The NJEA's Voucher Test Dread: What If The Program Works?

Little else has, that's for sure. Jersey City is another urban area where too many kids just don't learn in public school; where an aura of menace haunts the halls; where many teachers cash their checks and amass their benefits, just waiting for the day t hey can pack it in.

They know what's wrong. It's the neighborhoods, the decline of the family, the violence in the streets, the guns, the dope and MTV. It's kids who don't want to learn, who fall asleep in class, who fool around, fight, and just don't care. It's gangsta ra p and slasher movies and sneaker advertising; the list goes on and on. And year after year, Jersey City schools, like schools in other cities, disgorge more poorly educated young people onto the streets.

Maybe those teachers and administrators are right. Maybe it isn't their fault. But that doesn't relieve us of the responsibility to try. Perhaps New Jersey should pour more millions of dollars in Jersey City's public schools. Maybe we should hire the world's leading educators to work there. Maybe we should try lots of very expensive things. Someday, perhaps under court order, we may.

Meanwhile, Jersey City surely has nothing to lose in an inexpensive, extremely limited experiment with school vouchers.

Under the circumstances you might expect people outside Jersey City to shrug and say, why not? We're talking about one belabored city and two grades of students. The tine scale of the program threatens only the viability of the experiment itself. It certa inly poses no threat to anyone or anything in Jersey City, never mind New Jersey's mighty education establishment. Unless it works, that is.

That's what worries the New Jersey Education Association. That's what has public education-the most costly, least accountable chunk of government in the state-behaving as though someone was holding an Uzi to its heart.

What if a handful of parents, guardians, and kids exercise a new right to choose? What if they choose private schools with a lot less bureaucracy and a lot more motivation? What if those children feel a little safer, a little more cared for? And what if they do a little better in their school work? What if they finish school a little better prepared for life then their public school pals? Pretty terrible, huh?

But that's what has opponents of the voucher experiment frightened. To hear them talk, you'd think the experiment itself will mean the end of America as we know it. They've manages to frame the voucher debate as though we were about to chuck public edu cation statewide. It's as if the Atlantic Ocean were afraid of a 110 volt dehumidifier.

In reality, those same enormous entrenched public education interests would be just as enormous and no less entrenched when, after a couple of years, we could take a fresh look at Jersey City and decide if vouchers were a good idea or not. Those interest s will have the opportunity once again to marshal their arguments, hire their consultants, alert their lobbyists and rally their legions for battle.

Until then, how about a little perspective? This, as they say on the Emergency Broadcast Network, is only a test. If it's a flop, this debate will be over.

Let's try vouchers in Jersey City and save the arguments for when we all know the results.

John Bendel is a former editorial page editor of the New Jersey Herald & News

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Hudson County, New Jersey is a place of many firsts - including genocide and slavery.
Political corruption is a tradition here.
First in a series by Anthony Olszewski – Click HERE to find out more.

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