Last Updated on March 29, 2022, 2:28 PM | Published: March 17, 2022
This guest opinion column is provided by Felix Linden, a public school teacher for 12 years, currently serving at FD Moon Middle School on the historic east side of Oklahoma City.
School vouchers are another version of white flight. After busing, white people who could afford to move away, left the schools and areas they didn’t want their kids bussed to. As a result, you saw a rise of suburban school districts coupled with a perceived decline of inner city urban schools.
Now that we have an increase in diversity in some suburban schools, in addition to repatriation of inner cities that were decimated by white flight now being gentrified, but no way to make black and brown flight a thing, you have school choice in the form of vouchers.
Numbers never lie and no matter how many spots you have at a “good school” you will NEVER have the supply of spots for all of those who are deserving a quality education. Which means you STILL have to address the quality at those schools that parents want their kids to leave. Nobody in the school choice movement can EVER answer the question of what do you do with those who aren’t able to flee their neighborhood school?
School vouchers only serve to undermine the purpose of public education by removing resources intended for the public to be diverted to a select few. If we applied this same thought process to roads and bridges and allowed people to remove their money if they weren’t pleased, then our already shaky infrastructure would further erode. Without a collective effort we won’t see collective improvement. Public education is no different which is why vouchers aren’t the solution.
Surprisingly enough we don’t need to overhaul public education. What we do need is to examine the systems that contribute to a failing public educational system.
Not paying people a living or competitive wage makes it harder for parents to be present teaching their child the morals and respect that would make a teacher’s job easier. Providing health care so kids and family members who have issues can access proper care without living under stress would help as well.
Finally, letting teachers teach instead of constantly gearing efforts to a test while paying them a respectable salary are all things we can do in our state today with no regard to the federal government. These aren’t urban, suburban or rural solutions. These are Oklahoma solutions and anyone you ask from Boise City to Oklahoma City, would collectively benefit if our state leaders committed to addressing the aforementioned solutions.
Before we divert ANY PUBLIC dollars to PRIVATE schools, we need to ask ourselves one question: Have we truly done ALL that we can for the schools on the lowest rung of our educational ladder, because as you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. Even those who CHOOSE to float elsewhere.
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