is a nod away from becoming the most popular whispered explanation for unacceptable results: ‘Public school you know—what can you do?’

            We surely see that obscenely high school-superintendent salaries show a sorry return on investment.  We can also comprehend that our public school governing boards have sometimes been failures.  Drop out rates, and the tactics used to hide them are appalling.  Student disenchantment grows.  Schools are not managing change, and they are wasting dollars.  Around here we think school systems that pay ANY administrator more than six times what the lowest paid employee gets, are victimizing students, teachers, parents, and taxpayers.  Public school systems and administrators need to produce better results.  They can’t seem to do that without parental guidance.  But then, education is the last thing we should leave to the professionals.