Letters to the Editor

Vouchers Create Opportunity

To the Editor:

I support vouchers as an option for parents seeking an alternative to public education even though I’m a product of public education as are my three adult children (one as special needs.) My wife went to Catholic school through 8th grade and public education for high school.

We were blessed to have great schools and teachers. If, however, my grandkids were saddled with a poorly performing public education district, I would want my kids to have the option to direct their tax money to private voucher options rather than see their taxes go to public education that fails to deliver and isn’t held accountable to their mandate, their funding or their students.

Let’s not forget, it is their tax money…not some magical funding from the government lost in the growing abyss.

Imagine if schools had to be more attractive to compete for at least a portion of their funding and the focus was not on mere attendance but on performance. The students would be the winners. Public education left to Dept. of Education bureaucrats and teachers unions will continue as status quo. Politicians have pandered and promised for the 50 years I’ve been a voter to “fix” education and yet we continue to decline on the world stage metric.

Read an article of a NASA commissioned study in 1968 to seek out geniuses in schools for future selection in NASA. George Land led the study on creativity ( https://www.creativityatwork. com/can-creativitybe- taught/) and followed 1,600 kids. At age 5, 98% tested as creative. At age 10 it dropped all the way to 30%, then down to 12% at age 15. As adults only 2% tested as creative. The conclusion was that our education system was designed to generate convergent (in restive) thinking and diminish divergent thinking. This dumbing down was good for the Industrial Revolution in need of workers who could follow directions but not so good for cranking out very many Elon Musk-type thinkers.

So let’s give it a try and crack open the door of opportunity a bit for parents wanting to direct their school tax funds to nurture creativity and critical thinking. Might just force the public education (just give us more money) system to explore/ adopt best practices from private schools rather than vest themselves in standardized testing based convergent curriculum.