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August 18, 2006

End of week voucher roundup

A couple of more items on school vouchers close the week here at BoardBuzz.

In Florida, a tragic story sheds light on yet another school receiving taxpayer funded vouchers that should not have. Responding to the death of a student during orientation at the Back to Basics Military Academy, city officials discovered the institution, operating out of a church, had no occupational license to operate. There were other problems with the school and its organizers, but they had ready access to cash: Most of the school's students attended it on McKay vouchers for children with disabilities. Details here from the Miami Herald, and Miami's CBS news station.

UPDATE: Now come reports from the Sun-Sentinel (via Eduwonk) that the military academy is still operating but in an "undisclosed location." The state Department of Education, which has always taken a "no questions asked" approach when it comes to overseeing private schools receiving vouchers, indicates the school has 15 days to inform the state it has relocated and 60 days to submit the appropriate paperwork. A bigger question is why the state sent tax dollars to the school in the first place without having received appropriate licenses and permits. The mother of one student asked "How could the state issue money to a school that's not legit? If that's the case, I can start my own school." Sounds familiar.

The Miami Herald is also reporting that the church that reportedly housed the military academy has clarified that the school rented space in a building leased to the church.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the deep pockets of the voucher lobby will drop half a million bucks on radio ads and billboards in major cities to try what so far it has been unable to do: Convince the public and its lawmakers that private school vouchers are the way. The Houston Chronicle's Gary Scharrer has the story and the paper followed with a fiery editorial. How fiery?

The effort to woo low-income parents for a pilot program is a cynical attempt to get vouchers' nose under the state education tent and eventually expand taxpayer funding to all students who choose private schools. Since those schools can't take all applicants, vouchers would only provide a few students a private, publicly funded education while impoverishing Texas public school systems in the process. ... If Leininger were really concerned about quality education, he would use his money to improve the public schools rather than throwing his millions into a quixotic and misguided effort to damage them.

Posted August 18, 2006 10:26 AM | Privatization & Choice

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