Former Educ. Sec'y Sees School Voucher Programs as Needed 'Agents of Change'
by Jim Brown
July 19, 2005
(AgapePress) - Former Education Secretary Rod Paige says he's encouraged that school voucher programs are springing up in several states. He feels such programs should be viewed as a form of social justice.
Despite opposition from liberal special-interest groups and teachers unions, private school voucher programs have been expanding in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and other states. The Florida State Supreme Court is currently considering whether the nation's first statewide program -- Florida's Opportunity Scholarship Program -- is constitutional. Since its inception in 1999, the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program has seen the number of scholarship students grow from 57 to more than 750. In the just-completed school year, 61 percent of those scholarship recipients were African American, and 34 percent were Hispanic. Three-fourths of the schools participating in 2004-2005 are classified as "religious" schools.
Paige, who headed up the U.S. Department of Education during President George W. Bush's first term, says he is anxious to see the Washington, DC, voucher program succeed because it is the first one to be federally funded.
"A large, large number of people have opted out of the [public school] system to public charter schools or to private schools," observes the nation's first black education secretary. "So we have choice; the question is, will we provide that same choice to underprivileged children? And for those people who deny this kind of choice to underprivileged children, I say shame on them."
According to Paige, choice is a vital component for authentic school reform. "Monopolies don't work," he states. "If we really are going to reform the system, choice is a necessary ingredient -- it is a necessary part of that mix. The teachers and principals in [public] schools cannot have the innovation and creativity that they need to change that system if it is bottled up in a monopoly."
And no student, he says, should be chained by government policy to a school that is not serving them well. Paige believes private school voucher programs, "cyber-schools," and home schooling are the most effective means of securing true education reforms in the next decade.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
