EDITORIAL VOUCHERS STRIKE BACK.The CTA's reign of terror Reign of Terror, 1793–94, period of the French Revolution characterized by a wave of executions of presumed enemies of the state. Directed by the Committee of Public Safety, the Revolutionary government's Terror was essentially a war dictatorship, instituted to is finally coming to an endWHEN it comes to education, we Californians have tried it all. We've tried new math new math n. Mathematics taught in elementary and secondary schools that constructs mathematical relationships from set theory. Also called new mathematics. and old math, phonics phonics Method of reading instruction that breaks language down into its simplest components. Children learn the sounds of individual letters first, then the sounds of letters in combination and in simple words. and whole-language reading, bilingual education bilingual education, the sanctioned use of more than one language in U.S. education. The Bilingual Education Act (1968), combined with a Supreme Court decision (1974) mandating help for students with limited English proficiency, requires instruction in the native and immersion. We've tried replacing school boards. We've tried firing and hiring superintendents. Through it all, we've kept spending more and more money. And it hasn't worked. Decades of trying make it clear: no amount of tinkering will fix our broken schools. The real problem is that California education is controlled by a mammoth and inefficient monopoly. Until that monopoly buckles and parents have some control over their kids' education, public schools will continue to fail. Enter Timothy Draper. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur is sponsoring a statewide ballot initiative that would bring vouchers to California. Under Draper's plan, parents would get a check for $4,000 for each child - to be redeemed at any school, whether public, private or parochial. Coming to Draper's aid is the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday that the government can use taxpayer money to support private schools. The education establishment is scared to death. It knows that if parents can afford to choose nonpublic schools for their children, they will, until and unless the public schools offer better quality. The California Teachers Association The California Teachers Association (CTA), initially established in 1863 as the California Educational Society, is by far the largest teachers' union in the state of California. It is considered by many to be the most powerful union in California. managed to quash school choice in 1993, when it used compulsory deductions from teachers' salaries to outspend out·spend tr.v. out·spent , out·spend·ing, out·spends 1. To spend beyond the limits of: outspends his earnings. 2. voucher proponents 10-to-1. Draper has deep pockets. That won't happen again. Now the only way the CTA An abbreviation for cum testamento annexo, Latin for "with the will annexed." can possibly hope to defuse the voucher movement is to start educating California's children. That means accepting accountability and reform - allowing for performance-based pay and granting school districts the power to fire bad teachers. Otherwise, voters will choose vouchers, and parents will choose private schools. One way or the other, the state of education will soon get better - at long last. |
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