School Choice without Vouchers

The School Choice movement wants to change only one thing: PARENTS choose a school, instead of forcing kids into a government monopoly school. 

Keep it Simple In the present system your child's school gets paid for each day s/he attends. There is nothing wrong with that. Don't create vouchers people need to qualify for; make it work the way government schools get paid now. The money simply needs to follow kids to whatever school their PARENT chooses. Our model legislation puts child-centered public funding ahead of school-centered funding.

Control Government buys other services from the private sector, why not education? We do not prohibit Medicare funds from buying services at private hospitals when your grandfather needs heart surgery, why pick on schools? Answer: The government education monopoly wants control.  Is there any reason why you should not control the education dollars for your own child?  We can't think of one.

U.S. Education - Dead Last

Before the 70's our economy was based on the automobile, but a complacent automobile industry failed to make changes. Japanese cars invaded, and canceled our dominance. The resulting outflow of dollars to Japan devastated our economy. That outflow is about to start again, this time to pay high salaries to well-educated workers overseas.

In 1983, A Nation At Risk urgently recommended reforms in education warning "...the United States is under challenge from many quarters". In 1997 the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) documented our last-place ranking in the world. Today we're at greater risk than ever. John Taylor Gatto, New York Teacher of the Year, reveals the shocking origins of our forced public education.

Exported American Jobs

The Government Education Monopoly continues to imperil our economy by failing miserably at preparing the workforce. Business increasingly looks for talent overseas. The world's greatest concentration of PhD's is in Seoul, Korea and half of Americans can't even find Seoul on a map. Microsoft India taps Indian programming and engineering skills with 83,000 certifications issued in 1999. In 2001 we imported 331,000 H-1B professionals, half of them with PhD's. Those numbers are growing at an alarming rate. Unless we re-tool education, there is a strong likelihood that America will get overtaken in education the way we did in automobiles. Jobs will go to foreigners because they are better prepared.

4Choice Mission

• Develop simple, understandable, effective legislation so the public will demand enactment.
• Promote that legislation among legislators and Choice groups.
• Debunk the myths and specious negative campaign of the government education monopoly.
• Coalesce groups favoring Choice.
• Identify the best research available, and link to it.

What You Can Do

Some Suggestions
(click on these links)

• Tell teachers the "Big Secret" unions don't want teachers to know:  Education Week proved Choice works to benefit teachers.
• Distribute copies of our Choice Plan and the School Choice Act model legislation that follows these principles, so people can make an informed decision for Choice.
• Alert everyone that International Test Scores prove we're in a crisis.
• Read our article on why "Vouchers" are a bad funding mechanism.
• Read Choice Kiwi-style - New Zealand's overwhelming success that began in the 70's
• Get a documented expose' of what went wrong from former N.Y. Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto
• Read collected works of education's greatest thinker.
• Visit the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation. Their best-seller Free to Choose formed the basis for ideas in our plan.
• Read Quintin Quade's Essays on Educational Choice,
• Learn what your state is doing: CEO America summaries, Heritage Foundation details & statistics.
• Browse hundreds of articles chronicling the movement at School Reform News
• Form an activist organization like Independent Voices
• Search the Web to learn more about "School Choice".
• Help others (especially teachers) get informed. Share information on reforming education at churches, clubs, and work.
• Discuss School Choice with friends (it is an interesting subject, and Choice affects us all).
• Call, fax or eMail notes to State Legislators giving your reasons to support School Choice.
• Tell federal officials, your congressional representative and senators, to keep the federal government out of our schools.
• Read the actual June '02 supreme court opinion stating for the fourth time that School Choice has no first amendment problem with religious schools.
• Read Joel Turtel's book Public Schools, Public Menace
• Provide Homeschool information like this.

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