CNN.com – Voucher students going back to public schools – Nov. 4, 2002
More than one in four students who took a voucher to attend private school in Florida this semester have transferred back to public education, a newspaper reported.
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Critics of vouchers, a cornerstone of the education policies implemented by Gov. Jeb Bush, said the returning students show that vouchers are misguided.
But a spokeswoman for Bush called the trend a triumph of school choice.
“No longer are these children trapped in failing schools,” Katie Muniz said. “Now they have a choice — and some prefer to stay in their home school. These were choices they never had before.”
Can anyone explain how the existence of failed schools is a triumph of any kind? It’s easy to take the position that their lack of ambition reflects the quality of their political leaders, but leaving that aside for the moment, I’d like to know why they return to schools that the state government itself claims are substandard. If they opt to go the voucher-funded route and then go back, why? Is it the lack of peers? A more rigorous curriculum? Did no one prepare them for this?