On February 28, President Trump addressed Congress, speaking briefly about school choice for disadvantaged youth, breaking the cycle of poverty. He talked about how families should be able to choose the schools that are right for them, whether they be public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home schools.
On Friday, President Trump visited a private school in Florida – St. Andrew Catholic School – Florida is one of 14 states and DC, which has a state-funded school voucher program to qualifying students.
If you look at St. Andrew’s admission requirements you must provide most recent report card and state assessment, which would be ok since it is a private school. But President Trump though is pushing for school choice and vouchers. There is a $250 registration fee (non-refundable) per child is assessed. There is an admission test for students 2nd through 8th grades. A parent needs three teacher recommendations. There is a list of priorities, one being you must attend church on a regular basis and ENVELOPE USE AS DEFINED BY THE PASTOR.
How are policies like this going to help break the cycle of poverty? Folks living in poverty cannot afford a $250 non-refundable registration fee, $25 application fee or financially supporting any church every week? How are they going to pay for the balance of the tuition that is owed after using their voucher?
It is very interesting when you look through the qualifying student requirements for school-funded voucher programs, because most states require that a student has an IEP, certain disability or specific income level tied into the federal poverty level. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART – In Delaware, most students who have an IEP or disability, and leave a private or charter schools, do so because the school does not provide the necessary special education services or the school tells a family that they cannot provide these services for the child – this school is not a good fit.
We have people creating policy that really have no idea as to what is really going on in our public schools, because if they did, they would understand that they are not helping disadvantage students.
DelawareFirstState 
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware 2017.
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The government getting involved in private schools bothers me, because then they are not “private”. I see no problem with St. Andrew’s School in Florida requiring Church attendance, because it, apparently, is a religious school. It should be able to determine its admissions criteria and curriculum without influence and interference, as long as it does not take any public money.
I believe the public schools need changing in order to address multiple issues. Again, I don’t like the government getting involved, particularly with disadvantaged students; it is the parents and the educators who know what is needed.
Education, in its present form, is very complex; and I don’t have enough knowledge. But are school choice and state vouchers helpful? I would think that there is still an element that suffers under them.
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School vouchers and charters do nothing but take funding and kids from our public schools. The example provided shows that the voucher won’t help a disadvantaged youth or their parents. If we take a serious look at how public schools are run, address funding issues and responsibilities I think that the public school systems can be very successful! I am a graduate of a public school and proud of it! My special needs child attends a public school because they are required to provide supports for her education – private schools are not and charters try not to. Again – put the funding where it belongs and make changes to the public system. There are plenty of best practices from around the country that can and will work for all of our school to be successful.
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