We shouldn’t compromise education or send tax dollars to private schools
The Monday Our Turn by the Arizona School Administrators (“Public schools under attack”) was to the point. Protecting the public school system is imperative. There can be no compromise.
Your editorial (“Arizonans need to decide”) suggests a wider debate and discussion about funding public education between those who want to preserve it and those who want its destruction. Privatization of public education by any name, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, tax credits or vouchers, with little or no accountability, is theft of tax dollars. Giving this theft the protection of bad law doesn’t make it right.
It’s been more than 60 years since Chief Justice Earl Warren declared education “a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.” Bills to divert tax dollars for private and religious purposes while decimating public education is not equal and is wrong.
— Angel Rodriguez, Glendale
1-size public schools don’t fit all
The Arizona School Administrators demonize the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts that give parents and students funds to seek a school designed to facilitate their educational needs rather than remaining in a school system that continues to try to pound a square peg into a round hole.
Our grandson has Asperger syndrome. We have been home-schooling him for the last three years, after he said he would kill himself if we made him go back to the public school he attended for the first six years of his education.
Recently, he was approved to receive an Empowerment Scholarship Account and is excited to start looking at private schools designed to teach in an environment that fits his special needs.
Instead of attempting to educate special-needs children with unqualified, uninterested and uncaring teachers, the administrators should examine their failing “one size fits all” system that drives parents to look for a better alternative.
— Kevin Moler, Tonopah
— Joe Gecho, Anthem
Complete freedom not realistic
The debate about where to spend money for public education is less about choice and more about advancing a conservative principle of individual freedom.
The writer of the letter “Only unions benefit from public school money” (Tuesday) shares this idea. He makes the point that parents pay taxes for education, so why shouldn’t they get to decide were the money is spent? But that logic doesn’t make sense when used in any others areas of government. I drive a car, so shouldn’t I get to decide what roads are built and repaired?
The conservative idea of complete individual freedom is an attempt to break apart society into individual parts, all under the disguise of choice. Living in a world without restrictions is a noble idea but far from reality. We are a better nation with “We the people” than “Separate but equal.”