The
hoax is at last coming to light. Vouchers were sold as a
way to “save poor black and brown kids from failing schools,”
but that was always a sleight of hand.
Vouchers are about privatization.
ALEC
has on its current agenda a presentation titled: “entitled: “Problems in Suburbia: Why Middle-Class Students Need
School Choice, Digital Learning and Better Options.”
Jonas
Perrson of PR Watch writes:
But
the times they are a-changin’. Wisconsin is well on its way toward limitless
voucher schools, and last month, Nevada signed into law a universal “education
savings account” allowing parents to send their kids to private or religious
schools, or even to home-school them—all on the taxpayers’ dime. On the federal
level, a proposed amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that
would have created a multi-billion-dollar-a-year voucher program was only
narrowly defeated in the U.S. Senate.
ALEC
is not the only organization presenting the real agenda for education:
At
the American Federation for Children’s National Policy Summit held in New
Orleans, lobbyist Scott Jensen—who, before being banned from Wisconsin politics
for violating the public trust served as chief of staff to governor Tommy
Thompson, and was a prime mover behind the first voucher program in the nation—admitted
that vouchers were really all about “pursuing Milton Friedman’s free-market
vision” even though the ideological agenda was nowadays sugarcoated with “a
much more compelling message … of social justice.”
So
what exactly was the brave new world Milton Friedman envisioned when he first
floated the idea of school vouchers? While lecturing rightwing state lawmakers
at a 2006 ALEC meeting, Friedman jumped at the opportunity to explain what his
vision was all about. It had nothing whatsoever to do with helping “indigent”
children; no, he explained to thunderous applause, vouchers were all about
“abolishing the public school system.”