No child left behind

President Bush's educational platform of "No Child Left Behind," aims to hold schools accountable. Schools who are chronically failing must have some incentive to turn things around. Vouchers are the best method to ensure that no child is ever left behind. \nHere's the general concept of how vouchers work: Each child is allotted a certain amount of money to go to any state-approved school their parents choose, public or private. School choice is important because it gives parents the ability to save their children from failing public schools and place them in better learning environments.\nThose who are against vouchers fear if some parents pull their children out of a failing public school, that school may shut down. They continually blame school failure on the lack of money, but the results show otherwise. For example, according to the 2000 RAND Commission state-by-state comparison of test scores with annual spending on education per student, Texas ranked 24th in spending but first in test scores.\nSchool choice opponents also feel that because private schools tend to be religious in nature, students should not use taxpayer money to attend them. Laws in 37 of the 50 states, called Blaine amendments, prevent public money from being applied to religious instruction. Blaine amendments, though, were instated out of anti-Catholic, anti-Southern bigotry in the 1800s. States today must work around these laws, viewing them in light of their religious intolerance. An excerpt from a 1999 Arizona State Supreme Court decision for tax credit vouchers reads, "We would be hard pressed to divorce the [Blaine] amendment's language from the insidious discriminatory intent that prompted it." When deciding the fate of schoolchildren across the country, we need to leave religious bigotry out of the argument, focusing instead on vouchers' merits. \nAnother anti-school choice argument offered by the National Education Association is that "a pure voucher system would only encourage economic, racial (and) ethnic … stratification in our society." On the contrary, with a voucher system, even poor, inner city kids (who are mostly minority children) will have equal opportunity to get a quality education at a good school with good teachers. Our current education system oppresses these children, who must remain in failing public schools because they cannot afford to go to better-performing private schools. \nMaine, who has been operating a voucher system since 1873, proves that poor children will be financially able to attend private schools because they actually cost less than public schools. According to Frank Heller of the Cato Institute, "Data from the Maine Department of Education suggest that the tuition program costs roughly $6,000 per student, or 20 percent less than Maine's average per pupil expenditure for public education."\nHome schooling success illustrates that parents should be able to place their children in better learning environments. According to The Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998, "By eighth grade the average home school student performs four grade levels above the national average". \nVoucher programs have the likelihood of bringing about three necessary improvements. First, teachers will have to be accountable to parents. Second, schools will need to have definitive goals for their students and aggressively work to better their education methods. Third, teachers will be selected with higher standards and will have to perform well to keep their positions. \nDon't leave children behind in failed schools. Give them school choice.