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Rick Scott’s bold education plan draws bevy of critics - Yahoo! News
The right wing's attack on education and academia continues. I simply don't understand why right wingers are so opposed to standardized education. It's one thing to create non-accredited schools and pretending they are like Harvard. It's another to screw up education as a whole. There are more educated people in America today than ever in the history of this country. Why screw up a good thing?
The idea has previously won backing from the late Nobel-laureate economist Milton Friedman and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as a way to foster competition among schools and give parents more choice in their children's education. But there is one major hitch: The Florida Supreme Court has ruled private-school vouchers unconstitutional, concluding that they endanger the free public school system. And, it turns out, many in the education world agree, and not even only those connected to the teachers union (though for the record, a Florida teachers union spokesman called it a "terrible idea.").
The details of the plan are still unclear, but the proposed voucher would most likely be for $5,500, the average state per-pupil contribution to public school students. The state would deposit that sum into each individual child's "education savings account" (theoretically every Florida child would have one) instead of into school districts' coffers. (The state currently doles out vouchers for some low-income and disabled students, a program that has not been challenged in court.)
"I don't think the idea of draining the treasury of public education is practical. There's a place for public schools, they do great work in the community," private Catholic-school principal Rick Pucci told a Tampa news station. "This plan may rob public schools of the things they need. I'm not in favor of it."
The right wing's attack on education and academia continues. I simply don't understand why right wingers are so opposed to standardized education. It's one thing to create non-accredited schools and pretending they are like Harvard. It's another to screw up education as a whole. There are more educated people in America today than ever in the history of this country. Why screw up a good thing?
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