Recently Trump launched his strategy for education. His plan includes allowing parents to choose where their tax dollars will be spent among all school form options. In other words, a parent may move their student from a public school to a religious school and have their tax money pay towards the religious school’s tuition. This entire idea is a desperate attempt to garner votes any way he can. First, the entire concept is impractical. It has been tried with so-called “Charter Schools” for many years. The result has been underperformance by the students, lack of oversight by the governing authority, theft by school officials and a major financial drain on the existing public school structure. In other words, IT HASN’T WORKED ON EVEN A SMALL SCALE BASIS. Second, existing school systems have locked-in capacity for student populations. If large scale student transition is indicated, existing facilities (building, teacher counts, etc.) would all be jeopardized. Third, imagine the annual shuffling of dollars that would happen. Timing would not allow monies to be moved in anticipation of the next school year in time to buy whatever additional resources would be needed by the enlarged student population at a given school. Fourth, imagine the teacher movement that would need to happen. Class sizes could balloon to unwieldy size instantly and require the hiring of teachers who might choose NOT to move with the students. The National Association of Teachers has come out strongly opposed to this plan. No–this is just another ludicrous political move to gain votes. We wonder what the “Donald” will think of next? Stay tuned.
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