Letters 97
EPP May 1997 Letter on Vouchers

May 9, 1997

New York Times Letter to the Editor

The coverage of Sandra Feldman’s election to the presidency of the American Teachers Federation ended on a sour note. Of course, there is an element of self-interest when public school teachers defend public schools against vouchers. But Terry Moe’s statement that public school teachers are merely "shopkeepers," with little real interest in the needs of the "customer" (i.e. students) makes an assumption that he and his fellow proponents of transforming education into a competitive marketplace are not "shopkeepers." Let’s get real.

There is a horde of "shopkeepers" on his side of the ideological divide ranging from right wing think tanks that have gotten sizable foundation funding for overselling the concept of school "choice," to religious school systems that want federal funds to keep their schools solvent, and to corporate interests that want to make elementary and secondary education into a profit making sector. The bottom of the barrel are the fly-by-night operators who quickly took advantage of school charter initiatives in Arizona and voucher initiatives in Milwaukee to pad their registers with non-existent students.

Let the debate continue as to how best to raise the academic achievement levels of low-income students in America. While this debate rages on, it might help to provide these students with the same public school resources as more affluent students. A February 1997 U.S. General Accounting Office study found that in 37 states there were significant funding gaps between low-wealth and high-wealth school districts. Not surprisingly, New York ranks fifth among states with the biggest funding gaps. This is the reason that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, soon to be joined by the ACLU/NYCLU, is in court challenging the state’s system for funding schools.

Given that public school teachers serving low-income communities are given less resources in order to accomplish their task, and many succeed anyway, it is mean-spirited and hypocritical to charge them with purely "shopkeeper" motivations and to deny by implication any self-interest by proponents of vouchers.

Sincerely,
Noreen Connell, Executive Director