In their Aug. 3 letter, Phyllis Winter and Patricia Jones touch on an aspect of the school-voucher debate that is rarely addressed. The two principals, who obviously do wonderful work in difficult circumstances, maintain that their 95 percent graduation and 85 percent college-entry rates are not an indicator of “skimming the top students of the neighborhood.”
I wonder if this is entirely true. As the principals point out, many of their students’ families have members who work two and three jobs to afford the tuition for a fine school. Even if a child has struggled in public school, if he or she comes from a background of such high regard for education, logically the student may reflect this and ultimately succeed in getting a good education. Should he or she become a discipline concern or show no effort academically, private schools have the option of easy expulsion, a complicated legal process in a public school.
Taking this a step further, should a voucher program be put into place, would public schools become more compet-itive or a dumping ground for students easily expelled from private schools? Although schools like Children of Peace and St. Agnes do amazing things for those who need help the most, could they continue to do so if they were forced to take all students, not just those who come from a background of willingness to sacrifice to attain an education?
Perhaps we should consider this before committing ourselves to a system that has the potential for turning some public schools into crowd control.
