Leininger Attacks Public Schools Again

Once again, James Leininger, San Antonio millionaire, is attacking our public school system here in Texas. His group, Texans for School Choice, is now targeting low-income, urban parents with a campaign of billboards and radio ads in both English and Spanish. The ads are aimed at parents in Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston.

This year, Leininger has given more than $3 million to candidates in favor of school vouchers. Fortunately, most of his candidates have lost, but he keeps trying. Since he's not having success in the legislature, Leininger is now going directly to the parents, hoping they will put pressure on lawmakers.

Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network, said, "I guess if you have plenty of money to spend, you don't have to take no for an answer. But voters and their legislators have said no to voucher schemes for more than a decade because they drain money from public schools and give it to private schools that don't have to meet state standards."

There are many reasons why vouchers are a very bad idea. Here are some of them:

# It drains money from the public school system. This is a very bad time to be doing this, since Texas is having trouble funding its schools and paying its teachers.

# It helps middle-class parents far more than it helps the poor. The voucher amounts do not pay the full tuition at most private schools, thus eliminating poor families from the equation, while paying middle-class parents who were already sending their children to a private school.

# It is a backdoor effort to get the federal and state governments to fund religious schools.

# It makes promises it cannot deliver. The very concept of a voucher system is sending your child to a better school. However, recent studies have shown that private schools, especially religious private schools, are NOT better at educating students than public schools.

# It allows private schools to cherry-pick the best students, and dump the rest back on the public school system. While you may want your child in private school, there is no rule saying they have to accept your child.

School vouchers are a bad idea, and will contribute to the worsening of our public schools. It has always been a point of pride in this country, that every student is entitled to a free public school education. How will we fulfill this obligation after vouchers destroy our public schools? Our public schools do have some problems, but it makes a lot more sense to fix our public schools instead of destroying them.