It is said to be an ill wind that blows no one any good, and Katrina
certainly was an ill wind except that it appears that she might have
blown some federal dollars in the direction of the fundies so that they
might reach kids religion at the expense of the taxpayer.
---
Katrina aid may include millions for school vouchers
By S.V. Date
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
TALLAHASSEE Buried in what might eventually total $200 billion in
federal spending for Hurricane Katrina is $488 million for what would be
the nation's largest school voucher program.
The proposal, which to this point is formalized only to the level of a
few paragraphs in a press release, would give families displaced by the
storm as much as $7,500 per child to spend on a private school,
including a religious school, for the coming year.
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The plan has already drawn fire from the liberal People for the American
Way, which called President Bush's proposal an attempt to sneak through
a favorite program of Christian conservatives as part of hurricane
relief.
"The victims of Katrina need our help, and they deserve to be treated
with dignity, not treated like guinea pigs in a massive experiment for a
dubious education proposal," said Ralph Neas, the group's president.
Chad Colby, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education, said
agency lawyers are still working on the precise language that will then
be sent to Congress.
"We're going to comply with all laws," he said. "The attorneys are
working on the language to make sure it's done right."
The new federal vouchers come as the Florida Supreme Court is
considering a challenge to Gov. Jeb Bush's first voucher plan. The state
constitution specifically prohibits spending state money to advance
religious institutions, but the vast majority of voucher-taking schools
are religious.
Ron Meyer, the lawyer for voucher opponents who has been in charge of
the appeals court cases, said giving public money to private schools is
fundamentally a bad idea, but that if it must be done, drafters need to
pay attention to academic and financial safeguards or risk wasting the
money on suspect schools.
"At the minimum, there has to be the same standards of accountability
that there are at public schools," he said.
Florida has the largest voucher program in the country, with three
separate statewide initiatives that total $140 million a year to pay
tuitions for some 27,000 children.
The programs have little academic or financial oversight, which some
supporters and most voucher critics have tried to correct over the last
two years. Christian conservatives, however, including Gov. Jeb Bush's
top education aide, have prevented the Senate "voucher accountability"
bill from passing.
If the state high court upholds lower courts on the religion argument,
the smallest of the three programs, Opportunity Scholarships for
children at repeatedly failing schools, would be shut down.
The McKay Scholarships for disabled students would be vulnerable for the
same reasons. But if the court rules against the Opportunity vouchers on
the more general principle that they are not part of the system of free
public schools that is spelled out in the constitution, that could
jeopardize all three of the voucher plans.
Currently the only federal vouchers are in a $14 million "pilot" program
for students in overwhelmingly poor and black District of Columbia
schools. Democrats and other critics of President Bush, Jeb's older
brother, say the new voucher plan is a small piece of a raft of
conservative ideas tied to the Katrina relief effort, such as the waiver
of federal requirements that government contracts pay at least the
prevailing local wage.
Both Gov. Bush and his education commissioner, John Winn, said they had
not been in contact with the White House or the federal education
officials regarding the Katrina vouchers. But Bush said he thought they
were a good idea and again defended the use of vouchers in Florida.
"They work great," he said.
---
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2005/09/28/a12
a_vouchers_0928.html
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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