Thursday, April 21, 2011

Maybe there is something in the air

After reading this morning about Indiana Senate passing a voucher bill, I was suprirsed to read this evening that Tenessee Senate has passed a School Voucher for low-income families in the states largest four counties.  I wonder why only the four counties?

It would be great if more states passed voucher bills.  And it would be especially great if they just opened them up to all families with children, without strings or conditions.

Hat tip: Jay P. Green's Blog

3 comments:

Kay Brooks said...

Only those four counties because they are the urban centers for the state. The teacher union has fought hard to keep all sorts of education choices out of the public system but last November brought a solid Republican majority to the House and the Governor's office and an even stronger majority in the senate. They realized they had to give some ground and so they allowed that poor inner city children might be allowed this option. We also made teacher tenure harder to obtain and greatly weakened union control over contracts. We still have some weak Republicans who are enabling the union. Once they're gone, expect more freedom to come.

Eric Holcombe said...

Kay's analysis is correct. Those counties are the biggest spenders and the worst performing academically. And as is typical when charters are introduced, the public system will get to send its least successful students off to the charters and keep half the money (for nothing). This however is a double-edged sword because those very students are usually their excuse. The urban center idea is also a pre-emptive race card. If you are against poor, non-white students in crappy schools having a choice...I mean, how can Democrats vote against that?

Henry Cate said...

Kay - Thank you for the insight. I wish Indiana the best.