Reply #66: The additional problem is that there aren't ENOUGH private schools. [View All]

[radwriter0555]

Google "private school" any urban center in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and you will find very, very few of them, and certainly not enough to support diversion of any significant amount of kids from a public school.

When my daughter applied to the private school we were lucky enough to get into, there were more than 300 applicants for the 4 available spaces in the kindergarten.

That's right. 4 available spaces. In kindergarten. People apply at birth to get their kids into the decent privates.

Google "Compton Private School". Take a look at the numbers of private schools in the areas allegedly being targeted for a voucher program. This is supposed to help underprivileged kids, right? You're not going to find many private schools in Compton. So then you want your kid to travel 2-3 hours per day to get to that private school?

Of course not.

Fix the education system: Provide more funding, increase teacher's salaries; create more schools, make the school board voluntary and parent run ONLY (you save BILLIONS), make parental involvement mandatory. Increase after school programs. Create neighborhood schools.

Those are realistic solutions.