'Public Rejects School Vouchers'

by Edd Doerr

This letter was published in the Washington Examiner on 12/2/11.

"Public overwhelmingly rejects school vouchers"

"Marcus Winters is wrong about 2011 being the 'Year of the School Voucher' (Nov 17). This year's Gallup poll on education, released in August, registered opposition to school vouchers nationally at 65% to 34%. That is almost exactly the same percentage by which vouchers or their variants have been voted down by millions of Americans in over two dozen statewide referenda from conservative Utah to liberal Massachusetts.

"Voucher plans exist in only those states -- such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana -- where taxpayers were not given the chance to vote on them. Just this year, the Wisconsin Department of Education found that kids in Milwaukee voucher schools, the oldest voucher plan in existence, are not doing as well as kids in the city's public schools.

"Simply put, most Americans think that tax aid to sectarian private schools violates their religious freedom and harms their publixc schools/

"Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty, Silver Spring, Md"