There are bills in the Georgia house and senate which would provide private school vouchers for special needs kids. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but here's my view.
If the amount of the voucher consists of the per-child funding that the public school would have received from the state, only those parents who have the income to pay the REMAINING post-voucher cost of private school would actually be eligible. Low income people with special needs children would not have equal opportunity. So I see a civil rights issue here.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Private school vouchers for special needs kids
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4 comments:
The voucher will be worth up to $9,000.00, in many cases more than the private school charges. In that instance, the excess money would be "lost." It is true that if the cost of the schooling exceeded the voucher, then the parent would be on the hook. It is true that the only thing the school must do to qualify is be solvent. It is true that the child and parent would have to give up all rights under IDEA etc. Plus, the local school district will probably remain responsible for the progress of that child under NCLB despite having nothing to do with the child's program and no control over the child's program.
What about accreditation and standards?
We also might see proprietary schools just pop up sponsored by gosh-knows-who, just to get into the act. Other questions I have would be---who makes the decision about which child has special needs? The sending school, the receiving school, a private psychogist, who? Also, it would be interesting to know if a private school had the right to turn down a child, and if so, what recourse would the parent have? Sounds like a legal and educational can of worms to me.
Georgia public schools have been being out performed by private schools for a long time. Even in the US Georgia Public schools ranks near the bottom. 48th I believe. This program is one step closer to allowing school vouchers for every student. And having the parents have the ability to move the children to a high performing school instead of having the state of georgia tell them they can only send their child to the low performing school.
Some people disagree on this part, but this will allow the schools to compete with each other and competition will make the schools better in the long run. History has shown that when companies compete for business the winners are the consumers. The same works for colleges, why should it not work for elementary, middle, and high schools as well?
As far as special schools for kids with special needs. The school for the blind and school for the deaf are great schools for kids with those disabilities. And since they are specialized, everyone benefits.
Children with different types of learning disorders might very well be able to have the same type of advantages, with professionals that are able to help these children.
Most public school systems only have 1 person specialized to help a child with special needs in any given school, or school district!!! My son is learning disabled and I am constantly upset by the lack of professionals able to help him in the schools. Even when they moved all the children with special needs as well as the special needs teachers into one school from the surrounding 5 schools it was still a pretty big dissappointment. They were more concerned about controlling the class than they were about educating.
The best part about this program is that you don't HAVE to move from public school to private school. This can be used to transfer your child to a public school of your choice and have the funds that normally would go to your school to the new school. Every family can benefit from this too.
I read the part about where this could be a civil issue but heres my take on it. Not all families have the same resources. If you make 40,000/year, then you don't go out and buy a yacht. If you can't afford to send your child to private school, then you don't. Just research the available public schools and see which one would be best for your child.
Thank you for reading this
Private schools vouchers make a great help to the poor students. Georgia house and senate would provide private schools voucher to the poor students. This is the nice step of the senate and this decision will help the poor students to get good education.
http://www.teensprivateschools.com/schooltypes/Private-Schools/index.html
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