By Rusty Pugh
January 24, 2001
(AgapePress) – President Bush has submitted his education plan to Congress, and some educators are applauding his plan to provide vouchers.
The education package includes penalties for failing schools, a program to teach every child to read by third grade, and school choice for parents. Bush’s plan calls for giving $1,500 vouchers to the parents of students in failing schools. The money would help parents pay to sent their children to private schools, including religious schools.
Jim Hawkins of the group Professional Educators of Iowa says vouchers give parents more options and put pressure on public schools to improve.
“I think that President Bush is putting pressure on the schools to examine, reflect, survey themselves and find out what it is going to take in order for them to compete,” Hawkins says. “Competition is what’s made products better all across the United States. So as an incentive for the public schools to improve, they’re going to improve. In the meantime, a few of them are going to take a hit if they haven’t been doing their job.”
Critics of vouchers include the National Education Association, which Hawkins says, opposes any alternative to public schools.
(This report courtesy of Agape Press.)
