Long time high school football coach Vince Marsala regarding vouchers: The double standard by the legislature in building this separate and unequal system is ridiculous.
Vince Marsala, a teacher and football coach speaks out on the voucher scheme. He says, “However with Ohio pushing an almost universal voucher program, we are no longer ‘playing the same game’.”
Fair competition is a “free market in which all the players operate on a level playing field.” As a long-time high school football coach, I love an equitable competition between two schools that have spent a lot of time trying to beat equal schools. Everyone who has ever played a game probably would say the same; however, in Ohio, the playing fields and the schools themselves are becoming more unequal thanks to our state legislature, and those who stand to gain from its school choice legislation.
To begin, parents have always had the right to choose their children’s education whether it is private, which they paid for, or public, funded through tax dollars, so the imbalances between the two both on the field and off it were justly accepted. However, with Ohio pushing an almost universal voucher program, we are no longer “playing the same game.” Now, the public will begin funding both because as Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently said, “We still have children who are stuck in schools that aren’t doing that well. It seems to me that parents should have some choice in this matter. And we have built this system of choice, which has been somewhat inconsistent.”
Again, parents have always had the right to choose a child’s education at their own expense; it is not a new concept. What he is really proposing through his school choice agenda is defunding our public schools that report to elected boards of education, so private family decisions can be paid for through a tax money handout that will go to unaccountable private schools.
Why are they unaccountable? Because as DeWine and the legislature continue to pound public schools that educate all with “needed” regulations like the third-grade reading guarantee, high-quality student data, resident educator summative assessments, mandatory state testing, state graduation requirements, the state curriculum, and the Ohio Teacher and Principal Evaluation Systems, they will not require these private voucher schools to provide anything near it because as DeWine says “parents are able to see what their children do.”
The double standard by the legislature in building this separate and unequal system is ridiculous. Just like private school parents, public school parents can see their children’s education too, but that isn’t enough. Public schools “must” have the “needed” regulations because they use public funds, but if voucher schools – who are also using public funds – don’t have to do any of these, how valid and needed are any of these regulations?
The simple answer is they aren’t, but requiring them of one and not the other certainly ensures a “win” for unregulated private voucher schools, and you can bet that most if not all private voucher schools will gladly accept the unaccountable tax dollars that flow their way and deny their involvement in building separate and unequal educational systems.
Learn about EdChoice Vouchers: An Existential Threat to Public Schools
VOUCHERS HURT OHIO